I DO NOT OWN NARUTO

The Blonde Swordsman.

If there was anything in the whole world that could calm Naruto down quickly, it was gazing out at the sea during sunrises and sunsets. He was doing so right now with a mug of team in his hand and an adventure novel written by an uprising author simply called 'Ji', the book was called 'On Par with the Wolves', in his other hand. He was sitting on a comfortable wicker chair in plain black baggy pants and a white vest with back flip flops. He smiled wanly as he took another sip of his book and watched the sun rise till it was now firmly in the sky but not yet too hot for him to go back into his quaint house by the sea.

The house contained two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, a library/study and a front porch in which he was now sitting in. some fully grown orchards were planted in a line on each side of the house that grew his fruits while his vegetables were planted out at the back. He treasured the peace and tranquillity he was occasionally gifted with from time to time such as this. He placed his mug on the ground beside his chair and delved into the book in his hand as per his unofficial daily schedule.

He read the book silently for five minutes before he sighed tiredly, "you can come out now!" a generic looking male ninja jumped down from one of his trees and smirked cockily at him, he took out a kunai and held it in his hands, "why are you here, Iwa ninja?"

"To collect your bounty of course."

'Oh yeah, I forgot about that…' was Naruto's lazy thought as he raised an eyebrow and drawled, "where is your team then, you can't take me on your own."

"Ha! I took this as personal mission from Tsuchikage-sama himself."

Namikaze Naruto was internationally acclaimed as the world's weirdest missing ninja. This was because unlike normal missing ninjas' that did not stay in one place for too long, he had been living in his house by the sea for the past 6 years ever since he defected from Konoha. He was considerably richer than most village heads. Investigations on how he got his money or from where lead to dead ends. On rare occasions that he went to town, he let himself come unarmed but still if there was any one that challenged him for his bounty he would gladly beat the person with his own bare hands. The last reason he was weird was because he had a child, a baby girl from his deceased lover.

The child was about 5 years old and painfully took after his precious Kimiko. She had fiery red hair styled short and spikey with two long black died bangs hanging down the corners of her face and dazzlingly deep purple eyes, she had two whisker like birth marks on each cheek and she preferred dressing up like her daddy. She was a healthy girl that had a bit of baby fat on her adorably cute face and an attitude that was worthy of her Uzumaki bloodline. Her name is Kimiko and she was currently asleep, he hoped.

"Pardon me for saying this, Iwa ninja but you are now the fifteenth person the Tsuchikage has 'personally' sent for my bounty and by extension my head."

"Those last guys were weak. I'm going to give you a chance to give up and come with me back to Iwa or prepare to come forcefully."

"I'm not in the mood right now, so please go back to your village before I get mad; I swear you don't want to see that." He relaxed into his chair all the more and laced his finger over his chest calmly.

The man snorted and took a threatening step forward but before he could take another he was quickly engulfed in red flames far too fast for him to have time to scream in pain, a second later he was a pile of ash on the ground. The lazy blonde puffed out some smoke from his nose and resumed his reading. He heard shuffling footsteps coming out of the front door and smiled at the source, "morning Kimi-chan."

"Morning daddy." She grunted cutely, she was hefting a smaller but identical version of the wicker chair he was sitting on and placed it beside his. She slumped into it and grinned up at him cheekily, she wore a large white shirt with a large Uzumaki swirl at the back and black shorts with black flip flops. She even had a short novel about a western hero called 'Robin Hood' in her hands, "look daddy, I'm almost done!"

He ruffled her hair and chuckled, "oh? What's it about then?"

"It's about some guy in tights that steals from the rich and gives to the poor." Kimiko buried her nose into the book and muffled out, "it's pretty good. Where'd you buy it from anyway?"

"Some book merchants from the west were having a sale in Kiri."

They were silent as they delved into their different stories, until "oh c'mon, can't I have a minute of peace? I know your there, just come out and get the confrontation over with." Naruto marked his place in his book in sync with Kimiko and watched with rapt attention as several Konoha ninjas jumped out of the trees and stood before them. If his memory served him well, they were Hyuuga Neji, Haruno Sakura, Inuzuka Kiba, Akimichi Chouji, Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru and finally his older sister Namikaze Aimii. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Konoha ninjas'" Aimii was an exact replica of Kushina when she was her age with a slight difference. Them being that she had three whisker-like birth marks on her cheeks and that she often like wearing a battle kimono on missions rather than her mother's style of clothing.

"We're her on orders from the Yondaime Hokage to bring you back, Naruto." His 27 year old sister said nervously, she made to walk up to him but faltered and stayed back with her assigned team, "please don't make this hard, Otouto."

Naruto hummed and folded his leanly muscled arms behind his head, "I thought I told you guys that I don't want to be disturbed."

"We know but our parents still want you back in Konoha. We miss you…I miss you."

Naruto looked at his red haired daughter from the corner of his eyes and she was looking up at him with rapt attention, "do you want to go to Konoha, Kimi-chan?"

"If you want to go then I'll go."

