Risen Chapter 4, a naruto fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Any recognizable characters, locations, and concepts are property of Masashi Kishimoto. There may be times in the story that scenes from the anime Naruto appear in this story, such scenes belong to Kishimoto and those at VIZ media. No copyright infringement is intended, I am just doing this for fun. Similarly, I don't own One Piece, and any recognizable concepts are property of Oda.

Chapter 4

Kick.

Whoosh.

Kick.

Whoosh.

Naruto was flying through the sky, as blue as his eyes. Moisture from the clouds he had passed though clung to his bare chest and arms as he sped his way to his destination. On a normal day, Naruto would be overjoyed with the feeling of flying through the sky, uninhibited, zero restraints, almost like a bird. For the time he was up in the air, he was free. A freedom that he discovered on his own a month and a half ago, nearly two weeks after his venture back to the leaf, when he first invented this technique. But, in the light of recent events, there was only one thing crossing his mind.

He sped forward. Guided by fear.

Kick.

Whoosh.

Kick.

Whoosh.

'Gaara...'

Naruto sped through the night, leaving Konoha behind. It certainly wasn't an easy task. He may not have had the greatest childhood in the world, but Konoha was his home. He had friends there. He had...family there. That old hag Tsunade was like a grandmother to him, Shizune was like a sister. Ero-Sennin was a grandfather to him. A perverted grandfather, yes, but a grandfather nonetheless. Then there was her...The pain of leaving her...them...Konoha, was almost unbearable. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and see them all just one more time. But he didn't. He couldn't.

He had made it back fast, much faster than when he had set out. He killed a rabbit along the way, and cooked it over a fire inside his cave. It was only after he was done eating that he broke down.

He wept hard, harder than he ever had before. Harder even than he had at Uzushiogakure. He buried his eyes in his palms and sobbed for what felt like an hour. When he finally pulled his head out of his hands, he saw nothing but red. Both his hands were covered in blood. Stunned, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and saw blood. He had cried blood. He climbed down the mountain, moving slowly through the brambles and trees until he had finally reached the lake at the center of the valley. He scrubbed the blood off of his hands and face. He was thirsty, but he knew that you weren't supposed to drink standing water, you could get sick. He doubted it applied to him, he had never been sick a day in his life (which probably came from having the Kyuubi sealed in him), but he really didn't want to find out. He didn't have any kind of container to put the water in and boil it, so he'd have to send a clone out to the nearest town tomorrow to go grab him more supplies. He would go himself, but he had things to do. He mulled over a plan of attack while climbing back up the small mountain, dodging the occasional tree stump or those annoying roots just waiting to trip him. He finally made it back to his cave, guided by the soft glow of the fire he had made earlier. He didn't have a bedroll or a sleeping bag, so he used his black cloak to cover the cold ground and his Akatsuki cloak as a blanket. It wasn't very satisfying by itself, but the warmth of the fire would help to keep the cold away. The last thing Naruto saw that night before drifting off to sleep was a pair of sparkling emerald eyes...

'Sakura-chan...'

Naruto shot awake the next morning. His Akatsuki cloak had been thrown off of his body at some point during the night. He was covered in sweat, bloody tears flowing down his face in response to the horrid nightmare that plagued him during his sleep. His dreams were littered with blood, burning flesh, the ominous crack of a whip, black fire, and the sound of Madara's laughter. That laughter. He never wanted to hear that laughter again.

He didn't have much of an appetite after that...dream...so he skipped out on breakfast. If you could even call it breakfast, outside of the cave was still pitch black. The fire was nothing more than a smoldering pile of ashes, occasional flares from the small embers sent slight shadows dancing across the cave walls, lulling Naruto into a trance.

Naruto lay there, staring at the ceiling of the cave until the first small ray of light managed to slip its way through the trees and into the cave, alerting Naruto that the morning had finally arrived. Naruto stood, heading over to the cave wall to collect his pack and the red Akatsuki ring that lay next to it. Walking through the brisk morning air under the dark canopy of trees, Naruto made his way to the lake, enjoying the chirping of the birds around him.

Naruto arrived at the lake and dropped his pack before dipping his hands in the cold water and washing the dried blood off of his face. Naruto then stood, placed the first two fingers of each hand in the familiar cross pattern, and summoned to clones. Naruto watched as the clones moved off a long was away into the trees. 10 minutes later he was alerted of the dispersal of the shadow clones. Naruto smiled to himself.

He remembered. His clones had played a game of rock, paper scissors. And the memories transferred to him.

The possibilities were endless. A plan began to blossom in the depths of Naruto's mind, but first he needed confirmation of four other things.

He created one clone this time and sent him on his merry way up the mountain. A few minutes followed when he felt a single clone disperse, and the memories of the first clone walking up the mountain and creating another clone. The second clone was the one that dispersed and showed two clones playing rock, paper, scissors. Naruto's smile grew.

Naruto created one more clone, but this time, instead of sending the clone up the mountain to join the one that was already there, Naruto played rock, paper, scissors with the clone, and then dispersed it. A minute later, another clone dispersed, it's memory showing the original clone giving him a thumbs up. Naruto's smile grew wider still.

A few minutes later he was joined by the clone he had sent up the mountain. The clone grabbed a scroll containing writings on Suiton, and picked out a Suiton jutsu, the Suiryudan no Jutsu. Naruto had never used any jutsu from one of the natures outside of Katon, so Naruto could start his experiment fresh. Hopefully his father was right when he said that Naruto might be able to use the five natures, just like him. The clone read over the scrolls instructions on chakra levels, hand seals, and how to produce a change in chakra nature, and after memorizing all of the information, began to practice the jutsu. Naruto let the clone train for an hour, watching as the clone struggled at first to make the jutsu, until, near the end of the hour, the clone was able to produce a fair sized dragon from the lake in front of him. The clone dispersed itself, and Naruto stepped up to the lake.

"Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu!" A dragon of water, the same size as the one the clone was able to produce at the end of one hour spring forth from the lake. Naruto was almost beaming at this point.

Next, Naruto summoned two clones. They each began to work on the Suiryudan jutsu for exactly one hour. At the end of the hour, Naruto dispersed them, and then moved to the lake.

"Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu!"

This time, a dragon appeared from the water, but twice the size as it did the first time Naruto used the jutsu. He began to tremble with excitement.

Naruto had one last experiment. This time, Naruto created a horde of clones. He had to go big on this one, just to see. So, naturally, he created a thousand and one clones, all at the ready. One of the clones moved next to the original Naruto, while the others spent an hour practicing the Suiryudan while Naruto and the clone next to him watched. At the end of an hour, Naruto tried to prepare himself from what he expected was about to happen. He dispersed the clones, and fell to the ground with a thud. His knees had immediately buckled with exhaustion. He lay on the ground, facing the now bright blue sky, struggling to stay conscious. He was panting like he had just got done running across the entire world at top speed. The one that had been standing next to him the whole time stood above Naruto. Naruto's smile was so big it had almost wrapped around his head.

'Mission success,' he thought to himself.

Naruto had gotten the idea from the night before when his clone had found the secret room hidden behind the bookshelf in the room Naruto had snuck into to find helpful jutsu. The clone had accidentally found a trigger to the secret room, and was startled by the sudden movement of the bookshelf. He accidentally bumped into the shelf, causing a large scroll on the top of the shelf to fall, which gave him a nice conk on the head, dispersing him. At the time, Naruto was looking through the Fūin no Sho to research useful fūinjutsu and kekkai ninjutsu, and wasn't paying attention. But, upon the clones' dispersal, Naruto had noticed that he knew exactly what had happened, even though he was never paying attention. The dispersed clones' memories had been transferred to Naruto. Naruto's first test, when he had sent the original two clones up the mountain, where they played rock, paper, scissors, was just a confirmation of this principle.

The second test was slightly different. This time, Naruto had created a single clone and sent him up the mountain alone. That clone summoned another clone, and they both played rock, paper, scissors. On the completion of the game, the first clone dispersed the clone he created, and Naruto gained that clones' memories, as well as the memories of the first clone. This confirmed that if a clone used the Kagebunshin no Jutsu, any clones he created would still transfer the memories of both the clone he created and his own memories to the original Naruto, even though the original Naruto wasn't the one who created the other clone.

The third test was a reverse of the second test. This time, while the clone he had created earlier was still up in the mountain, Naruto had created a clone and played a game of rock, paper, scissors with him, and dispersed the clone. About a minute later, memories from another clone flooded Naruto's mind, this time with the first clone giving Naruto a thumbs up as confirmation that he had received the memories of the game Naruto had just played. What this confirmed to Naruto was that if, at any time, Naruto was to summon and disperse a clone, any still-active clones would receive the memories of the clone that had just poofed into oblivion.

Naruto's fourth test was an entirely different test. The first clone had come down from the mountain and began to work on a jutsu that the original Naruto had never once used before. The clone trained for exactly one hour, before being recalled in a burst of smoke. Naruto, with no prior experience with the Suiryudan was able to execute the jutsu at the same level as the clone did at the end of an hour. This was an entirely new type of confirmation. Not only did it confirm that Naruto gained the memories of the clone, but also the experience. Naruto could create a clone, have the clone train while Naruto was off doing god knows what, and when the clone dispersed, Naruto would gain the experience of the clone up until the time of its dispersal.

Naruto's fifth test was an extension of the first. This time instead of creating just one clone to practice a jutsu, he created two, then dispersed them at the end of one hour. This time, Naruto was able to create a dragon twice the size of the first time he had done so. In other words, Naruto had progressed twice as fast by creating two clones instead of one. In other words, this signifies that any jutsu would take half the time to perfect by training with two clones. A jutsu that would take a year to perfect on Naruto's own, would take half a year with the aid of two clones. Training time would be cut into thirds with three clones. A year of training time would be cut into quarters with four clones, and so on.

Naruto's final test was different than the previous two. In the previous two tests, Naruto had felt the slight effects of training, the second of the two tests bearing a larger strain than the first. This time, Naruto had created a thousand and one clones. A thousand of the clones practiced the jutsu, while one of them sat next to Naruto. At the end of one hour, Naruto dispersed all the clones except the one that had been sitting next to him. The effect had been immediate. The original Naruto hit the ground under enormous strain and exhaustion. However, the clone he hadn't sent away still stood above him. This confirmed that Naruto could create clones, have them train, and disperse them, and the only person that would be hit with fatigue was Naruto, not any clones that Naruto might have left active. This was key for Naruto.

Because Naruto had a plan. A plan to bring the Akatsuki to its knees.

First Naruto would create a clone. The clone would wear the Akatsuki robes and the ring, as well as the spare mask in Naruto's possession. The clone would then parade around as a member of the Akatsuki. This would leave the original Naruto free to roam around without the guy in the mask, Tobi or Madara or whatever the hell he wanted to call himself, or Zetsu breathing down his neck.

The clone would act as a spy for Naruto and would gather information on the Akatsuki. When he had information, the clone Naruto could immediately create and disperse a clone, and the memories of the first clone would be transferred to Naruto, giving him all the intelligence.

