CHAPTER ONE: The End of the Beginning

"I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping."
― P.G. Wodehouse, Carry on, Jeeves

A gasp is torn from Naruto as he feels a tug at the base of his skull.

"No!" he screams, swinging his head around to look into the smoke surrounding him. But his efforts are futile; the smoke is so dense that he can barely see a foot in front of him.

A movement to his right catches his eye and his attention is pulled back to the man he has been fighting for what felt like days now. A flash of silver is all the warning he gets before a sword swings down at his head. Naruto lifts his own sword, or a sword that he had taken from one of the dead shinobi littering the ground, and just barely manages to block the blow. A sharp CLANG resounds through the air and Naruto leaps backwards out of the range of the deadly electrified blade.

Focusing chakra into his left hand, Naruto slashes in front of him, producing a burst of wind that blows away the smoke. For the first time in hours, he has a clear look at his surroundings. It's a lot worse than he thought.

Konoha had been completely leveled and burned. In fact, if Naruto hadn't know any better, he would have said that he wasn't even standing in the middle of the village. Where once tall and proud buildings stood, now only piles of rubble lay. Where the beautifully paved streets once were, now there were only craters and cracks.

Even with all his exposure to war and death over the past few years, Naruto still flinches at the sight of all the bodies. Konoha had been their last stronghold, the one place left where civilians could live in relative peace. Or at least until yesterday. Naruto closes his eyes for just a brief moment, the morbid sight too much. Innocent civilians lay scattered around, their limbs sprawled out in every direction, their skin burnt black. They never stood a chance.

When Madara, Obito and Sasuke had invaded Konoha yesterday morning with their own army of Susanoo and reanimated corpses, they hadn't come to merely kill the remaining shinobi; they had come to eradicate every living thing.

The numbers of the Shinobi Allied Force had dwindled dangerously over the past few years and it had been impossible for some time now to tell which of the former Great Nations had lost the most shinobi. Birth villages was something that just wasn't important anymore. Especially after Kiri fell, life had become more simple in some ways; you were either shinobi or civilian.

Konoha had been the last Hidden Village. A place which they all had come to call home. And within minutes of the Uchiha's attack there had been nothing to protect anymore.

No, the battle that they had been fighting for the past few hours hadn't been for the sake of their home or for honor or to protect anyone; they all had been fighting for their fallen friends, their lost villages, and their failed sense of duty as a shinobi. A single minded killing intent had grasped the remaining Allied Forces and only in death did it release them.

Naruto looked at the sword-wielding man in front of him and felt his heart clench. He had tried; he had tried so hard to fulfill the promise he made to Sakura all those years ago and in the end he had failed. He had completely and utterly failed.

The red-head had long given up on trying to bring Sasuke back; the man in front of him wasn't Sasuke anymore. The man in front of him was a cold blooded murderer; a twisted perversion of his teammate. His friend had died long ago.

Naruto still remembered the first time he began to have doubts that he couldn't save Sasuke, wouldn't be able to make him see sense again. An ANBU team had found Kiba, Genma and Shino laid out by a river with the Uchiha crest carved into their chests and their eyes gouged out. Even then, Naruto had thought, hoped, that it was just Madara, by then it had been the real Madara, twisting Sasuke's mind, forcing him to do such cruel things.

But then Sasuke had really crossed a line.

It had taken them almost two week to find all of Tsunade's body. Sasuke had even been kind enough to attach a note to each piece; each with a name on it, a promise of his next targets. Next fell Lee and Gai then Hinata, Izumo and Kotetsu, Anko, Tenten and Sakura…God Sakura!

Sakura who had finally allowed herself to move on, who had fallen in love with another man who had returned her affections with all his heart. They had been happy together, truly happy, even through all the pain of the war.

But then, without any warning, she had been captured. No one could stop her beloved from rushing off to try and save her despite him knowing it was a suicide mission. Even now, as the last of the world burned to the ground around him, Naruto still isn't exactly sure what Sasuke did to her.

He hadn't killed her, he had even let her go; but she hadn't been the same. She would just sit there with this dead look in her eyes for weeks, not eating or sleeping.

No one had had the heart to stop Ino when she finally caved and slit her friends throat. Yamato had never returned from his suicide mission but everyone knew, knew with a dreaded certainty, that he had found her.