"why exactly does my Tou-san want me back in Konoha, Neji-san" he directed this question to the most brutally honest member of the assigned group a bit above Shikamaru in the honesty department, "I helped in the war, I helped kill Madara, I helped seal up Kaguya and I helped rebuild the village. Since I can say with full certainty that I have no ill will towards my former village then why can't said village leave me alone?" true to what he was saying this was the fifth retrieval mission in the last 3 years and the first one to feature his sister. If it came down to beating them all he could do it in a heartbeat but he would falter slightly on his sister. He wouldn't kill them of course; he'd just humble them and send them on their merry way.

"Hokage-sama's secondary reason for bringing you back is because your strength would be a great asset to the village, Naruto-san." He pointedly ignored the older red haired girls glare and continued, "His primary mission was to re-unite you with your family."

"I don't feel like lending my strength to that village or re-uniting with my family, yet anyway." He waved to his daughter, "when I'm sure Kimi-chan here is half way through with the training she is still yet to start, I'll see if I can pop up in the village."

"you have a very beautiful daughter, Naruto-san," the teams medic tentatively said, he nodded in acknowledgement and playfully ruffled his daughter hair till the poor red haired got flustered, "may I ask where her mother is?" he froze mid chuckle and so did his daughter when she asked the question. The 25 year old blonde man glanced at his daughter and his gaze softened when he saw her glassy eyes, he hefted her up onto his lap and stroked her back as she cuddled into his chest.

"It's a personal story, Sakura-san, one I would not tell outsiders." The girl on his lap regained composure and pushed off his chest, puffed out her own and glared at him.

"I wasn't crying."

He smirked and said, "Then why are there tears in your eyes?"

"'Cause your man stink is so p-p-pun-pungent it make my eyes water."

"Smell yourself first, kid. You smell like that dead racoon we found yesterday."

"Says the man that wanted to eat it!"

"Because you dared me to eat it!"

"I'm too young to be daring you to do dumb things, daddy!"

"Get off me and go clean up, kid, before I pass out from your morning breath."

"Oh yeah? Well your breathe stinks too!"

"It does. Of minty tooth paste." She huffed and crossed her arms, refusing to meet his gaze and concede defeat…again. There was no winning against the man, though she would keep trying till the day she-"you should really go and shower, Kimi-chan, while I deal with our guests. Besides we don't want them smelling you all the way from here, right?" She balled her fists and swung them wildly at his head in a vain attempt at hitting him but he playfully blocked some and received some as he dropped the small girl onto the ground and shooed her inside. She gave him a final glare, stuck out her tongue and scampered inside when he threw a flip flop at her. "Now where were we? Oh yeah, I'm not coming back, and you can tell your Hokage that I won't be konoha's asset. If you want my services, there will be a fee, now go back before I teach you guys the uncensored meaning of pain."

"Hokage-sama knew you wouldn't come willingly so he summarised a third reason for you to come back," Shikamaru, the team leader chucked a scroll at the blonde. Naruto scanned through the letter and frowned thoughtfully, it read:

Dear Naruto, how are you and your daughter? I know you weren't happy I didn't appoint you as the next in line to be Hokage but you have to understand my reason. Sasuke is the more level headed of you two and the best choice when I put it for consideration in the council. You didn't have to defect, son. We still love you and we still miss you so please come back home.

The other reason for this letter is to tell you that there is another threat to the whole of the elemental nations that is rising. The group call themselves 'The Children of Yami' and that they wish to extinguish all life on earth and begin anew. You are the best when it comes to front line assault and arguably the strongest in the village, so we need you back to help us tackle this threat with the alliance.

I hope you listen to reason, son.

Namikaze Minato,

Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato.

"Do you all know what's in the letter?" they nodded, "do you also know that I don't have to be in Konoha to help the alliance? I could just pick off the members of this obviously fanatical group one by one, effectively eliminating the problem all together."

"Despite that Yondaime-sama still wants you back." Shikamaru drawled.

"Nah, I can tack care of this with some of my friends. Your trip was a half waste, a messenger bird or toad would have been fine."

"It was worth a shot. Ino," the lazy Nara murmured and the blond girl flowed through some hand seals but before she could finish her clan's signature jutsu Naruto flicked his right finger and a flat piece of rock rocketed out of the ground and impacted on her forehead, instantly knocking her out. "Shit…" he warily observed the lax blonde with his team taking stances and Sakura rushing over to her best friend to heal her.

"I could have killed her, you know, and her death would be on your conscience. Last chance to go or I'll show you deaths shadow and make you wish he were here to take you away."

"I-I'm sorry, Otouto. Orders are orders."

"…whatever. Come at me with all you've got or you may not survive this encounter." He got up from his chair and it seemed the ground they stood on was gravitating to him.

Flashback

From the moment Naruto had developed a sort of self-awareness he knew for certain that he was different.

The shirtless three year old looked at himself through his bedrooms mirror and idly traced the long, jagged scar he had on his left arm; it ran from his shoulder blade to his wrist. His kaa-san told him that it was a wound he got during a freak shuriken accident: Iwa ninjas under the guise of villagers attacked the Hokage in a vain effort to kill the man. They rained down chakra laced shuriken on his family and a stray spinning star cut down his arm forming the long scar. The scar aspect was explained but the brownish green tint it permanently took on wasn't explained.

The three year old scar was always pulsating at random moments of the day, ominously glowing brownish green and greatly worrying his parents. He waved their concerns away with a childish smile and asked if he could have some ramen. Ever since that day, he would always be guarded by Minato's most trusted ANBU, mainly a purple haired, cat mask wearing woman that sometimes let him touch her katana, under her supervision of course.