Naruto would also be able to do the reverse. Naruto would be able to create and disperse a clone from his side, and his memories would be sent to the clone, so that the clone could stay informed of things on Naruto's end, and Naruto could also send the clone orders.

With this strategy, Naruto and his clone could stay in constant communication, and Naruto would be able to head off any Akatsuki wrongdoings.

Meanwhile, Naruto would create a mass of clones and leave him back at the mountains to train with all different types of jutsu. This would help Naruto advance rapidly, so he could better fight the Akatsuki. Also, a perk to this method of training, aside from the rapid gain of experience, was that the only person would receive the fatigue of dispersing the training clones was Naruto, not his Akatsuki stand in. It would not do to pass out in the middle of an Akatsuki meeting.

After a reasonable amount of time, Naruto was able to stand up with the help of the clone that Naruto had yet to disperse. Once he was steady and on his feet, he dispersed the clone. There was one last thing that he had to do.

Naruto placed his fingers in the cross pattern, except this time, he changed the density of the chakra he placed into the hand seal, and summoned a clone. When the clone popped into existence with the normal poof of the smoke, Naruto aimed a nasty kick to the side of the clones head. The clone, unlike a normal clone, did not disperse after getting hit and flying through the air, colliding with a tree. Naruto smiled. The clone would need to be able to take a beating just in case if this plan was going to work. By increasing the density of his chakra, Naruto had created a clone that was much more durable than a normal clone. This clone would be able to get hit and not disappear.

"You know what to do," he said when the clone walked back to him. The clone nodded and moved over to the pack. He grabbed the Akatsuki ring and put it on the ring finger of his right hand before running up the mountain to the cave. A few minutes later, images burst into Naruto's mind of the clone putting on the navy blue mask and the Akatsuki cloak before sprinting out of the cave and away from the mountain range, creating and dispersing a clone along the way. He was off.

Naruto smiled and turned to the lake.

'Just for good measure,' he thought to himself. He performed a series of hand seals. "Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu!"

A massive dragon of water erupted from the lake, sending droplets of water cascading into the sky. Naruto watched as it danced though the air, twisting and turning in what resembled some kind of majestic dance, before roaring and falling back into the lake in a torrent of water.

'A perfected jutsu,' he thought. Naruto fell backwards, unconscious, exhausted.

During the better part of the next month, Naruto established a routine while waiting for news of being contacted by the Akatsuki from his clone. At the start of the day, he would wake up, usually covered in bloody tears and sweat from from the nightmares he had. They were horrible. Visions of fire, cracking of whips, breaking of bones, and various other forms of torture plagued his mind during his sleep, if you could even call it that. After waking up from his nightly torment, he would head down to the lake to clean off. His clone had sent other clones back from various towns he came across during first week of travel, all of them carrying supplies like cooking equipment, a sleeping bag (which Naruto was ecstatic to have) multiple pairs of new pants like the ones he wore, as well as ninja tools such as kunai, spools of metal wire, shurikens, and extra scrolls just in case Naruto could get the hang of the few low-level fūinjutsu he chose to take from the Fūin no Sho. After his bathing was done he'd spawn clones and begin to practice jutsu. He would only spawn fifty each for the jutsu requiring change in chakra nature, the toll of having a thousand clones disperse after training was way too high, he would increase the number after his stamina had increased. He also summoned one clone each for the kekkai ninjutsu and fūinjutsu that he obtained, since both types of jutsu requires him to read a rather large amount of information and commit it to memory; namely chakra patterns and configurations for kekkai ninjutsu and sealing formulas for fūinjutsu. Later, when he would be able to put the jutsu into practice after learning the text, he would summon more clones to help gain experience.

While the clones would train according to their assigned jutsu, Naruto would sit a distance away studying the scroll on the Hiraishin no Jutsu. The information on the scroll was highly complex, the jutsu formula that made up the seals for the technique was incredibly difficult to understand. Not to mention the diversity of the jutsu itself, there were an incredible amount of variations and techniques within the Hiraishin. From what Naruto read, the Hiraishin manipulated the space-time barrier through the placement of seals. The most common method of transportation by the Yondaime was the placement of seals on kunai, thus the markings on the handle of the three pronged kunai Naruto was now in possession of. Upon activation of the jutsu, the user would teleport to the chosen seal instantaneously. The seals themselves didn't have to be on kunai either, you could place the seals on anything, including enemies, and they would never disappear. However, while the jutsu operates through the use of seals, the movement and function of the Hiraishin was more along the lines to that of the Kuchiyose no Jutsu which also breached the space-time barrier to summon objects or animals from other places. The jutsu was well beyond any other jutsu Naruto had ever seen. It was going to take a while to learn, and that was being optimistic, but there was no way in hell that he wasn't going to learn it either. The Hiraishin made his father famous, and Naruto would damn sure surpass the Yondaime. The Hiraishin would be a huge step in that direction.

While Naruto read over the scrolls, the clones would train all day until it got dark before Naruto would disperse the clones and sluggishly go back to his cave to return all of his scrolls, before catching dinner (usually a rabbit) and trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to catch some decent sleep. When he woke up, the process would repeat.

About a week and a half later, Naruto had developed a decent size jutsu arsenal. He had decided that he would only learn a few at a time, and would practice those until he had perfected them before moving on to other jutsu. He had perfected a couple jutsu from each of the scrolls containing nature types, and his clones were doing well with the fūinjutsu and kekkai ninjutsu scrolls, absorbing the material they needed before even being able to practice seals and barriers.

Naruto had no such luck, however, with the Hiraishin. Naruto's strong point had never been studying or reading difficult things, and the scroll pertaining to the. Hiraishin was full of difficult and abstract concepts and giant words. The text on fūinjutsu and kekkai ninjutsu weren't nearly as hard, which is why Naruto was able to pick up on those pretty fast considering that he wasn't the sharpest kunai around.