Naruto felt another tug in the back of his head again, this time more insistent. His eyes started to sting but he wasn't going to cry. He hadn't let his grief get a grip on him in years and he refused to give in now.

The tug only grows more insistent and Naruto takes a deep breath, desperately trying to ground himself. He glares at the man a few meters in front of him. "I don't have time for this!" he screams.

He drops down onto all fours and lets the remainder of Kurama's chakra seep out just enough to enter Kurama Mode. He tries not to think about the fact that the other bijuus in him are depleted, worn out from destroying dozens of Susanoo and fending off Obito's relentless attacks. He hasn't heard anyone's voice but Kurama's since they finally fell Obito a few hours ago.

Sasuke let out an empty, mocking laugh and a surge of lightning runs down his blade.

"Naruto," Sasuke says, slowly shaking his head as if he were disappointed.

Naruto lets out a half scream half growl of frustration. He really doesn't have time for this; he needs to get to Madara and Kakashi.

"Look at you Naruto. You're pathetic. Acting like the animal that you are; just like that other nuisance of a jinchuriki."

Naruto freezes. Gaara .

Gaara had been the final straw for him. When Gaara had died, died right in his arms, he had shoved and locked everything away into the deepest recesses of his soul. Emotions, feelings, anything that might get in the way of his goal of killing Madara, Naruto had shoved them all so far down that they had eventually disappeared. Of course, he had made sure to avenge his brother's death first.

Sasuke had killed Gaara so Naruto had killed Sasuke. Only to find out, to his horror, that Sasuke had taken after the Snake Sannin and could 'rebirth' himself. One hundred times, they later learned, could Sasuke die and come back to life. One hundred times they would have to kill him to truly kill him.

In his blind fury over Gaara's murder Naruto managed to kill Sasuke almost fifty two times; at least that's what he was told when he woke up in an infirmary tent a week later.

"You shut up!" Naruto yells. "How dare you even think about him!"

Naruto lunges forward, bringing the mighty winds of a hurricane behind him, and slams his fist into Sasuke's chest. He feels the ribcage cave beneath his knuckles and watches as the light leaves Sasuke's surprised eyes.

His Sasuke, his friend, would have never left such an opening.

Five seconds. Naruto has five seconds before this caricature of Sasuke is as good as new again.

He leaps off the now-dead body and out of the small crater he's created. He thrusts his senses out and finds the last two chakra signatures left on the battlefield and full out sprints towards them. He feels another sharp tug in the back of his head.

"Hang on Kakashi, please hang on," he whispers to himself as he runs by more carnage, more bodies.

He stumbles for a second and knows that his wounds are catching up to him, but he doesn't stop running. He's honestly surprised that he's still even standing. He's not sure how much blood he's lost in the past few hours but it's pretty obvious from how lightheaded he's feeling that it's more than healthy. Kurama's chakra is probably the only thing keeping his insides, well, inside.

Naruto curses under his breath. He can deal with a lot of injuries, but the hole in his chest is really pushing it. How many hours had it been since he got it? Sasuke had got a lucky shot in with that damn sword of his and had stabbed right through him. It was a grim reminder of how far he had gone in the past few years when he hadn't died or felt much pain from the wound.

There! Two figures were doing a complex and deadly dance; moving so fast that if Naruto had been anyone else he wouldn't have been able to keep up. Naruto squashes the desire to cry out in relief as he sees that his sensei cum teammate is still alive.

Objectively, he had known he was, but the strength of the pain in the back of his head was telling him that the Copy Nin was pushing the boundaries of life and death.

One of the figures jumps backwards and skids to a halt next to him. Naruto steadies his teammate and receives a grateful nod in return.

"Sasuke?" Kakashi asks, his voice scratchy.

His question is answered a second later when another figure blurs ahead of them to stand next to Madara. Two Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan and two Rinnegan orbs stare at them.

"Together?" Naruto whispers to the man at his side, his own blood-red eyes never leaving the two Uchiha's in front of them.

"Of course," Kakashi replies. The familiar sound of a hundred screeching birds fills the air as Naruto condenses his red-black chakra into a ball in his hand. With movements that speak of all the countless times they have fought side by side, Naruto and Kakashi dash straight at Madara.

Naruto feels the stinging burn of Kakashi's Raikiri on his back and grits his teeth against the pain. Kakashi runs a half step behind him, now a step behind him, now a step and half behind him.