He winced when he felt another painful pulse going up his arm. The pain went away as fast as it came, so it allowed him to pull on his plain white shirt that complimented his plain orange shorts and his black sandals. He ran out the door and barrelled straight into his ANBU guard; the woman smiled down at him behind her mask and held his hand. They proceeded to walk out of the house to the Kyuubi festival. She wasn't his only ANBU guard though, there were at least two behind him and three more hidden around them as they walked down the street. She had let her guard slip as she observed him playing with a kick ball by himself in the park and he surprised her by asking if she could play with him.

His parents had already taken his older sister to the festival; it was something he didn't understand. He asked 'kitty-chan' why they didn't take him earlier as well, she said: "it isn't important, Naruto-chan, they'll take you earlier next time." Naruto had chosen to keep quiet after hearing that, she was much older and much smarter than him so she should know what was best. He even asked her why no one wanted to be his friend: "they're just afraid of coming to you. They'll come around with time."

The festival was one of the best memories he had in his short life. He ran around, dragging his bodyguards, from game booth to game booth playing anything he could despite his height and age. The woman hefted him up so he could try and throw a ball at some bottles and when he couldn't get it passed 4 feet in front of him, the good woman helped him win the orange goggles he had been frantically pointing at. Till this day, it was one of his most valued treasures.

His eyes were wide in wonder as he circled round the whole festival, no villager or their children approached him but he didn't let that get him down. He refused to let that get him down. Naruto's guards chuckled quietly as he dragged around their cat mask wearing captain. He refused to acknowledge the fact that only 'kitty-chan' and some of his guards had gotten him birthday presents. He refused to acknowledge the fact that his parents didn't remember to tuck him in at night; instead it was 'kitty-chan'.

He refused to acknowledge the fact that his parents kept forgetting him at home during the Kyuubi festival and any other event that they would attend for the past nine years. He still loved them dearly, he was sure nothing would change that.

A 12 year old Naruto hugged 'kitty-chan' tightly as they stood in front of konoha's north gate. Her team silently watched the interaction, their captain knelt on one knee in front of the boy, whispering words of comfort only he could hear. Yugao made him promise to keep up his kenjutsu training until she was back, he did so readily and without hesitation; he was always willing to make her proud of him.

"Why do you have to be away for so long, kitty-chan?" he sniffled, his eyes facing the ground between them. She raised his head and smiled at him, her mask was off to reveal her pale skin, dark shadowed upper eyelids and her small purple lipstick painted lips. She had shown her his face during one of their many walks round the village, away from the villagers. The woman gently stroked his untameable blonde hair, "why can't Tou-san give you a shorter mission?"

"Hokage-sama thinks that you are old enough not to have too many guards, Naruto-chan," she grinned when he turned red faced, "my team and I need to keep up our mission quota. Anyway, even if I'm not your official guard, I'll still protect you. Remember what I told you," she pointed to her chest where her heart was and then his own, "you're always in here and I will always be there. Alright?" He nodded sullenly, "when I come back, I want to see how good you are with your boken, okay? I don't want a weak Hokage." he nodded again as he fingered the wooden training sword strapped to his back.

She stood up and gave his hair a friendly ruffle before she fixed her mask back on. The boy's relationship with the ANBU captain was well known throughout the village, even to his jealous mother. They were akin to mother and son. Yugao took it upon herself to help ease the pain he felt from his neglectful parents and they just seemed to glue themselves together. Don't get him wrong, he still loved his birth family to bits. It's just that the woman was the constant thing in his life that he liked very much.

Right now, she and her team had a five month long mission. The woman waved at him and signalled her team to move out.

He had first declared to her that he would be the best kenjutsu using Hokage the world had ever seen when he bore witness to one of the ANBU captains intense kenjutsu training. It was a thing to behold when she stood in the middle of 5 wooden dummies and with a single twirl decimated them all. She had whole heartedly supported his dream and had been training him with her own wooden boken since he was 6 years old and the boy was making good strides in the stances in their spars. Yugao had never felt prouder the day he had successfully dodged and countered all the rocks she threw at him during a training session.

The boy watched the ANBU team disappear before he puffed his chest and ran back into the village, intent on keeping up his training. He skidded into the ANBU headquarters and took his usual route to the ANBU commander's office, took permission to use one of the ANBU training grounds, got the permission and ran into the training ground. He took a basic stance for the kenjutsu style 'kitty-chan' was teaching him and began swiping around, his face set in stone. This kept on going for an hour till he felt a particularly vicious pulse from his scar, he ignored it and continued but the scar glowed brown, when he went for an upwards swipe his sword was about a foot above the ground, the earth that his wooden sword passed over spiked out and shot to the tree he was facing. He stumbled backwards with his eyes wide, he looked at the ground the spikes came from and stepped back when it didn't even look disturbed. He then cautiously walked to the tree the earth spikes shot through and gaped when he saw not earth but bits of lava that was quickly solidifying, which meant that the tree didn't burn through.

