Arc1 - A New World

Summary: Naruto ends up in a new world. With his new ally and fellow experimental subject X-23, he must build a life on the earth of the Marvel Universe while dealing with language and cultural barriers as well as a Sorcerer Supreme who wants to ensure that the demon sealed inside him never escapes.

Notes About Changes to the Marvel Universe: This universe is based on Marvel's Earth-616. There are a few minor changes such as an alteration to the Weapon X program which results in X-23 having a full skeleton of adamantium rather than just claws. These are mostly a direct result of Naruto's sudden appearance in the universe. Other changes are due to the fact that I am frankly not following any particular time line since it is difficult to line up when I am not having them follow any particular hero.

Arc 1 - A New World - Chapter 1: Banishment

Orochimaru lured Naruto away from Yamato and Sakura who were fighting Kabuto, taunting him about Sasuke. Sai had seemingly abandoned them when the fighting started. Even with three tails of Kyuubi's chakra, Naruto still couldn't land a meaningful hit. He had gone as far as cutting the snake man in half, but Orochimaru had just pulled himself together again and continued fighting as if he hadn't been injured at all. It really pissed Naruto off.

A fourth tail appeared and Naruto saw red. Naruto's skin melted away from the heat of his chakra and blood began to fill the demonic shroud. His tails lashed out wildly, each one striking the ground with the fury of one of Tsunade's heel drops. He chased the pale-faced sannin into the woods, lashing out with claws that extended from the cloak. When one strike missed, another limb or head would appear from it to swipe or snap at the target of his rage. He completely ignored the sannin's attacks, his snakes were vaporized by the chakra shroud.

Physical attacks weren't working. Naruto dug his claws into the ground and began to draw forth a ball of chakra in front of his mouth. The chakra was so dense that it appeared black. The ball kept growing until it was as large as Naruto.

Orochimaru seemed to actually be concerned. His hands were flashing through handseals at an incredible pace.

Naruto's jaw stretched and his stomach distended as he swallowed the massive ball of compressed chakra and compressed it further. His cheeks began to bulge out at the pressure of the building attack.

"Kuchiyose: Sanjuu Rashouman! (Summoning Technique: Triple Rashouman)" Orochimaru slammed his hands onto the ground. Three massive hell gates rose from the ground between him and Naruto.

The ground around Naruto was slowly being cratered by the pressure of the building attack. Naruto opened his mouth and released his first bijuudama (Tailed Beast Ball), firing it like a giant laser beam. Everything in a radius of fifty meters was vaporized as the beam shot forth at blinding speed. It struck the first gate and was barely slowed as it continued into the second. The second gate held for a few seconds before it too was utterly demolished. The third held until the very end of the blast when it too crumpled into a pile of rubble. The crater on either side of where the rashouman had been extended eight-hundred meters from Naruto's position.

Orochimaru burst from the rubble, climbing out of his own mouth like a snake shedding its skin. "I was thinking of letting you live so that you could take care of a few more of those pests from Akatsuki, but you're much too dangerous to let live with that kind of power." Orochimaru formed some seals, then swiped some blood on a sealed scroll that he threw at Naruto. "Fuuinjutsu: Ban'yuu Mutsu! (Sealing Technique: Universal Annihilation)"

An egg shaped shell of chakra exploded from the scroll until it encompassed Naruto. With a sudden pop, everything within the egg disappeared and air rushed in to fill the void.

Naruto looked everywhere for his enemy. Except for a small amount of dirt, there was only a blank emptiness of white extending in every direction. Naruto could see the edges of the dirt beginning to crumble, first to sand, then to dust, then to pinpricks of light before they completely disappeared. The whiteness seemed to be creeping in, slowly devouring everything.

Naruto began to rage. He slammed his chakra claws against the whiteness with all the force he could muster. The whole world shook. Naruto continued to pound away, gaining a fifth tail. The whiteness seemed to crack as he pounded. The cracks spread under his assault until they filled the whole sky, but no matter how hard he pounded, the shattered whiteness refused to break.

In a fit of Kyuubi-induced rage, Naruto released every ounce of chakra he had in a dome, pressing outwards against the limits of this reality. The whiteness shattered. Naruto was pulled through a suffocating tube of nothingness and was jettisoned into a freezing drift of snow.

Naruto staggered to his feet, leaving a crimson imprint in the snow from his blood. His whole body ached. Her could barely move from the pain and exhaustion. He could see the muscles of his hands where skin should have been.

