Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or anything related to it. I wish I did though.

A/N: A few notes before you read this; this chapter follows canon up to the current chapter, or at least the general plotline and what's been divulged so far. Future chapters will not be rewritten to reflect changes in canon, nor will they reference it. This is an Alternate Universe, though the proper defination (for this story at least) is Alternate Dimension, as you will no doubt figure out in the next few chapters. Author notes in future chapters will summarize the changes from canon, explained up to that chapter. This is mostly done to remind people of what's happened, should they forget (so they don't have to reread previous chapters to remember what's happened). Also, feel free to be critical of this story in reviews, but if something is wrong don't just say "this sucks", but instead point out what you think is wrong. You may also use reviews to point out spelling/grammer goofs that my beta (and myself) didn't catch, as well as suggestions for possible pairings (if I decide to implement them). Most authors (not pointing fingers) sometimes forcefully write in a specific pairing, but I've decided that if the pairing were to be Naruto/Sakura (not saying it is), I wouldn't give her a secondary spot in the plot just for the sake of making their relationship obvious. Finally, yes, Naruto will be overly powerful in the begining of the story, but don't expect him to be have god-like abilities, an uber-bloodline, full control over the Kyuubi, and a jutsu library that exceeds Kakashi. It's not happening, as I detest stories that do that (though I do enjoy Super!Naruto stories), and it's not needed in this story as it is, as you will find in future chapters.

Also, if anyone is interested in adopting one of my abandoned stories (even those that I never posted because I lost interest), feel free to contact me about them. Review (leave a way of contacting you), or email, and I'll get back to you.

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Uzumaki Naruto paused in his running, sniffing the air for foreign scents, most notably the one belonging to Uchiha Madara. He knew he was being followed by someone, something, but he wasn't sure who or what it was, he just had a hunch it was the first Sharingan wielder. Sensing a change in the winds direction, he dodged to the left as a large chunk of trees were uprooted and tossed around like building blocks.

Naruto wasn't phased by the scene however, as it wasn't the first time he'd seen it happen. He'd been hunting Madara for two years, and fought him each time, even though he lost in each encounter. After the first two times Naruto felt Madara was toying with him, like he thought them chasing and fighting each other was a game he found entertaining time and again. Even though he knew it was a game, and he was being manipulated to continue to chase the original Uchiha, Naruto played out his role perfectly, never surprising the man, always playing into his traps.

Spending two years relentlessly chasing someone gave you an insight into their mind, how they worked, what they would overlook in a fight because they thought they were winning. While it was true the man was far stronger than Naruto could ever hope to be, he knew Madara was losing his edge. In each fight Naruto displayed what techniques he had, and Madara would show new techniques to keep his entertainment in the fight. It was a risky gamble, as the man stated "when I lose my interest in a fight, I kill the person responsible," numerous times, but if Naruto's plan went off as he hoped it would, this encounter would be their last one. He just had to get the man to drop his guard, which happened near the end of their fights.

Dodging a large Goukakyuu headed in his direction, Naruto bit his thumb and smeared the blood to fulfill one requirement of a Summoning, his hands flashing the seals in less than a second. Once the smoke cleared, the blonde stood atop the King of Toads, Gamabunta, while waiting for Madara to summon his Largest of Lizards, Megalania, fighting nervousness and waiting for the black-haired man to make the first move.

If Naruto acted first, there was a good chance that Madara would pick up on his plan, which might make him act and kill the blonde. No doubt after killing the blonde, he would extract the Kyuubi and be able to control the world, which he couldn't let happen. Too much was riding on the line, most importantly the remaining survivors of Konoha, who were fortunate enough to be out of the country at the time the Uchiha destroyed and pillaged it. It incensed Naruto, even to this day, four years later, and he would stop at nothing to kill the man and avenge all the people he had killed that day, and all he had killed up to that point.

The smoke cleared finally, and Naruto watched as Megalania jumped into the air towards them, while Gamabunta unsheathed his large katana strapped at his side. The plan was risky, and probably suicidal in the minds of everyone who could see it, but it was the only thing he knew could kill the man, even if Naruto died in the process. He just hoped he would live through it, as he didn't look forward to explaining to his dead friends the exact reason why he was dead.

'You doubt the power of the great Kyuubi human?' a familiar, furry voice pipped up, forcing Naruto to push all negative feelings from his mind. It wouldn't be wise to lose his composure and give away his plan to Madara, and took all willpower to keep it.