'Where was Sakura when you need her?' he had thought to himself. She was much smarter than he ever was and would often explain things to him so that he could understand. There is no doubt in his mind that if she were here to help him, his progress with the Hiraishin would be much faster. Instead, he was stuck on his own trying to make heads and tails of this ridiculously complicated jutsu, and because of that, he often felt his mind wander off when he should have been concentrating. And the focus of his wandering mind was always on a pink haired, emerald eyed girl. She constantly invaded his thoughts. Visions of that night flickered across his mind. How she looked curled up in the bed, the light of moon casting a glow to her porcelain skin, her soft pink hair fanned out on her pillow, how the soft skin of her arm had felt as he accidentally brushed it, the faint scent of strawberries that assaulted his nose as he breathed. To Naruto, the scene was one of absolute perfection. She was a goddess in his world that resembled hell. He wished that he could see her again, and talk to her, and hear her laugh. He wished, but he couldn't. They were a world apart.

Frustrated with his lack of progress, and saddened by his thoughts of Sakura, he decided to take a break, moving toward the lake, a little ways away from his battalions of training clones, and laid down, staring off into the sky. He chuckled to himself as he watched a cloud pass by, feeling awfully like a certain lazy shinobi back in Konoha. If there was one rookie that he would trust with his life, it was Shikamaru, even if that guy was a lazy bum. Lazy, yes, but the kid was also a genius. Naruto knew he would go far, if he could summon up the motivation.

Naruto watched the sky above, admiring the sapphire sky, when a small, bright red bird entered his field of vision, around thirty feet above him. His eyes lazily traced its path as it flew in circles above Naruto. The image to Naruto was simple, but beautiful. The bird was so full of life, its life as bright as the color of its feathers. The bird flew with such energy and grace that Naruto's troubled state of mind seemed to melt away, leaving him with a brief sense of serenity in the bird's presence. It zoomed left and right, carving circle after circle in the air, before speeding downward, stopping to hover above Naruto's chest. Naruto stared at the beautiful bird, watching in wonder as it beat its wings at an impossible speed, making them almost invisible to the eye and causing a small hum to fill the air around it.

Without thinking, Naruto removed his right arm from behind his head and ever so slowly, reached out to the hummingbird before him. The hummingbird shifted nervously in the air at first, but then zoomed happily around his arm in a series of complicated acrobatics, and then settled on the index and middle finger of Naruto's hand, its tiny feet gripping Naruto's index finger, clenching and unclenching. Naruto smiled softly as the little hummingbird ruffled its feathers with its beak before focusing its hazel eyes on Naruto.

The gaze of the hummingbird was intense, and something about it made Naruto uneasy. It was like the tiny bird could see straight through Naruto, as if it were peering into his mind. The hummingbird slowly unfurled its wings and jumped into the air, flapping at that insane speed, hovering just over Naruto's hand. It slowly started to move forward, until it was hovering right in front of Naruto's face. It stared at him intensely, for near a minute before turning and starting to fly away. Naruto sat up to watch it go. As he did, the bird stopped and turned to look Naruto in the eyes once more, and then in an instant, it was gone.

'What a strange thing,' Naruto thought to himself. There was something unnatural about that bird, something knowing. It felt like the bird was looking right through him. It made Naruto extremely uneasy. Naruto thought about the bird, how it just floated in front of his face. The wings had been moving so fast, it looked like they weren't even there, like the bird was just standing on air. Naruto wondered if it was possible to stand on air. It was possible to stand on water, so why shouldn't it be possible to stand on air?

Naruto got up and looked around before walking off to a tall tree at the edge of the forest. He concentrated chakra to his feet as he once learned years in the past and climbed the tree. He stopped about halfway up the tree, close to twenty feet in the air. He channeled chakra in his feet and then jumped off the branch. Twenty feet later, Naruto landed. On his face. He sprung to his feet cursing and rubbing his face.

'What the hell was that? How the hell did I land on my face when I jumped feet first?' he thought angrily. Naruto hadn't even caught the slightest bit of resistance on the way down. Naruto climbed the tree again, this time trying to make the chakra at his feet more fluid, like he did during his walk-on-water training. Naruto jumped off the same branch, and his feet hit the ground with a thud.

'At least I didn't land on my face this time,' he thought to himself, trying to quell his frustration. 'Well, maybe air is more different than water, so instead of matching my chakra to be able to walk on water, maybe I should make it even more fluid.'

He turned, ran up the tree, and once he was on the branch that he had previously jumped off of, he adjusted his chakra to a level of fluidity beyond that of walking on water. He immediately felt his feet begin to slip from the branch. He jumped off of the branch, and hit the ground with the thud.

Naruto sat down cross-legged with a hand on his chin, deep in thought, a small smile on his face. The experiment was a failure, but only partially. While Naruto landed on the ground, his decent to the ground was somewhat slower than before. His feet had caught resistance on the air.

During the tree climbing exercise, the exercise that came before walking on water, you had to focus your chakra in the soles of your feet, and use that to climb up the tree. If you used too much chakra, the tree would crack, and you would slip off. If you used too little chakra, your foot wouldn't grip the tree, and you would slip off. The chakra control had to be precise.

During the water walking exercise, the same concepts as the tree climbing exercise applied. The only difference was that the tree was solid, and the particles in the tree were unmoving. With water however, the particles were in constant motion, and you had to adjust your chakra to be able to grip and repel those particles. If you didn't do it right, you would merely fall into the water.