Sometime early that year he had tested his chakra affinity and found out that he had equally strong earth and fire affinities, unlike the Uzumaki water and the Namikaze wind. His dazed brain remembered a lecture his academy's sensei had on kekei genkai or bloodline limit. There were doujutsu (eye technique) bloodlines like the sharingan and the byakugan, the body bloodline like Kiri's bone release and there were elemental bloodlines like Suna's iron release. The elemental bloodline users were said to be those more disposed to being able to combine two or more elemental affinities together and releasing it as their bloodlines.

He didn't want to believe that he had an elemental bloodline (lava release) so he chalked it up to the fact that he could just combine his earth and fire affinities better than most; he was in no way related to any earth or fire users. He shrugged and went back to his training, though it just kept being disrupted by random molten spikes shooting out of the ground uncontrollably. That was how his week went: he would wake up in a burning bed, melt through his towel, melt his bowl of ramen, he even had to stop going to his usual training ground so that it wouldn't get too destroyed.

Naruto accepted the fact that he had a bloodline when he melted through his 50th bowl of ramen. Throughout his whole ordeal he hid it well enough from his parents.

After a month of no random lava splashes during training he thought he was in the clear. Not even close. The lava reduced and gave way for the solid ground itself to shift towards him. He had lost count of the number of times the ground had thrown a random fan girl at him. The blonde was sure that he wouldn't be able to take this unpredictability for the next 5 months so he packed his bags and moved into a spacious cave in the forest of death. He made the cave his home for the period of time he tried to get in touch with his bloodline.

On his second month of meditations the blonde found out that his bloodline would mostly show up when he was experiencing an extreme emotion or was too tired. Not that he had to ban himself from feeling happy or sad but he had to consciously restrain lava from erupting or for the ground to stop shaking. A month later he had a strong grasp on his abilities so that he could move out of the forest to Yugao's apartment to stay in and await her arrival, training his kenjutsu, his academy style taijutsu and his control over his bloodline.

A month later and the ANBU commander had summoned him to his office.

The black haired man that was usually so bored he looked close to dead was now looking at him pitiably and the small boy felt like a stone had settled in his stomach. He gulped audibly and jerked into the room when the man said he could.

"Please take a seat, Naruto." The boy shook slightly as he sat down, his young mind trying to make up reasons that the head of ANBU wanted to see him, he tried not to come to that. The man coughed a looked straight into the boys glazed over eyes, "I have some bad news about ANBU captain Yugao Uzuki and her team." His hands gripped the arm rests strongly and a bit of lava smoked up, tears were tracking down his face as he visibly restrained himself from standing up. The man seriously felt sorry for the boy, he saw the way he looked up to the normally stoic woman and the way she let her hearts defence chip away when she was with him and now he suddenly found it hard to complete what he was saying.

If one were to ask Nara Shikaku what the hardest thing to do was, he would playfully say answering his wife when she asked if her kimono made her look fat; no matter what he said he would always get a frying pan to the head. What really was hard was telling children that their parents or parent figures had died in their line of work; he would say it was easier to go on a double S-rank mission than doing this.

"P-p-please sir, where's my kaa-san?" the man's eyes widened fractionally when he heard the boys whispered request, Naruto bent his head and let his hair shadow his eyes. The man smelt burning rubber from the boy and was faintly surprised when he saw smoke coming off the small boy's hands. He knew that the boy looked at the woman as his mother but he had never heard him say it himself, disregarding the fact that he was the Yondaime's son and that his birth mother was very well still alive.

"Yugao Uzuki codename 'Cat' died valiantly as she fended off 5 B-rank missing ninjas' from getting to her injured team mates." The Nara clan head walked around his desk to the quietly sobbing child and knelt down on one knee by his chair, he gripped the boys shoulder and ignored the searing heat coming off his body, "she defeated them all and allowed her team to carry her body back to the village for a proper ninja's burial she deserves." The boy nodded and sniffed in a stray bulb of snot back into his nose, "her tombstone is in the village cemetery and her name has already been carved into the heroes' monument. She put your name as her only next of kin, so you inherit her sword, her bank account, her property and even if it's against regulation, she gave you her mask." He removed a slightly cracked cat mask and handed it to the boy along with a sheathed katana and a cheque book. He took them and hugged them to his chest, crying into them with his whole heart, "Mantis said her last words were to tell you to 'follow your heart.'"

The man rubbed his shoulders and they boy hurried out of the office, delicately holding onto the late woman's things in his charred hands.

The Namikaze family noticed the drastic change in the only boy's behaviour over the next year after his body guard's death specifically his lack of appearance. Surprising enough, the day they noticed that Naruto had not been around was the day Shikaku had shown up in their office and commanded Minato and Kushina to go and comfort Naruto. They didn't know that the purple haired woman's death would affect him that much.

They used a full month to search for the boy and found him in Yugao's apartment. He looked worse for wear; his hair had grown more untameable, his face and body had splotches of soot on them and his clothes were mostly burned off but he refused to let even a drop of lava soil the apartments ground. He was hugging the katana to his chest for dear life as he looked into a picture frame that contained a picture of when she had first dropped him off at the academy on his first day.

Kushina had never felt so mad in her life. The woman that had been competing with her for her own sons affections had died a good month ago and here said son was still mourning her loss. Even if she hadn't really made any attempt to actually compete for his affections, always forgetting to do so in favour of training his older sister, still…

"What are you doing here, Naruto?" she said threateningly, she stalked up to him "Yugao is dead. Get over it."