"Snikt!" The sharp sound was the only warning he received before he heard a bestial roar and six blades erupted through his chest. The blades retracted. Naruto only saw the wild hair and naked body of the man who stabbed him for a few moments before he coughed up a pool of blood and passed out.

Dr. Strange was the Sorcerer Supreme, chosen by the consciousness of the planet itself. He had neatly coiffed black hair with an austere hint of silver at the temples. His clothes were green and gold. Only his green cape touched the floor as he hovered in place, meditating on the status of the world.

The mystical man was jerked into awareness as the fabric of reality was torn asunder and he felt the tremendous energies of one of the most powerful demons he had ever experienced. This demon easily rivaled the power of any of the gods, and Dr. Strange was not sure he could ever hope to match it in a straight fight.

Dr. Strange waved his hands and uttered a locating spell, but was unable to detect the demon's presence anymore, which frightened him more than the demon's presence. How powerful must a demon be if it could hide even from his magics? Dr. strange took a piece of paper and drew a magical enchantment upon it, placing a crystal needle in the center. It would alert him if the demon revealed itself, and then he would know where to find it.

Professor Thorton was bald, wearing a white lab coat as he followed the tracks of Jim 'Wolverine' Logan, or such was the man's current pseudonym. Thorton knew of Wolverine's true identity, James Howlett who was born over one-hundred years ago. The man's incredible healing and regeneration had kept him in his prime and had made him the perfect subject for the Weapon Plus program. In fact, had he not had that healing factor, he would not have survived the experiments.

Professor Thorton was followed closely by a team of guards wearing masks and camouflage fatigues patterned with whites and grays for snowy locations. They arrived at the scene of a body laying in the snow in a pool of blood.

"He's now one of ours," one of the guards reported.

The body stirred, eyes opening briefly.

"Well, look at that, his skin seems to be regrowing," Thorton remarked, "It seems that when Logan escaped, he kindly left us a replacement."

Naruto stirred, trying to move. He couldn't understand what the man in white was saying, but he didn't like the oily tone in which he said it.

"Put him down and get him to the lab."

"Fwip! Fwip! Fwip!" Darts stuck into Naruto's neck, shoulder and leg. All thought of escape were soon silenced by the drugs.

Dr. Cornelius stood, watching the monitors connected to the tank where the blond boy floated. The brainwave patters were beginning to show activity again. It had only been ten minutes since the last dose. The first time they had used that particular soporific, it had lasted for twelve hours. Now they had already quintupled the dosage and it was barely effective at all.

"We need to switch his meds again," Dr. Cornelius said, addressing Dr. Hines, "His body has completely acclimated to this one, even with the reduced oxygen levels." The drugs were fed to Naruto through a mask that covered his nose and mouth, providing him with air. The liquid he was floating in was an aqueous nutrient solution that provide the lipids and proteins needed for physical healing. It was regularly filtered to remove waste. A gruel was routinely pumped through the feeding tube in the breathing mask for sustenance. They couldn't use intravenous drugs and sustenance because the body would heal, pushing the needles out.

In some ways, his healing was even more impressive than experiment X's has been. In other ways, it was less impressive. While his healing factor had the potential to heal much faster than X, it was also dependent on his energy level. When fully rested, small cuts were healed almost instantly, but if they withheld nourishment for a few days, it would take several minutes for the same cut to heal. Like X, he seemed to be able to heal from any injury, even to the point of regenerating removed organs. When he had first arrived, his heart and lungs had both been shredded by experiment X, but he eventually recovered from that without intervention. His skin had taken much longer. It seemed that his healing factor would focus on healing the most grievous injuries first to ensure it did not run out of material and would heal him better and stronger than before to try and prevent future injury.

Dr. Hines finished attaching a new bottle of gas to the injector. Naruto's brainwaves calmed and he returned to his drug-induced catatonia.

"I just can't understand how his healing factor works. His genes obviously lack the x-gene, but there are several anomalies that I have never seen before." Dr. Cornelius checked the printout he was holding again. "He is definitely not a mutant."

"Perhaps one of the other genetic discrepancies acts in a similar way as the expression of the x-gene," Dr. Hines suggested.

"No, they are in the wrong part of his genetic code. It's like he grew up in a society isolated from the rest of the world and there was some slight genetic drift. It is not enough to classify him as anything other than a normal human."

Naruto woke up feeling cold. He was naked. Metal cuffs restrained him at the wrists, ankles and neck. He could tell the surface he was on was metallic and porous. Around him were a group of machines with long, disturbing looking, mechanized needles. He could hear something bubbling nearby. People dressed in lab coats were scurrying around seeing to various pieces of equipment, checking monitors and dials. Up above, Naruto could see the man who had been leading the team that had captured him. The smirk and gleam in his eye reminded Naruto too much of Orochimaru. Next to him was a man wearing a green suit. By all the ribbons and pins, Naruto guessed that he was some sort of military officer, though he didn't recognize the style of clothing.