'Considering you don't have the best track record for going through with your plans, yes. How many times have you threatened to kill me now? 100? 1000? I honestly lost count years ago, as you've yet to even harm my body.'

'You say that now, human, but remember what happens if you die during the plan. I get to escape this prison and you get to watch while I destroy the world,' the Kyuubi's voice fled his mind as swiftly as it entered it, though Naruto knew the fox was trying to inspire confidence with empty threats. He knew the fox couldn't escape his prison if Naruto died, as he tried numerous times when the blonde was on deaths door. Each time he lost a significant portion of his power to Naruto, whose chakra coils absorbed and helped increase his chakra reserves, while reversing some of the damage caused by transforming using Kyuubi's demonic chakra.

As he felt Megalanias shadow eclipse his body, he whispered to Gamabunta to "force Madara away from Megalania", so he could "finish this fight, once and for all,". Though he didn't hear an acknowledgment from the toad, he knew he was heard, Gamabunta simply didn't want to give away the plan, even if he didn't know what it was.

His katana poised, the toad struck out at the smaller summon, forcing it to shift in mid-air to avoid the potentially-fatal strike. The diversion had worked properly, with Madara jumping off of his own summon to land on Naruto's, and dashed towards him, a kunai sitting in his hand and ready to engage Naruto's. It didn't however, as the blonde used a Kawarimi to attempt to strike at the mans exposed back, not surprised when he used his Spirit Cloak technique to avoid the blow, as he always did.

While still under the effects of Spirit Cloak, which made him intangible and free to evade any technique, he attacked with his own counter, breaking past Naruto's defense and lodging itself in his stomach. "Is that all, Uzumaki? I expected more of a fight than this. You're usually so good about putting up an entertaining fight, what's different this time?"

Coughing up a small amount of blood, Naruto smirked, "This time? I'm not playing by your rules this time, Uchiha Madara. This time, you are the pawn, and I'm the king. This time...you die," hands flashing a complicated string of seals, shouting out a strange word in an unknown language. According to Kyuubi, it was a word of power in the tongue of the demons, but he took Kyuubi's statements with a grain of salt, as he tended to exaggerate a bit.

The look of shock and surprise on Madara's intangible face was priceless, as Naruto's summon disappeared along with the Uchihas, and in their stead was something very few had laid eyes upon, and lived to tell the tale.

Behind Naruto stood the tangible form of the Kyuubi, all nine tails flexing and whipping in anticipation, watching the two bugs in front of him. Naruto didn't seem affected by the appearance of the fox, though it was obvious Madara was, as he tried to escape with a Shunshin but was frozen in place with a simple snap from Naruto's fingers. Confusion filled Madara's face at the seemingly innocent act, which caused Naruto's grin to widen.

"You may have been responsible for unleashing the demons upon this world, Uchiha Madara, but I am the one who wields the power to control them, power you cannot comprehend. While the Kyuubi you see doesn't contain his mind, it contains his essence and each power he was capable of while living. You are, in a short string of words, fucked beyond reason," Another snap of the fingers sent Madara dodging for cover from the Kyuubi's claws, obviously trying to figure out how to stop the personification of the fox-demon. Any offensive technique he threw was deflected, or had no visible effect on the apparition, and anytime he attempted to get close to Naruto was met with failure as one of the fox's tails blocked the way to him. Even his Spirit Cloak was useless against him, as it seemed the fox could penetrate his intangible form, despite that not being physically possible.

The only thing he felt was left, was the Mangekyo Sharingan, to try and control the demon and force it back into the blonde's mind. Kyuubi seemed to stop after assaulting it with the Mangekyo, which Madara used to get close to the blonde, intent on finishing the fight. Normally he would have fled, but he had a feeling the Kyuubi would hunt him until he was dead, and he knew he wasn't able to run forever.

Naruto seemed unaffected by Madara getting close to him, if anything his smirk grew into a sadistic smile, causing red-flags to go up in the Uchiha's mind as he tried to escape. It seemed in vain however, as he felt himself bolted to the ground from fear.

"What you're feeling, is only a portion of the killing intent of the Kyuubi. If you felt the full brunt of it, you'd probably drop dead, or be extremely damaged mentally. Either way, you'd be helpless and incapable of defending yourself, or hurting other people ever again. But lets preform a test to see what happens when you piss off an ages-old demon, shall we?" Without a warning Madara felt a killing intent unlike any he had before, his mind told him to move or he'd be killed, while his body refused to move out of fear of retaliation. Less than ten seconds passed for the Uchiha, before he felt his body drop to the ground and his mind shut down; breaking a seal that Pein had placed upon his mind after each extracted Bijuu was sealed within the Atlas, a stone rumored to descend from the Heavens when the demons entered the plane of the mortals.