He refused to look at her, his eyes firmly fixed on the picture frame. The red haired woman did not like being ignored so she ripped the frame out of his hands and after seeing what was in it she threw it to the wall and it broke easily. He still ignored her in favour of stroking the katana, so she pulled it out of his hands and threw that too at the wall, this was the ultimate mistake…

It broke.

You see, after breaking the frame Naruto had an internal struggle with his bloodline and he unwillingly emitted heat out of his body, directed to his hands and when you super heat a metal it either gets more flexible or weaker. The late ANBU captain had been using the sword since she had been in the academy, she told that to the boy, and it was in top shape, but when he super-heated it with his lava it became weaker and the throw to wall sealed its fate. It shattered into five pieces.

"Look at me when I talk to you, Naruto." The woman growled and picked him up by his collar, his body was limp and weak, "and answer me when I speak to you." She sounded like she was struggling to contain her own anger, "why haven't you been to school? You're grades are getting worse," he didn't answer her, his hands idly rubbed the mask hanging off his pants. His family watched the interaction nervously; the boy looked like a volcano ready to erupt. She saw this and took it from him as well and crushed it with one hand in front of his face, "I expect you to get off your sorry butt and go back to doing something worthwhile."

"I think you went too far, Kushina." Her husband said from behind her.

"He needs to man up and know who his real family is." She dropped him,

"That was not the way to go about it-"

She turned to him and was about to retort but stopped when Naruto shakily stood up and walked passed her, his father and his sister and knelt down by the shattered katana. His eyes were glassy as he gathered the pieces; he shuffled to the living room table and gently kept the pieces on it. He looked at them from the corners of his eyes and said in a raspy voice, "Please leave…"

His words registered as soon as they came out, and it was the not so smooth Aimii that spoke "you can't just kick us out! We're your family!" the apartment Yugao had was more like a rented house so it didn't have any other apartment above or below it; the ground cracked beneath his feet and he look out the window to calm himself down.

"She's right Naruto; I know you've lost the woman that has been guarding you since you were three and but we want to help you," the Hokage said, Kushina's eyes widened when he said this; she has forgotten that it was that long ago.

"I don't want your help or your sympathy, Tou-sama," the man flinched at the name, "please leave." Regaining herself, Kushina walked to her son and grabbed his shoulder but pulled it back with a yelp when it burned on contact. The boy didn't look at her as she tended to her burned limb, "don't touch me."

"This is ridiculous! Stop being a drama queen and come back home!" the Uzumaki woman barked.

Naruto looked at them and they all stepped back when they saw his eyes on fire. (Like ghost rider.) He snorted out smoke from his nose and spoke directly to his father, "I thought you said I couldn't be a good ninja because of the pain in the scar on my arm and the Kyuubi sealed in me would make me more unstable, correct?"

"Where did you hear that from?"

"You should learn to close your bedroom door. You also said that that was the reason you weren't training me." He looked at his mother, "and you agreed with him. This was when I was…five."

"We thought it was for the best, Naruto." The woman said quietly.

"it was also for the best that you all kept forgetting me at the Hokage's mansion whenever you went on vacation?" they couldn't answer his question, "it was also for the best that I had to ask Yugao-chan for money to buy me clothes?"

"You never came to us."

"On the contrary, I kept asking you but you would always tell me to 'make do with what I have.' Correct?" he said all of this with a neutral face. He pointed to the broken mask on the ground, "was it also for the best that you destroyed one of the last memories I have of a woman I considered my mother?" the boys birth mother felt a lump in her throat, "she told me that you all have a reason for forgetting me and that very soon you'll remember. Please just leave, I don't want to do something I'll regret…"

"No Naruto, we won't leave until you come with us." Minato said resolutely. They all watched in awe as the boys hair gathered up in the air and swayed in the non-existent wind, it began turning red from the roots and the tip turned white. His hair was now literally on fire and add to the fact that his eyes were also on fire and the picture was both spine tingling and beautiful.

The now flaming red head punched his mother back with an arm made out of pure lava and rocks and threw his other arm at Aimii; the girl dodged the blow and rolled aside when he dragged the limb over where she formerly was. The boy brought both his arms back and formed a lava and rock hammer, smashing into his father's and his sister's position, they rolled away narrowly. The boy was only displaying instinctive ability over his bloodline, so he breathed out fire when his mother jumped at him, she substituted herself with a couch successfully. Naruto looked at his family who took up stances, there was no way he was going to win against two S-rank ninjas and a chunin so he cut his losses, grabbed the shattered katana and jumped out of the window. He spat out some lava from under his mouth to surf on and flew into the forest.

"Let's go after him, Tou-san!"

The man looked around the destroyed and still partially burning apartment mournfully and shook his head, "no. leave him alone." And with that he flashed back to his office, promptly sending for some ninjas to try and restore the dead captain's apartment.

Naruto was assigned to Kakashi's team as the dead last. He was the silent member of the team that didn't speak to them or socialize with the other teams when they had joint training. Though when he was asked to introduce himself and tell them his ambition he said:

"My name is Naruto. I like my late kaa-san, I dislike many things. My ambition is to honour my late kaa-san by becoming Hokage." Sasuke snorted and Sakura giggled quietly.

"Aren't you the Yondaime-sama and Kushina-sama's son?" the girl said.