"Begin," the military officer ordered.

The man beside the military officer gave a signal and a humming sound began. Naruto felt the surface he was on begin to descend into a tank of frigid oily liquid.

"Prepare the infusion devices," Doctor Thorton ordered.

A buzzing sound drew Naruto's attention to the needles that seemed to vibrate slightly. Naruto realized that they were spinning like drills. Naruto tried to struggle, but the restraints held him fast. The needles lowered. Naruto screamed in agony as they pierced his flesh until they were scraping against bone.

Another order was given and the needles heated until they were glowing red as they began to inject what felt like liquid fire into him. The red hot needles carved through his flesh like butter as they traced his bones. The needles moved slowly, giving his flesh time to close behind them. Naruto's mind became hazy from the pain. Before it could drive him to insanity, his body seemed to fade away as he escaped into unconsciousness.

Naruto snapped awake in an instant. The world was a sea of green, illuminated by lights from above and below. He could feel a mask on his face that pumped air in and out of his lungs. A long tube was shoved uncomfortably down his throat.

Naruto tried to move. His body felt heavy and sluggish. Naruto moved forward and the green oozed away around him until he was looking out into a darkened expanse of machinery. Naruto pushed against the clear barrier. It didn't feel like glass and there was no give in it.

Naruto stuck out his legs to brace himself. His legs felt as heavy and slow as his arms. They pressed against the sides of his cylindrical prison as he felt out his chakra. His chakra still flowed freely. He thought they must not have considered sealing it since they tried to keep him drugged.

His chakra gathered in his hand and began to swirl, creating a whirling current through the liquid. Only his braced legs kept Naruto from spinning out of control. The chakra formed into a ball, a rasengan, a grinding sphere of destruction invented by the fourth hokage. Naruto placed the ball against the clear material. It pushed through easily, grinding through it so fast that the material almost seemed to jump away from his hand. The liquid began pouring out of the tank, splashing down through the grated floor. Naruto moved the ball across and down, beginning to create an oval the size of his body.

Naruto held on to the material, striking it to his palm with chakra, as he finished grinding out his escape route. It wouldn't do to have all the guards come running to the sound if he let it fall. Naruto grabbed the pane of what felt like clear plastic with his other hand after he allowed the rasengan to dissipate without exploding. He turned and gently placed the sheet leaning against the opposite side of the tube before climbing out.

Naruto turned to examine the prison. As he had seen from the inside, it was a clear tube ensconced above and below with pipes and machinery. A plaque on the top held the characters 'X-11', though Naruto did not no the significance of the 'X' character, he was fairly certain that the '11' meant there were at least ten others.

Naruto unfastened the breathing mask, allowing the stench or metal, oil and other unknown chemicals assault his nose. He pulled, choking and gagging as a segmented metal tube was extracted from his esophagus. He needed a moment to recover from the retching that spilled gruel down into the shallow chasm below.

Naruto stepped forward onto a catwalk. Below was a mass of cables and pipes. He headed down the catwalk until stopped at a concrete wall. To his right was a tank marked 'X-1'. The tube was missing and groups of three slash marks were gouged into the metal of the equipment. Naruto knew this must have been where the man who had impaled him had been kept.

Naruto crossed the catwalk to the opposite side. This one had a body floating inside. The body was obviously dead. Spikes of metal sprouted from his head and chest. This one was marked 'X-2'. Naruto continued down the catwalk, checking each alcove. Some of the tubes were empty. Others held the disfigured remains of people who didn't survive. Naruto was disgusted that anyone could commit such atrocities. Some were even small children and toddlers.

Naruto looked at 'X-22'. This one was only a fetus with monstrous growths. Naruto guessed that it was some form of failed cloning experiment. He turned to 'X-23'. It was the last one. The rest of the alcoves down the catwalk to the exit hatch had no glow of monitors or lights. Inside was the naked body of a teenage girl, hooked up to the same type of breathing mask that had recently adorned his own face. She was actually very attractive. She had waist-length dark-brown hair and tanned skin much like his own and a body whose proportions roughly matched those of Ino Yamanaka. He stopped examining the naked body when he realized he was probably perving on a corpse.