Naruto had just confirmed that walking on air required even more fluidity than water, which means that the particles in the air move faster than those that are in water, which means that they're constantly in a state of unrest. Naruto was able to slow himself with his chakra, but he wasn't able to completely stop and repel the air, so he was only able to descend slowly, as opposed to walking on the air. Maybe there was something missing, though.

'What if I channel chakra to my feet, but change the nature of that chakra to the wind nature?' he thought. It wasn't a hard thing for Naruto to do, he already managed to learn a wind natured jutsu in which he sent chakra to his feet, it was the first futon jutsu he learned in his training. With his new idea, Naruto climbed the tree, adjusting his chakra once he was at the desired branch. He carefully changed his chakra to the wind nature and stepped off the branch. Naruto expected to sink to the ground slowly, slower than he had the last time he jumped off, but he never, in his wildest imagination, expected to be standing on the air.

'Amazing,' he thought to himself. 'It looks like the wind nature idea did the trick! I'm on some kind of hot streak. First the idea about the clones, and now this walking on air thing. Oh man, if that old hag had this kind of luck, she'd be filthy rich inside a week! And that Ero-Sennin had the nerve to call me stupid, this will show him!'

Tentatively, Naruto took a step forward, almost falling due to the instability of his feet. He adjusted his chakra to be slightly less fluid at his feet so that it could catch a grip on the air particles beneath him. He continued to walk forward in the open air, constantly adjusting and readjusting his chakra until he was able to step forward without wobbling. Once he achieved that, he took off into a run, running right over his clones, who all stared up at him in amazement.

For the next few hours, Naruto practiced running on the air, quickly making progress. During this time he found out that he was able to go in any direction, even straight up or straight down with is body parallel to the ground below him, without any difficulty. He also found out that by kicking the air hard, and expelling a small amount of chakra from his feet at the moment he chose to come in contact with the air, he could propel himself forward through the air, almost like he was flying. The method was much faster than running, and it consumed a minuscule amount of chakra to perform. The technique was excellent for travel, as well as in a fight. With this, Naruto could attack an enemy from any direction, as well as change directions quickly in order for evading enemy attacks. Just by watching a little red hummingbird hover in the air, Naruto had developed what was now one of his most effective jutsu in his arsenal.

The next two weeks would grant Naruto significant progress in his training. He perfected another three techniques from his training with the clones, as well as personally perfecting the technique that allowed him to walk, run, or soar through the air. The portion of his clones that were working on fūinjutsu and kekkai ninjutsu were progressing well, and Naruto was even making progress on the Hiraishin, albeit slight progress, but progress still the same.

His clone that was posing as an Akatsuki member regularly sent back supplies (mainly medical supplies and ninja tools) and memories using clones. He had wandered around, going from town to town, waiting for the Akatsuki to finally contact him. They had abstained for the better part of the month after Naruto left Konoha, not making contact until three and a half weeks later. The memory of it left Naruto feeling cold.

The sun was bright and high in the sky. It had rained the past couple of days, but the gorgeous blue sky and the warmth of the shining sun made the rain seem like a distant memory. It was warmer today than it had been any other day since the clone set off on his mission, odd for the beginning of November. Even though Hi no Kuni was warmer than most other countries for longer, it usually began to dip into cooler temperatures around this time. It was a rarity to have a day this warm during the fall, it almost felt like a day at the end of the summer.

Naruto was walking on an old game trail, cutting right through a forest that spanned beside an old trading road. The trading road was the only road in or out of the village he had just left an hour prior. He had found a small game trail moving into the forest about thirty minutes into his travel on the dirt road, and opted to take it to avoid meeting anybody that was walking it. Open roads made you an easy target, even more so in his case, as he was wearing the robes of a criminal organization. It seemed that the Akatsuki wasn't well known amongst the smaller villages yet, which means that the larger villages like Konoha hadn't been worried enough to get the word out about the group. Not that Naruto had a problem with that, he didn't really care for having to constantly watch his back. That might come later, but for now, Naruto was just happy to sit back and gather intelligence and supplied to send back to his original via more clones.

It was hard to remain inconspicuous, however, not many people would forget someone in black robes with red clouds on them wearing a navy blue mask. That's why Naruto generally entered the villages in the evening just before the shops closed, and left later that night. Three straight days of rain, though, had foiled his plans for this village, as he ended up staying in that village for the duration of the storm. He had rented a room at an inn using money he stole from some bandits a week and a half back, spending most of the three days inside, only coming out to request food to be brought out of his room. He would never forget the peculiar old man, though, that was sitting in the lobby, telling anyone who would listen about an ancient city with massive walls surrounding it, containing the evil that was festering inside. The old man never once opened his eyes during his story, leading Naruto to believe that he was blind. He was short, with brown hair, with a face covered in wrinkles. His clothes were slightly torn and frayed in places, suggesting that he traveled somewhat, something Naruto found quite odd for a blind man. Naruto listened to the geezer while waiting for the attendant to see him. According to the old man, wars were waged trying to destroy the ancient city, but the walls could not be broken. During one such war, a man walked around the walls of the city once a day for six days. On the seventh day, the man walked around the walls of the city seven times, and the walls collapsed, allowing the invading force to finally conquer the city. Naruto liked bits of the story, but the story never really held his interest. Not many stories did. He couldn't help but feel a certain sense of resonance with the story, however, there was something in the story that really connected with him.

Naruto walked forward under the trees, admiring the lush greens sprinkled with the oranges and yellows of the fall. The chirping of the birds celebrating the end of the rain was soothing to Naruto's ears. Not that Naruto minded the rain. He generally found the rain enjoyable, peaceful. It could bring serenity to those that couldn't find any. Naruto used to love watching the rain as a kid in Konoha. It was almost as if, with each drop that fell from the sky, his pain fell away with it, and all of his troubles were washed away.