His only reply was a "…no."

He finally saved up enough money from doing D-ranks and fixed up Yugao's katana; her cheque book had burned at her house. The commander told him that he could get him another one but it would take about a month to follow through.

When he got the sword back good as new a week later his already tough spars became a lot tough. During the time the sword was being fixed he had researched on a taijutsu style that would complement his kenjutsu. It was Gekko Hayate (sp?) that helped him find a style suitable for him; it was the same one Yugao used and the boy drank it up gladly. The style focused on using the legs primarily and the hands if by chance the sword was not in them.

His control over his lava had also shot up. He took to incorporating his bloodline into his taijutsu. That was how he defeated Gaara of the desert in his full Shukaku form.

A red flaming haired and eyed Naruto stared at the monstrosity that had come out of the obviously unstable jinchuriki when he fell asleep. The sand monster laughed giddily but it was cut short when two arms made out of rock and lava shot out of the ground by Naruto's side and held it down. Naruto ran up its glass side and kicked the sleeping boy awake.

"How? How are you stronger than me?" the Suna boy asked the blank faced flaming red head, the fights going on around him all stopped the moments the arms shot out of the ground and turned the one-tails to glass.

The boy stood beside the downed jinchuriki and looked at him "someone dear to me once told me that killing, if it weren't self-defence, was not worthwhile." the boy stroked the handle of the sword over his shoulders as he allowed his giant molten arms to enter the ground before he continued, "I also train from sunrise till sunset." He nodded for the Kazekage's children to take their sibling away. Now with the invasions main weapon gone, the invaders morale greatly reduced. He didn't bother checking on the Hokage since he had Kushina, Jiraiya, Tsunade and his bodyguards to protect him. Though he did a lot of other things after the invasion.

He was the one that brought back Sasuke when he wanted to defect to Otoagakure.

Two boys stood atop the heads of Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha. They stoically eyed themselves before one spoke, "you may be strong but you are still a dobe."

"…then why haven't you won in any of our spars?"

"I was holding back." The Uchiha growled.

"Me too…" his sword was safely sealed in his fire proof sheath, so it freed his arms for clumps of earth to coat it and lava to solidify it, "this is not holding back." He and the boy jumped off the heads at the same time and punched themselves. Sasuke kicked the boys chin but was kicked in his side, with a follow up punch to the chest. The stone/lava fist ate through his unprepared chest and scorched it. The punch had thrown him down into Madara's side, pain from the burn and the impact blinded him from seeing the snap kick and punch to his face, the blonde shook his hands and the fists fell off. He chopped the boys neck and caught him as he fell, "I thought you'd be stronger." He ran back to Konoha with the boy on his shoulders. The Uchiha was given probation in for an indefinite period of time with a constant jounin-Kakashi-minding him and in case he ever defected again, Konoha ninjas were authorized to kill him on sight.

He was the one that took down Kisame.

"Who do you think you're messing with, Gaki?" the blue skinned man snarled as he readied Samehada. He and Itachi had been assigned by their leader to capture the Kyuubi jinchuriki and he had not expected this much of a fight. He had ambushed the blonde's team when they had been coming from demon country, hoping to catch them tired, alas he was wrong. The boy had calmly parried his strikes with his katana when it should have already been shaved off. He caught sight of runes on the blade and cursed himself.

When the boy did slice him, a scratch on his non-sword arm, he felt like his whole arm had been drenched in fire. Naruto didn't reply, he stabbed his sword into the ground and when he pulled it out the earth followed and coated it with raw lava making it look like a sort of molten Zanbatou (head cleaver). He sped to the man with his own face set in stone and swung, the man lifted his sword to block and maybe eat the blonde's chakra but instead Samehada screamed. He was too distracted by the sound to dodge the molten Spartan kick to his unprotected stomach. He flew back and landed with a great huff, he looked at where Itachi was fighting Sasuke and Kakashi and cursed again when it didn't look like it would be finished anytime soon; for the first time in his life he wished for Itachi's help.

He was at least glad that he got some glances off the boy's arms. The wounds have healed up but he was still happy. He shakily stood up and stroked his sword soothingly, keeping his eyes on the bored swordsman. Samehada had a lump of molten lava on its blade and it wriggled from the man's grasp.

"You have lost, Kisame-san, surrender willingly or I would be forced to take your head back to Konoha."

The man spat, "I don't surrender, Gaki." He ran at the blonde in a last ditch effort to kill him. Though as he got closer, he faltered slightly under the still bored look, he didn't see the lava on the ground until it was too late. He passed through it like water and stopped at his head, it solidified after that. The blonde deactivated let his lava Zanbatou and it reverberated back to his normal katana. He wordlessly cut off the cursing man's head. Removed the lava from Samehada and sealed them up in a scroll.

He helped defeat Pein.

Naruto jumped out of the way of an 'Almighty push' and sent back a sword stroke of lava. His birth parents and his sister were handling the rest of the paths while he took on the apparent leader of the paths. The path had a blank face with piercings and flaming red hair. Naruto was also blank faced and but had red flaming haired with red flaming eyes, the boy snorted out some black smoke and he charged in, his sword in his iron grasp.