Naruto was about to leave when he noticed the monitors for this one were different. There was a steady "be-beep" that he recognized from his own stays at the Konohagakure Hospital. It was a heart monitor. He could also hear the hiss of air being pumped in and out. Naruto checked the monitors and saw many squiggly lines he didn't understand, but knew were monitoring the signs of a living body. The girl, like him, had survived whatever they had done to her.

Naruto climbed up onto the tank, sticking his feet to it so that he could carve out a doorway with his rasengan. The spray of the liquid forcing itself out inhibited him, but he managed to carve out a suitable hole and drag the girl out onto the catwalk. She was heavier than he expected. The girl looked like she could not weigh more than one-hundred-ten pounds, but it felt like he was dragging an Akamichi as she obviously weighed closer to two-hundred. This probably had something to do with the metal in a lot of the dead experiments. He realized that accounted for his own feeling of weight and sluggishness as well.

Naruto sat with the girl across his lap, using his thigh to hold her at a forward angle so that she would not choke if she puked like he did while he removed the mask. As he had predicted, she gagged on the tube and threw up some of the same gray mess that this place considered food. This caused the girl to begin to stir.

"Snikt!" Naruto remembered that sound. It was the sound that preceded impalement by X-1.

Naruto dropped the girl and scurried away, narrowly avoiding the twin metal claws protruding from between the girl's fingers. The claws cut through the railing of the catwalk with a reverberating clang.

"Who are you? What are you doing with me?" the girl asked.

Naruto couldn't understand a word of what she had said. "Watashi wa anata to tatakau tame ni shitakunai. Watashi wa tedasuke shiyou to shite ita. (I don't want to fight you. I was only trying to help.)"

The foreign language caused X-23 to pause her assault, but she did not relax enough to retract her claws. Naruto tried to think of a way to explain himself. Naruto, getting an idea, moved around her to the tank and used chakra to climb until he reached the plaque.

"Anata wa, sū ni rei kara sandatta. (You were number twenty-three.)" Naruto pointed at her. Next he circled the plaque with his finger. He pointed at her again and then showed two, then three fingers. "Watashi ga jū ichidatta. (I was the eleventh.)" Naruto pointed to himself and then showed one finger twice.

Keeping an eye on him, she backed away, following the path back until she found the tank marked 'X-11'. It was plain to see that its contents had been quite recently evacuated.

"How did you escape?" X-23 asked.

Naruto just looked at her puzzled.

X-23 pointed around the edge of the hole in the tank and then shrugged and cocked her head to the side as if awaiting an answer.

Naruto understood enough that he formed a rasengan and, leaning over the railing, pushed it into the wall. When he pulled the rasengan out, concrete dust poured from the hole.

The clanking of heavy boots could be heard beyond the exit. They had made too much noise.

Naruto mimed fighting, then putting on clothes.

X-23 nodded in agreement.

Naruto ran. His footsteps louder and heavier than he would have liked. He leapt up and stuck himself above the door. He raised his finger to his lips. Naruto, using his left arm to indicate the catwalk, pointed to the door, then used his right hand to indicate walking along his left. He pointed to X-23, held ups his hands in surrender, then used his arm and hand to mimic walking backwards. Finally he pointed to himself and using his arm again, mimicked a person jumping down, then punched the air a few times.

X-23 nodded, understanding the simple plan.

The wheel on the door turned, removing the locking bolts with a dull thunk. The door swung open and a group of twelve armed men appeared. X-23 raised her hands as guns leveled at her. Naruto had never seen a gun before, bud by the way they were waving them around, Naruto assumed it was some sort of projectile launcher, like Shizune's senbon launcher, or a crossbow.

Naruto crossed his fingers and leapt. Two of him landed on each of the soldiers. One of the soldiers pulled the trigger as he fell, causing spurts of red blood to erupt from the man in front of him.

Each of the Naruto clones realized the danger of these weapons and quickly snapped the necks of the people they had landed on.

Naruto was surprised that X-23 didn't seem at all disturbed by the brutality of his attack. She merely walked forward, took one of the guns, then looted the others for ammunition. Meanwhile, Naruto selected the two shortest guards and began stripping off their clothing.

Once dressed, Naruto began dismembering the corpses, handing each severed limb to a clone, giving them orders to find a large surface to paint an exploding tag on. Naruto was no seal master, but he had spent three years with Jiraiya who had insisted he at least learn how to make basic exploding tags and sealing scrolls. One of the things he knew about exploding tags was that the bigger they were, the bigger the explosion was. He knew one the size of a lip of sealing paper blew up anything in a radius of five or ten meters. Ones the size of writing paper were known as demolition tags and could blow up a building, though it usually took two ninja to add enough chakra to prime them. The one being drawn on the ceiling was eight by fifteen feet. It would probably take all of his clone's power to prime it, but when it went off, it was sure to make an impressive explosion. Sometimes, it was good to have a demon fox in your gut.