It was designed as a fail-safe in case Madara was killed before he could gain control over all nine tailed-demons, to destroy the world "if I can't have it, then no one else can." Releasing all eight demons simultaneously, the chakra output was enough to cause the weather to react violently, iring the fury of Mother Nature, stirring up a blizzard in the mountain-forest located in the southern region of Wind Country.

'Something about this weather is...unnatural. As if something it's try to destroy the world,' Kyuubi trailed off, earning a sarcastic reply from Naruto.

'No, I'm almost certain that Wind Country gets flash blizzards in the middle of fucking summer,' rubbing his arms and hands together roughly, the blonde tried to retain body heat to prevent freezing to death, though it was a futile attempt. He almost wished he had some fire jutsus to start a fire, but realized it would cause him to die faster due to losing chakra at an insane rate. Unbeknownst to him, his body was burning Kyuubi's chakra to maintain his body heat within a safe range, but the quickly dropping climates made his time of survival shorten with each ten degrees it dropped.

'Got any plans on getting us out of this blizzard? Or do I get the honor of freezing to death while you sit comfortably in my mind?'

'...there is one. However it requires you to make a sacrifice. One I know you won't make on a whim.'

'What kind of sacrifice are we talking? Losing my first-born to you? Turning gay? What?'

'It requires you to flee this dimension, to seek refuge in another.'

'And leave the survivors of Konoha to fend for themselves? Not a fucking chance in hell, fox.'

'They're already dead, boy. Five minutes have passed since the storm started and others like this one have sprung up across the world. They died thirty seconds after the storm started, while you have only another minute before you too die from the elements.'

Naruto was silent for a second, trying to decide whether or not he would flee from his home. 'How do I flee though? We never covered "how to run from a world-consuming storm" in the Ninja Academy, or not that I remember.'

His question was answered without words, as he felt his body being transported as though by a Shunshin, however his body felt...warm? He shook at his cold-induced shock to look around his new location, which looked like the interior of a hospital, besides the lack of dying people of course. White-washed walls filled the large thirty-foot by thirty-foot room, with a large bay-window which Naruto approached tentatively.

Outside the window was a lot of space, quite literally in fact. As far as he could see, Naruto felt like he was looking at one of those astrology maps Ino conned him into buying her for her sixteenth birthday, though instead of planets he noticed clusters of stars. Trying to lean outside of the window for a closer look caused a hand to grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him away from the window, the force of the pull causing him to stumble back and fall while he glared at the culprit.

"You're either a fool, or suicidal, Uzumaki Naruto," the culprit, a short man with brown hair and blue eyes, stated, earning a confused glance from the blonde.

"How do you know my name? And what's yours?" he asked, as he had never seen the man before in his life.

"I know your name, because I see everything. Hear everything. Do everything. I know of your exploits in your universe, how you were sealed with the Kyuubi no Kitsune, how you fought and killed Uchiha Sasuke, how you defeated Uchiha Madara, who in turn destroyed your home planet." he explained.

"Doesn't explain what your name is though, or exactly how you know those things. Or even what you are," Naruto grumbled.

"My name is incapable of being pronounced in your language, though I'm certain the Kyuubi would recognize it if I uttered it. What I am though...that is all up to interpretation on your culture. The culture of ninjas dub me the Shinigami, though my job doesn't entirely focus on killing people and taking their souls. I'm responsible for creating and destroying alternate dimensions, keeping the scales of good and evil tipped evenly, and making sure there is always someone, or something, to oppose a great force that threatens to topple it's existence."

"Fat lot of help that did," Naruto snorted, earning a small glare from the man, though he didn't reply right away.

"Yes, I realize that you're upset of your friends dying, but it was for the greater good. Your world had to die to prevent the deaths of numerous other worlds, which would have been catastrophic for their balance."

"Where do you get off deeming what's 'the greater good'? Who died and put you in charge?"

"Your father, did, boy. When Namikaze Minato summoned the Shinigami to destroy the body of the Kyuubi and bind its soul to yours, it committed the one rule immortals must not break; he directly interfered with mortal affairs. Konoha was supposed to fall the night the Kyuubi attacked, and due to it inadvertently brought upon Uchiha Madara's goal for world domination via demons, and through it, the direct cause of the destruction of your planet. Because of it, I was appointed to overlook your dimension, and other ones similar to it, but due to my inexperience, I doomed another universe by spending too much time meddling in the other dimensions under my power."