'If only it were that easy...'

A powerful voice in his head interrupted his silent musings.

'Assemble.'

The Akatsuki had finally made contact, after weeks of waiting. Naruto moved off of the game trail and sat cross legged with his back against a tree. His nerves were racing as he made a hand seal and funneled chakra into the ring on his hand.

The cave he found himself in was dark, the only source of light came from his chakra projection, and the projections of the people he found himself with. There was a statue at the back of the cave, a grotesque statue that Naruto recognized immediately. It was the same as the one that occupied Madara's cave. Naruto was occupying one of the fingers on its hand, the other members of the Akatsuki stood on the remaining fingers. Naruto looked at the figures around him. All of them wore the Akatsuki cloaks, and each had a headband with varying symbols on them, all crossed out by a horizontal line signifying they were rogue ninja. Naruto couldn't make out any details on the members, only their general features, as that was all that was made visible by the chakra projections. A man of average size stood across from him, long bangs covering his left eye, the rest of his hair held back by a pony tail. Next to him was a short, hunchbacked figure with a piece of cloth covering his mouth. Standing next to him was Zetsu, looking as disgusting as ever. Zetsu stood by a large man with a giant sword on his back. Naruto remembered this man from years ago, he identified himself as Kisame Hoshigaki, an ex Kiri-nin that was said to be quite dangerous. Standing next to him was a man of average height that Naruto knew as well, a man that Naruto had recently gained undying respect for, a man that Naruto's plan centered around. He had long black hair, bangs framing either side of his face, held up by a ponytail in the back. Across his forehead was a headband holding a steel plate with the symbol of Konoha etched into it, crossed out by a long horizontal line running across the steel. Naruto stared into his eyes, which were displaying his Sharingan. Beneath his mask, Naruto smiled. Naruto had placed the same genjutsu on this mask (as well as the replicated necklace on his chest) as his original had done with his mask, so that his eyes were not visible to those looking at the mask. It was a good think too, else the others standing in the room might have recognized the emotions that were swirling in Naruto's sapphire eyes as he looked at Itachi.

Standing next to Itachi was a man with an odd, three-bladed scythe, the blades all separated by a few inches in between. The man's hair was slicked back, exposing his forehead, as his headband was hanging around his neck. Next to him, the person next to Naruto, was a man of middling height with a cloth mask wrapped around his face, and the top of his head covered by a cloth head covering. The only part of his face that was showing was his eyes, which were blood red where normal eyes were supposed to be white, and green in the center.

In the center of them all stood the chakra projection of a man with short, spiky hair.

"Welcome," he said. Naruto recognized the voice as the one that sounded in his head, telling him to come to the meeting. "It's been a while since we've last met. I'm happy to announce that all of our preparations have been completed, we are ready to start hunting the Bijuu for the next phase of our plans."

"The Bijuu, huh? Finally, it sounds like it will be fun. I enjoy Itachi's company and all, but I get restless when there's nothing to do, and Itachi doesn't help out in that regard," Kisame drawled.

"Well, look on the bright side, Kisame, you could have that annoying ass Hidan as a partner" Black Zetsu sneered, causing his white half to laugh melodiously.

"Shut up you disgusting infidel plant!" the man with the strange scythe yelled. "I'll have you know I'm a great partner. Just ask Kakazu!"

"Hidan, stop yelling, or I'll kill you," Kakazu growled behind his mask, red and green eyes taking on a dangerous glint.

"What the hell, Kakazu, you're supposed to have my back!"

"Will you all shut up? You're holding us up! If there's anything in this world that I hate, it's being kept waiting!"

"Sasori, my man," the man with the long bangs said, speaking to the hunchbacked figure, "there's no need to blow your stack, you're making us look bad in front of our guest, hm."

"Don't lecture me, Deidara, I don't need advice from a mediocre artist like you," Sasori growled.

"Who the hell are you calling 'mediocre'?" Deidara yelled. "I have more artistic talent th-"

"All of you be quiet!" said the man in the middle.

"Say, Pain, speaking of guests, why don't you tell us about the fresh face?" Kisame said, grinning, looking at Naruto. Naruto noticed his teeth were filed to points.

"Why don't you introduce yourself," Pain said, turning to Naruto. Naruto studied the man's face and noticed his eyes had a strange ripple pattern. A spark of recognition flared through Naruto's memory, but he couldn't place it. He knew those eyes were bad news.

"Sorry, I don't do introductions," Naruto said, adopting a deep voice "I'm not here to make friends."

"Oh, is that so? What are you here for, then?" Kisame asked, clearly amused by Naruto's answer.

"None of your fucking business," Naruto growled. Kisame erupted into laughter.

"Where did you find this guy, Pain? I like him already!" Kisame cackled.

"Why don't you at least tell us your name?" Itachi asked softly. Kisame instantly stopped laughing, throwing a sideways look at Itachi. Not many people managed to catch the interest of Itachi, and those in the room instantly took notice. Naruto turned his head slightly, shifting his apparent sightless gaze toward Itachi. There was a few moments of palpable tension.

"...you can call me...Edge..." Naruto answered, breaking the silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he notice the slight narrowing of Pain's eyes.

"Oh? That's an interesting choice of name. Tell us, what made you pick that?" Sasori growled.

"Because, it's where I live."

"What the hell does that mean?" Hidan asked, his voice rising in volume at the end.

"If you weren't such a retard, you'd be able to figure it out for yourself." The other members of the Akatsuki snickered at Naruto's answer.