Naruto keeps running until he feels Kakashi jump backwards and then slams his beast ball into the ground a few feet in front of two Uchiha's. Kurama growls in his head and he thinks he hears eight other faint voices but it could just be the blood loss. Then, several things happened instantaneously.

The ground starts to bend and stretch like rubber under Naruto as all the air is sucked away and replaced with an ear-popping pressure. It's silent for a moment, even the crackling of the burning buildings having stopped, and then not even an eighth of a second later Naruto's body is jerked backwards from the place Kakashi's Raikiri had marked him. A half second later and the world seems to explode from where Naruto had just been.

The shock wave from the explosion knocks Naruto back faster and he crashes into Kakashi. He wraps his arms and chakra tails around the man and draws on the remaining bijuu chakra he has to cover them, hopefully protecting them from the worst of the blast.

Naruto pushes his head into Kakashi's shoulder as chunks of falling earth and debris rain down on his back. It seemed to last forever but when Naruto finally thinks its safe he cautiously lifts his head up and looks around. The smoke and dust have filled the sky again and Naruto can only just make out the giant crater behind him.

"Do you think we got them?" he whispers into Kakashi's ear, not getting off of the man. There's a moment of strained silence as they both listen for any signs of movement. The world is silent.

"No," Kakashi whispers back. "If only it were that easy. The only thing we did was buy ourselves a little time."

Naruto slowly lifts himself off the masked man and falls out of his Kurama Mode, unable to keep it up any longer. He gingerly sits up and hisses in pain; he feels like every bone in his body has been broken. The blood running down into his eyes isn't a good sign and though Naruto has learned to deal with pain over the years, can ignore all but the most fatal of wounds, as he sits there covered in dirt and blood, the last of his chakra gone, he feels a dull, choking pain in his chest.

"Damn," he whispers, his eyes watering up.

It was only fitting that his suppressed emotions finally come forth when the only one in the world to see his tears is Kakashi.

"How did we let this happen? How could we let this happen? Where did we go wrong?" Naruto says, speaking more to himself than to the man sitting up next to him.

He lets out a yelp of surprise at the singing burn of Raikiri, only this time it's everywhere. Naruto falls back onto the ground, no longer having the strength to hold up against even the weakest of jutsu.

"Ka-Kakashi! Wh-what a-are..?" Naruto barely manages to grit out as the blue-white electricity wraps around and pins his body to the ground. He can barely focus on the masked face next to him.

"I'm so sorry Naruto. I've failed you in every single way that a mentor and friend can. Please, please let me try to redeem myself. I don't know what to do anymore and this is the only thing that I can think of. You can fix this, if there is one thing I've learned it's to believe in you. Please…forgive me." Kakashi whispers softly, his voice cracking.

He should probably feel betrayed but it's only confusion that burns through him. But before he can say anything on the matter, his body starts to convulse. The electricity pinning him down feels like its soaking into his body, flooding his burned out chakra coils. He watches as Kakashi pulls something from the inside of his tattered flak jacket. A seal of some kind? Naruto eyes widen in fear as he recognizes parts of the seal. What the hell was Kakashi doing? Was he giving up?

There is no mistaking that the seal was for draining bijuu chakra, though Naruto has never seen this particular one before.

He and Gaara had spent years researching, trying to find a way to release or recapture the tailed beasts that had been captured by Madara. Though they had never found out a way to get the actually bijuu back, they had developed a series of seals to extract their massive chakra. To specifically pull the eight other demons chakra into himself.

Naruto knows the seals well, had inked them on his body himself, and the one Kakashi holds now looks like some kind of variation of the seals.

What was Kakashi trying to do? Naruto doesn't have enough chakra to do anything other than the simplest of jutsu. The seal wouldn't be able to draw anything from him. What would the seal accomplish?

"I believe in you Naruto," Kakashi says as he gently places the seal on his chest, ignoring the electricity covering Naruto, even as it shocked the person whom had cast it.

For a moment nothing happens and all Naruto can do is stare into sad, hollow, pain-filled mismatched eyes. A single, clear tear falls from one grey eye and a drop of blood falls from a red one.

"Please…forgive me," was the last thing Naruto heard.

A masked face, the face underneath still a mystery, was that thing Naruto saw.