"So what, you want me to step up and clean up your mess? Is that it?"

"No, you are going to repay me by preventing another dimension's fall."

"Repay you? When did I ever enter your debt?"

"When I prevented you from destroying another dimension when you leaned out the window. The window overlooks all the dimensions under my power, and through it I can see everything that's happening, and manipulate the outcomes of key events to garner appealing results. We cannot directly touch the dimension, not from the window, as it would bring about it's destruction and direct all it's beings to other dimensions they don't already populate."

"You make that sound like a bad thing."

"Because it is."

"How? I would think that sending people to other dimensions would help their chances of survival, to keep the balance, as you said."

"It's not that simple... You see, when we send other people to new dimensions, we Shinigami are very careful in where we send them, we can't send them to a dimension where that person is thought to be dead, as it would cause immense backlash in the power scales. Even if a person was neither good or bad, a wild card would inadvertently tip the scales over the edge, and it would cause the dimension to be plunged into chaos. A person who is thought to be able to conquer death, even if they know they haven't, strikes fear into those who are easy to manipulate. In turn it would corrupt those thought to be incorruptible, and allow one side to gain permanent control over the dimension."

"Doesn't explain why it's a bad thing to directly touch a dimension from the window."

The Shinigami sighed softly, grasping for the words to properly explain the situation. "If a dimension is touched, it sends all living beings to dimensions where they either don't live, or don't exist. In the case of a dimension where they don't exist, the scales aren't tipped, as a wild card can't exist in a person who was never born. In the case of a dimension where the person isn't alive, they are the wild card which ensures victory for whatever side can sway them to their side."

"What happens when a dimension is permanently controlled by one side?"

"We send in a group of immortals, to 'cleanse' the dimension of every living being, and let the dimension start anew."

"What happens to the immortals then? They would have broken your number one rule, that being you can't meddle in mortal affairs."

"They are condemned to that universe, to restart life and possibly stem it's corruption another time."

Naruto was quiet for a minute, thinking of the implications of the information he received from the Shinigami. "Then that means...my dimension was doomed the moment the demons landed, that the sealed demons were allowing Akatsuki run amok and gain control of my dimension."

"That is correct."

"...I'll do it. I'll prevent another dimension from falling, to repay my debt for almost making your job harder." Naruto resigned himself to his fate, feeling guilty for almost causing insurmountable damage to other dimensions. If he had touched that dimension, he would have the blood of numerous people on his hands, and he wasn't sure he could live with the stigma of being the destroyer of dimensions. Destroyer of ninjas, Uchiha, and Akatsuki? Sure, but not dimensions. That's where he drew the line for mass-scale genocide.

"Very well. Follow me," without a word, Naruto trailed after him, where he found him in a strangely familiar room.

"Why are we in my apartment in Konoha?" his first words out of his mouth, Naruto felt foolish for letting the impulse get by him. He had trained himself for years to not cut off other people in speeches, as he learned from the many concussions given to him by Sakura and Tsunade.

"Because when you enter the new dimension, you will awaken in it. You will be spending the next three years in it, and when you finally emerge, you will at the age of eight. However, time will not be rewinding, as that would undo the destruction of your dimension, which as you now realize, was meant to happen. Instead another dimension, one that was cleansed long ago, will be where you will now live. You never existed, as your mother was killed five years prior to when she met your father, and your father is still the Hokage of your village. Uchiha Madara is still alive, and plans to summon the demons for his own good, and you are to stop him from summoning them."

"And what about the Kyuubi? What will happen to him?"

"He will still be sealed within you, as he poses no threat, should he escape the seal holding him place. The technique to transport you drained his remaining chakra, and is unable to recover it due to the seals function. You, however, are in possession of all the chakra he had access too, but none of his techniques, as his mind still remains. This is where we shall part ways, Uzumaki Naruto. After this day we shall never meet again, even after you have defeated Uchiha Madara," The Shinigami stated, walking away from the blonde once and for all.
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A/N: Okay, chapter one, done and ready for reviews. Remember: you can be critical of my story (I enjoy hearing what's wrong with it), but don't just say "it sucks" without reason. Review responses will be addressed in the next chapter (which might be uploaded soon, depending on reception from readers).