"What did you just call me?" Hidan asked loudly, "You shouldn't test my patience, or I'll start to get frustrated. And when I get frustrated, I start to get angry. When I get angry, I start to lose my temper. And when I st-"

"Shut up, Hidan!" Kakazu said, cutting Hidan off.

"My name is Edge because that is where I live, on the edge. The edge of reason, the edge of insanity, the edge of pain, the edge of hell, the edge of life. My existence pushes the boundaries of these things, thus the name."

"That was pretty deep, my man. Hm," Deidara said.

"Yes. But you still never told us your interest in the Akatsuki," Sasori growled.

"As I said, it doesn't matter."

"You're testing my patience. I'm not like that idiot Hidan, I don't make idle threats. That's just as bad a being kept waiting. Answer my question or I'll-"

"Or you'll what?" Naruto said quietly, releasing a deathly aura as he spoke. The cave went silent. No one was physically there, but, as chakra projections, they could still feel the overwhelming killing intent that Naruto gave off. The members of the Akatsuki stared, wide eyed. A bead of sweat rolled down Kisame's face. Both Hidan and Deidara had a look of shock on their face, their mouths slightly agape. If Itachi was affected, he didn't show it. Pain's eyes narrowed even further. "I don't give a fuck what you think you'll do to me. I already told you, I'm not here to make friends. I don't care about your questions. I don't care what you think of me. I damn sure don't take kindly to threats, idle or no. The only reason you and that moron Hidan are still alive is because we're not physically here. Do not fuck with me. That's not a threat, I don't make threats. That's a promise. I don't go back on promises. That goes for everyone here."

The room was silent. Madara's "training" seemed to pay off, at least in some respects. Naruto might not be the brightest of the bunch, but he could damn well shut the bunch up when he wanted. Naruto noted the slight smirk on Itachi's face before Kisame erupted into laughter.

"This guy is a good find, Pain, he'll fit right in," he laughed.

Pain continued to stare at Naruto. "What is your motivation?"

"I told you. It doesn't matter. I just want to see the spectacle."

"The spectacle?"

"Yeah. Your plan is going to create quite the stir."

Pain narrowed his eyes again. "You know of the plan?"

"Not really. Not any of the details, but it isn't hard to figure out the basics. Especially when the Bijuu are involved."

"Well, in any case, it's time to get acquainted with the 'details'," Pain said.

"Good," Hidan said. "Once we know what to do, we can get started. And the sooner we get started, the sooner I can start to get rid of the infidels that run around, ignoring the word of Jashin. Maybe I'll start with some Konoha ninja, they're the biggest group of infidels there is!"

"Those that reside in Konoha are not 'infidels'. They venerate their ancestors, and follow the will of fire. In fact, one could say that their motives for fighting are just as valid as yours," Pain said.

"Huh? Are you trying to insult me? Huh?"

"No. I did not intend to ridicule the reasons why you do battle. After all, you and I are birds of a feather. It doesn't matter what you use to justify war. Religion, philosophy, resources, land, revenge, love, even a whim. No matter how trivial the motive, they are all worthy causes of war. There will always be war. The reason can be found later. Human instinct seeks conflict."

"Ah, nobody wants to hear your long winded lecture! Listen, I've got my own way of doing things. I have my own set of goals. I don't intend to devote my all to this 'organization', all right?"

"So long as you are affiliated with the Akatsuki, you will contribute to its goals. Once they have been achieved, your own wishes will be swiftly granted as well."

"Heh," Hidan snorted, "you can act as cool as you want. But nothing changes the fact that the Akatsuki wants is to make money. You're the same as Kakazu. And fighting for money is the motivation that I hate most."

"You're right. Our immediate ambition is indeed financial. But the Akatsuki's true goal lies elsewhere. And it is one that will ultimately cost a great deal of money to fulfill."

"After Tobi, I'm the second newest member of the team, third if you count this Edge prick, so I haven't heard anything about this true goal from you. You just plan stuff behind my back."

"Are you sulking? Well I suppose it's about time I told you. The Akatsuki's ultimate objective will be accomplished in stages. There are three steps in total. The first being money. The second is to use that money to assemble the first mercenary shinobi army the word has seen."

"Come on, that's just like what the shinobi villages are already doing. You complete a mission and you get a payment. What, you want to become the ruler of some tiny village that doesn't have a host nation to support it? Is that what we're all doing here? How stupid."

"A village supported by a host nation? You have it backwards. I'll explain it to you sequentially. For a nation that possesses a powerful ninja village, shinobi business plays a key role in their prophet structure. Such villages are earn great revenues by participating in conflicts both within and beyond their nation's borders. They support that nation's economy, not the other way around. In other words, in order for that nation to have steady revenue, war becomes a necessary evil. However, the current era has seen only smaller conflicts. There are no more great wars like in the past. The villages have downsized to save money, and many shinobi have lost their jobs. Shinobi exist to fight. They risk their lives for the sake of their land, and this is how they get rewarded. The five great nations are still fine. Those lands, and their ninja villages are vast and trusted. They're stable, receiving plenty of missions from other lands, but not so for the smaller nations. It takes an enormous amount of money to maintain a ninja village, those costs remain the same in times of war or peace. That being said, if a village downsizes to drastically, it won't be able to protect itself from a sudden conflict. That's where we Akatsuki come in. We will not align ourselves to any nation, and only mobilize the necessary number of shinobi at the appropriate time. An organization that will accept money for contracts or war, from both small nations and ninja villages alike. But first, we'll take on all sorts of conflicts for little profit, exclusively cornering the entire war market. Then, we will use the bijuu to cause new wars all together, and eventually, we'll build a complete monopoly, we'll control all war. In the wake of this, the ninja villages of the five great nations will collapse, they'll have no choice but to use the Akatsuki. Then, and only then, will we achieve our true goal, which lies just ahead," Pain said, raising his hand in front of him, palm up. "It's the third and final step. World domination."