Naruto and X-23 began to jog through the installation. Occasionally, they would run across a patrol of guards, but X-23 was amazingly accurate with the gun she had commandeered and since they were wearing the same uniform, the soldiers were dead before they realized Naruto and X-23 were not supposed to be there. Each time this happened, Naruto created more clones to paint explosive seals on the nearest large surface. With his sloppy handwriting, chances were that only one in three would work though.

The exit was a small door in the middle of a concrete wall. There were a couple guards on platforms with views out the front and eight on the ground. 'Screw subtlety!' Naruto thought. "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto formed over a hundred clones that began evasive maneuvers. Some ran up walls, others began springing off equipment, and some just zigged and zagged as they kept low and rushed the guards. More than half his clones had been destroyed by the automatic weapons held by the guards before they needed to reload and the swarm was upon them. Without prompting, the clones began to create more explosive seals.

"To sugu ni, karera wa kanzendearu yō ni fūin o bakuhatsu sa seru! (Detonate the seals as soon as they are complete!)" Naruto yelled, creating more clones to stop any interruptions.

Naruto and X-23 burst out into the bright expanse of snow at the base of a mountain. A river and a waterfall were clearly audible nearby, but could not be seen beyond the dense pine forests that started eighty meters out from the entrance. Looking back, the facility was built so that only a few small protrusions were visible out of the cliff face, and those were painted to match the surrounding rock.

Before she could protest, Naruto scooped up X-23 and began to run. He felt claws scratch his skin as she grabbed on to him. Using chakra to lengthen his stride, Naruto took off as fast as he could, taking to the trees as soon as they were in range. Smaller branches snapped against their bodies, but Naruto didn't care. He needed speed right now, not stealth. The trees halted abruptly and Naruto nearly stumbled on the bank of the river. Then, he hit the water and his foot sank up to his ankle befor he adjusted for the extra weight. Three strides later, they were on the bank and naruto followed the river upstream until they came to a large dam. Naruto guessed that it was what powered the facility they had just escaped from. Naruto ran up the side of the cliff and found some shelter in a copse of trees before turning to look at the mountain housing the facility and regained his breath.

X-23 followed his gaze and waited. Eight minutes later, there was a rumble like thunder that shook the ground, then the entire face of the mountain exploded and collapsed into rubble. Naruto was a little disappointed. He had expected it to be bigger.

The next task was to prevent anyone from following them and decide which direction to go. Looking at the sun, Naruto could tell that it was early evening and that it was so cold because they were somewhere far north. Naruto drew an arrow tipped cross on the ground. In the west and east, Naruto drew a flat line with a half circle with radiating lines representing a sun with an arrow pointing up or down. In the north he drew a stylized snowflake. In the south, he drew waves and a sun.

"Wareware wa dochira no hōkō ni ikubekideshou ka? (Which direction should we go?)" Naruto asked. He covered his eyes and pointed in random directions, then shrugged.

X-23 looked at Naruto's compass and then gestured in a generally southward manner. Naruto shrugged and wiped out his drawing, then created hundreds of clones that transformed into copies of him and X-23 as well as pairs of random people, then each pair chose a random direction and started walking so no one would be able to tell what direction they went.

Naruto began walking in a southerly direction and beckoned for X-23 to follow. Now that they had a direction, it was time to start getting to know each other.

Naruto pointed to himself and said, "Watashi no namae ha Uzumaki Naruto desu. (My name is Naruto Uzumaki)" He pointed at himself again. "Uzumaki Naruto." He pointed to himself again and said, "Na-ru-to."

Understanding, X-23 repeated, "Naruto. You are called Naruto."

Naruto grinned happily. He pointed at himself and said, "Naruto." Naruto then pointed at her and shrugged.

"My name..." X-23 looked slightly disturbed by the concept.

They walked in silence for a few minutes with X-23's brow scrunched in concentration.

X-23 stopped, still looking troubled. She pointed at Naruto and said, "Naruto." She then pointed at herself and shrugged. She crouched down and wrote 'X-23' in the snow and then pointed to herself and said, "X-23."

"Ekksu-tuwanti-tsurii," Naruto repeated, keeping in mind that 'twenty' was probably 'nijuu' and 'three' was probably 'san'. He already knew 'X', that was often used as a marker on maps and diagrams.