'Almighty push'

What happened next happened in slow motion. The younger red head kept running to the path, the ground broke apart and clumps of earth flew to him and covered his arms, shoulders and back, lava flowed in the cracks and covered the katana as well, forming another variation of his molten Zanbatou. A few feet before the 'Almighty technique' could reach him he drew his sword arm back and stabbed the technique clean through.

He grit his teeth at the effort he was making to keep the jutsu away from him, his feet skidded back despite him pumping chakra into the limbs to glue him in place. He briefly debated whether what he was doing was remotely wise but cancelled it saying that there was no time for regrets. He pumped in more molten chakra into his sword and with a roar he sliced through the invisible wall, and promptly cut through the surprised path.

The rest, as they say, is history.

A few years after the Fourth Great Shinobi War the day had finally come for the Hokage to name his successor.

The boy stood on the podium along with four other candidates. They were Uchiha Sasuke, Inuzuka Kiba, Rock Lee and an unknown female ninja from his generation named Kujiro Fitsukami. The 19 year olds all stood behind the aging blonde Hokage as he spoke to the crowd about the reason they were all assembled.

"I, the Yondaime Hokage, am here to announce my choice on my successor. The Godaime must be a person be level headed, strong, loyal to our village and most of all smart enough to make the hard decisions when he called to do so. These five candidates all cover these requirements at certain levels but only one stood out among them. The person was not considered the most trust worthy of people before the Sand/Sound invasion but still powered through all adversities and doubts and had now become a prominent member of the village. My successor is…" from all he said you would think it was Naruto that he chose, "Uchiha Sasuke!" don't ask me what he was smoking when he chose the man but it must have been something really good.

The blonde's heart broke. His father knew his ambition, he knew he was clearly more stable and stronger than all the candidates but he still went ahead and chose someone clearly not worthy of the title.

And with his last link with the village destroyed, he walked out of the village and had never returned since.

He first went to the ruins of Uzishio (sp?) as a sort of tour in search of where to stay but instead found a family of Uzumaki living in a house nearby. They were a man, his wife and his only daughter.

"Who the fuck are you?!"

"Kimiko! Language!" the older woman yelled, she looked at him sweetly and asked, "yeah, who the fuck are you?"

The older man ignored the two vulgar women and eyed the blonde man that had just entered the clearing in front of the house. He could easily pass off as a retired body builder with his barrel sized arms and legs, red and grey hairs over his chest and pits, and wrinkles on his tanned brown body, oh! And he was bald. He wore grey overalls and hefted a threateningly humungous axe over his shoulders easily. The older woman had long flowing red hair, also tanned brown wrinkly skin and permanently dilated purple pupils'. She wore a flowing white sundress that had flower patterns on it with red sandals on her feet. If he hadn't heard her swear he would have said she was the Fire Daimyo's wife. Their obvious daughter contrasted them but not by much; her red hair was short and spiked upwards with two black died bangs hanging at the corners of her face down to her neck, her skin was pale and not wrinkly. She had black make up on her eyes and black lipstick on her lips. She wore a similar looking pair of overalls her father had on with a smaller but still significantly large axe leaning on her petite body.

"Quit ogling me, shit for brains, and tell us who the fuck you are before I splatter your sperm infested brain all over the ground!" the younger girl yelled as she hefted the axe onto her shoulders.

The blonde ignored her and looked at her father, who was obviously embarrassed from what his daughter had just said, and bowed, "I apologise if I am intruding on anything but I was just passing through to Uzishio's ruins."

"Are you an Uzumaki?" the woman said cautiously.

"I have Uzumaki blood flowing in me if that's what you're asking."

"Then why do you have blonde hair," the man grunted.

"My birth father had long hair. I'll be on my way-"

"Nonsense! Uzishio isn't somewhere you can stay in, with the ruins and what not. You can stay here for as long as you want." The woman clapped her hands and was about to walk into the quaint house and prepare the guest room but halted at the door, "oh silly me! Where are my manners? My name is Mitsuki Uzumaki, my husband's name is Keller or Kell Uzumaki and my daughter is-"

"Mom! Don't tell him my name! He might be some kind of serial rapist or something!" the younger girl yelled, the older woman rolled her eyes and tutted.

"He seems nice enough, young lady."

"Besides he looks too stringy to be a rapist." The man grunted as he turned back to the wood he was chopping, "don't cause any trouble for us and we'll all be happy."

"Daddy!"

"Leave him alone princess. Your mother trusts him-you know how hard that is-and besides, remember what happened to those two when they attacked up?"

"Yeah, you chopped them up!"

"Exactly," he went back to splitting wood, observing his daughter as she stomped to the blonde man.

She poked his chest and glare up at him, "listen here fucker, I don't trust you and if I see even the slightest hint of deceit in you I'll cut your dick off and shove it up your ass so far you'd be able to taste it." the burly man snorted a laugh quietly.

Naruto didn't know what compelled him to respond to the threat, he just opened his mouth and let the words flow out, "I didn't ask for your trust pipsqueak, I didn't even ask for a place to stay," he stepped forward and glared down at her, a small smirk cracking on his lips, he spoke quietly for only her to hear him, "and I bet you'd like to see my dick huh? You pervert." She turned a brick red and slashed him but he deftly dodged it. She chased him around the clearing with her axe raised above her head in both her hands, yelling obscenities and for him to say it to her face again. The blonde allowed a small smile as he ran away.