"World domination?"

"Yes, but we need the power of the bijuu to accomplish our goals, which is why we'll begin hunting them now. Once we acquire a jinchuriki, we will assemble here as we are and extract the bijuu from them, seal them away, in this statue. The entire process will take three days. We will hunt all of the jinchuriki. The order does not matter, except that the Kyuubi needs to be sealed last or else the chakra inside the statue will become unstable. However, there is a problem. The jinchuriki of the Kyuubi, Naruto Uzumaki, died a little over three years ago. If a jinchuriki host dies, the bijuu's chakra dissipates, and materializes somewhere else in the world. It can take anywhere from a few days to a few years. As it is now, the Kyuubi has not yet appeared on this earth again, so we'll have to be on the lookout."

"Well then, who's the first target?" Kakazu asked.

"The Kazekage of Sunagakure, Sabaku no Gaara," Pain replied. Naruto's eyes widened underneath his mask.

"Hey, Itachi, I could use a little fun. Wanna go grab this guy and bring him back?"

"There's no need for that, Kisame," Pain said. "Deidara and Sasori are already outside Suna, ready to strike. Once this meeting is adjourned, you may begin the capture of the Ichibi. As for the rest of you, pick a bijuu for yourself, the only thing that matters is that we get them all. You're all dismissed."

At his dismissal, the projections of the Akatsuki began to disappear. Naruto was getting ready to break the connection when Pain called out to him.

"Edge, a word?"

Pain waited until all the other members of the Akatsuki were gone except for Zetsu.

"An interesting choice in name, Naruto Uzumaki."

"So Zetsu told you, did he?"

"No, that would have been me," a low voice sounded. Naruto looked back towards Zetsu and saw a familiar figure in Akatsuki robes and a swirling mask with a single eye-hole standing on the finger next to him.

"Madara."

"I expect that your travels have gone well?"

"Just fine," Naruto answered shortly.

"Naruto," Pain said, drawing Naruto's attention back to him. "You were the last container of the Kyuubi. Therefore you will be instrumental in locating the Kyuubi once it reappears, due to your familiarity with its chakra. Your mission will be to search for and gather information on the Kyuubi. Try to locate it. You might be contacted to partake in other missions, but that, and the sealing of the bijuu are to take priority."

"…Fine."

"Good. You're dismissed."

Naruto released the jutsu casting the chakra projection and returned to awareness, still sitting cross-legged underneath the tree. Fear began to gnaw at Naruto. He placed his fingers in the familiar cross pattern and summoned a shadow clone, dispersing him a second later.

'Gaara…'

Naruto stood, frozen in place, next to the Hiraishin scrolls he had just set down in the cave. The memory he had just received from his clone was paralyzing.

'Gaara…'

Naruto forced himself to move. He scrambled around the cave, making sure all of the supplies he needed were in his pouches. Once done, he slipped on his mask and ran outside the cave. He jumped into the air and slammed his right foot down on the air below him, propelling himself high into the sky.

Right

Left.

Right.

Left.

He flew forward.

Kick.

Whoosh.

Kick.

Whoosh.

He sped forward. Guided by fear.

Kick.

Whoosh.

Kick.

Whoosh.

'Gaara...'

Whew! Hey guys! Sorry that its been a really long while, I've sorta been on a mini hiatus due to the start of school, working more, and some personal stuff, but I'm back! With that said, I'd like to thank everyone that commented on the last chapter! So in this chapter, we kinda saw the beginning of Naruto's journey. If the last three chapters were an introduction to Naruto's problem, then this chapter in a way would represent the beginnings of his solution. From this point, it's going to be a long, hard road for Naruto, with many of his problems (some of which were introduced in the past couple chapters, many more which will be introduced later), threatening to break him.

Speaking of Naruto's solutions, you might have noticed that Naruto has techniques with the same name as techniques in One Piece, I've just adapted them to fit the Naruto story. You'll see this a little more later with the majority of Naruto's fire stuff, as one of the things I lamented was that Kishi didn't really expand on his jutsu creations, all of his fire techniques were simply spitting bigger fire. Ace was one of my favorite characters in OP, and I loved how he fought, so I pulled from him, which is why there's the OP portion of the disclaimer. All that stuff is Oda's, I merely tried to fit it into the Naruto world in a way that made sense. Oh and also, you might recognize Pain's expanation from the anime, that's where it came from. I loved that scene, as well as his explanation, and thought that it might give the fic some vintage Naruto feel, since the ending was complete garbage. So that isn't mine but keep it in mind, it'll come to play in a big way. It might not be the last time you see a scene like that in the fic, as I feel like it adds a little depth to it and makes the story a little more recognizable. Plus it fits really well.

Some house cleaning stuff: in the future, you might notice that some scenes that should be in the story aren't, like they've been conveniently skipped over. That's because they were, it's done on purpose. Don't worry, the scenes themselves are pretty obvious, so you'll pick up on them immediately, it's just that I have a better place storywise for them to be shown. Also, as it relates to chapter releases, the time between releases probably wont be as long as this chapter, but they might be semi-long due to how busy I am, but no worries! I'll still write!

Now that all that boring stuff is out of the way, this week's NS story recommendation is Someone else to Protect by Konohakitten. It's gloriously well written and one of my favorite fics there is! Check it out!

Um, I can't really think of anything else to say, so I'll end it here! Until next time!