Naruto had the option of moving about but he chose to stay in the Uzumaki's house. He didn't know why, so he chalked it up to the fact that he liked embarrassing Kimiko. The 18 year old girl was just too cute.

For the first quarter of the year she had taken to trailing after him with her axe 'in case he tried any funny stuff.' The next quarter of the year came by and she dropped the axe and kept a dagger close by, following him anytime he went into town to buy the family supplies. Half a year later and she was chattering into his ears animatedly, he allowed the girl to talk all she wanted. She obviously did not have any friends and had one day let slip that he was her best friend, she said it so casually he could have sworn he saw the gleam in her eyes. Her parents watched their interaction with knowing eyes, though they still grilled the poor blonde of any information he had about himself before he could formally court the red head girl.

A year later and they were dating. Her parents prodded for them to get their own place to stay, even though Naruto was technically a missing ninja they were sure he would be able to protect their 'precious angel.' When Naruto found out that his girlfriend was pregnant he scrambled over the entire elemental nations in search of the perfect spot to build their house. He chose a site by the sea since he and Kimiko mutually liked watching the large body of water lap against itself. He built the house, said farewell to her old parents and moved into their humble home partly surrounded by the trees he planted. Kimiko gave birth to their first and only child that year, there were complications during the child birth that left the Uzumaki's immune system weak and she died four years later after fighting her frequent bouts of sickness. He found out that her parents died that same year as well; they were a lot older than their bodies said they were.

It was the darkest day in Naruto's life. The only thing-or person-that pulled him out of his depression was his copy-cat daughter. Thank goodness she didn't inherit swearing from her mother who had inherited her swearing from her own mother.

Flashback end

The beating he gave to the experienced jounin was testament to how far stronger he was in comparison to them.

Shino's only function in the team was a sort of tracker along with Kiba and Akamaru, and with his hive he didn't have too many jutsu to counter molten lava, if at all. Naruto flicked his wrist and a rock arm slapped the man far, far away. A molten arm shot out in front of him just in time to catch the dual 'fang over fang' and solidified around them, successfully holding them in place. He then drilled punch after punch onto the man's face till it was bloody and knocked him out with a chop to the neck. Neji's 'revolving heaven' could only last so long and Naruto used the gap between breaths to punch the boy repeatedly into the ground with another molten arm. He leaned his head to the left and dodged a chakra powered punch from Sakura, he kicked her side and too quickly bashed a promptly formed molten hammer onto her, taking her out of the fight. He caught a meat tank with a molten hand and threw it away in the Shino's general direction. He looked around for the team's leader and flipped back twice when a shadow shot out of a tree to him.

"Is that all you can do, Shikamaru?" Naruto said questioned loudly, the Nara ran out of the shadows to the blonde armed with a kunai. He fell over when both his feet were also glued onto the ground, he pushed himself back up and looked down at what had gotten his feet and shrugged after seeing the dried up slab before he looked up and came face first with the molten hammer. "And then there was one." He turned to the last member of the team and sighed tiredly, "I really don't want to pummel you into the ground, Aimii, just make some of your nifty clones and take your team back to you village." The girl complied and made clones to carry her team. "And if you plan on out numbering me then remember what I did to those White Zetsu clones during the last war."

Her clones had already gone away with her team. "Can't you forgive us, Otouto?"

"I don't hold any grudge against you lot. Grudges give me indigestion. Tell the Hokage that I'll help end these attacking fanatics." He waved at her and the ground under her launched her off to where her clones ran off to with her team.

"That was so cool!"

"I'm glad you liked it, Kimi-chan." He said as he sat back down into his chair and picked up his book, "We start your training this evening."

"Awesome sauce."

"Where did you learn that?" he looked at her as she sat down in her miniature wicker chair. She wore baggy orange pants, a tight black shirt and white socks. She picked up her book and leafed to her page nonchalantly.

"I saw it in a magazine that time we went to town and bought my bed."

He hummed and turned back to his book. There was silence for a full half hour as they read before they both simultaneously sighed and exclaimed, "Ok! You can come out now!"

Authors note

Aaaaaand cut! I like this story. Do any of you want me to write a sequel or a full story or to just abandon it and write another story? I'm flexible.

I honestly don't like bashing someone but before I wrote this story I picked a random name from a cup and Kushina's name came up. She had to be the one to say the dumb stuff to push the story forward and I apologise to all Kushina fans (myself included) if what she said is offensive and OOC. To appease all your hearts I will let you pick out a random Naruto character name and ask me to write a story with that person f*cking up royally. Happy? I sure am.

I don't know if drenching Samehada in lava could kill or even incapacitate it but in my story it would damn well distract it for long enough. From my point of view, Kisame doesn't really know how to fight in a frenzied, crazed daze when he doesn't have his shaving, chakra eating sword. I like the dude, don't get me wrong but you have to admit that Naruto's lava release is very much different from anyone's in canon.

In this story, Iwa wasn't completely with the alliance. They're more like 'I'll work with Konoha but don't get it twisted, I still hate you with all the guts in my body but I don't like being completely annihilated so I'll work with you until after the main threat has been dealt with. After that I'll go back to sending you death threats and assassins'.' Everyone's been through this sort of thing right? Only me? Ok!

Review!

B.j.