*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*

Of Crimson and Shadows

Chapter 1 - Carte Blanche

"Tick, tock."

Two tails trailed along great bronze pillars, girdled by darkness, brown and faded.

A low grumble crept through the gaps in between, rippling across the cavern of water and shadow.

The grumble became a cough, then a wheeze.

Then a snort of derision.

Of lunacy.

Of pain.

"The winds of time have come to thine with promise everlasting," the Nine-Tailed Fox muttered through clenched teeth, blood black as tar dripping from between its lips.

A clawed hand, thin and gangly, came up to caress the bars of its cage. It traced a spiral with the tip of its claw, etching away at the metal.

"When wicked fades and life abades," the fox breathed, "to one of diff'rent casting."

The claw slipped across the bars, trailing down the surface like a raindrop on slate glass.

It laughed.

"Tick tock, Naruto Uzumaki," the beast slurred, eyes fogged and fading.

The hand fell to the ground. Water, as sick and twisted as the beast that lay among it, rushed from the impact, surface distorted.

A low hum ran through the cavern, energy sapping through the walls like spilled blood through loose earth.

The water stilled.

Silence reigned.

"Tick… tock."

On the first day, Naruto was scared.

The darkness was unending, stretching off into the horizon in all directions, melding together the sky and the earth with no fixed beginning and no well-defined end.

Infinitum.

He couldn't see himself, couldn't feel himself, his shouts fell onto his own deaf ears. All he could do was sit, and wait, his thundering heartbeat pulsing along in his chest. For what, he was uncertain… but waiting was all he could do. His senses blinded, he felt weak, alone – vulnerable.

On the first day, Darkness beckoned him.

Naruto refused its call.

"Wake up, brat!"

"Wh-huh?" Naruto sputtered, as his sleeping bag was forcibly removed from around his body, the sharp sting of northern autumn air nipping at his exposed skin. "What the hell, you damn pervert!" He rushed to cover himself. "You wanted to see me half naked, didn't you?!"

The white-haired Sannin just stopped and rolled his eyes, turning around and tossing the sleeping bag back at his apprentice's face. When Naruto yelped and went flying backwards from the connection, Jiraiya just smirked. "Come on kid, I didn't even throw it that hard. You need to build up some more muscle."

"I'm trying, y'know!" Naruto said, pulling his orange jacket back over himself, frowning when he realized it was moist from the dew lining everything in sight. "What time is it, anyway? Why are we up this early?"

"You're not gonna get stronger and grow by eating nothing but ramen all the time," Jiraiya sighed, watching as his student struggled to pull his sandals back onto his feet. "And what better time to train is there than at the beginning of the day!"

As if to accentuate his point, Jiraiya struck a pose – stretching his hands out into the air like some sort of gypsy and turning in a single circle. "So young! So crisp! So beautiful!"

Naruto blinked, then frowned in exasperation when he realized that the man was now struggling to hold back a fit of giggles. "You're not talking about the weather, are you?"

"What? Now, why on earth would you say something like that, brat?" Jiraiya scoffed theatrically, donning a face of mock hurt. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you didn't agree with me."

"I don't!" Naruto yelled, shouting at his sensei at the top of his lungs. A flock of ravens in the nearby trees took to the skies in a violent frenzy, startled by the outburst, and the forest seemed to quiet for a moment in anticipation of more yelling. "You're just gonna abandon me in a field somewhere to train by myself while you go off and stare at women's chests!"

"Would you keep it down?" Jiraiya shouted back, just as loudly. "You're gonna wake up the whole damn country!"

"Yeah? But then at least everyone would know how much of a pervert you are!"

The two shinobi just glared at each other for a moment, before Jiraiya cracked and turned away.

"Fine! You got me." He crossed his arms. "But I'll have you know that the women in this next village are very beautiful. So beautiful, in fact…" he giggled again, pulling out a notebook and pen. "Yeah, that's the stuff…"

"PERVY SAGE!"

"Alright! Knock it off! What do you want?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes and pouted. "I want you to train me! That's what I'm here for!"

Jiraiya turned and gave him a patronizing glance. "Oh, please. Even if I did try to train you, you wouldn't get it anyway."

Naruto sank to his back, nearly growling in rage. "Come on! I'm supposed to be getting stronger to fight the Akatsuki, and we're out here in the middle of nowhere and you're not even trying to train me! How am I supposed to learn anything?"

He narrowed his eyes, his mind suddenly hatching a devious scheme. "You know, if Granny Tsunade finds out you never trained me and always went to peep on girls in the bathhouse instead…"

Jiraiya jumped a solid foot in the air, like someone had taken a brand to his ass. He spun on his heel, and jabbed the butt end of his pen into Naruto's chest. "You wouldn't dare, brat."

Naruto leaned into the pen, wincing only slightly as it dug into his sternum. "Yeah? Wanna bet?"

His eyes were like fire, his face wide and mischievous.

Jiraiya stared at him for a hard minute.

Then, he sighed, drooping forward in defeat. "Come on. I just want to do my research. At this rate, I'll never get my next book published."

"You're not-!" Naruto cut himself off with a snarl, instead shaking his head and leaping back to his feet. "Can't you teach me anything today? Come on, I'll do anything!"

Jiraiya froze, a wide grin burgeoning across his face. "Aaaanything, eh?"

Naruto smirked, knowing all too well how weak-willed his sensei was in the face of his… urges. "Yeah. Anything. Just TEACH ME SOMETHING!"

"Alright! I'll…" the Sannin paused to think, bringing a finger up to his chin in deliberation. Then, he snapped his fingers. "I'll teach you the Giant Rasengan. Yeah, that's it."

"What?!" Naruto moaned, tugging at his blond hair. "Come on! I already know how to make a Rasengan! What good's a big Rasengan gonna do for me?"

"Chakra control," Jiraiya said bluntly. "And you'll be able to make… well, big Rasengans. Why are you complaining?"

Despite how frustrated he was at his godfather, Naruto had to admit that Jiraiya had a point.

It may not have been the best point, but it was a point nonetheless.

"Alright, fine," Naruto grumbled, packing his sleeping bag into a storage seal and shoving it, along with the one containing his tent and supplies, back into the pack on his shoulders. "I'll do it. But only if it's super cool!"

Jiraiya snorted in arrogance. "What?! Of course it's cool! I came up with it! Now hurry up, the next village is an hour away. I want to get there before the elderly find the hot springs."

Naruto filed in behind his sensei with a groan as they began to move out of the clearing, the horizon beginning to blur as the memory faded…

On the second day, Naruto was terrified.

The world had been reduced to a dull hum, his brain attempting to accommodate the absolute disconnect of his senses. He grew accustomed to the faded light of life far faster than he was comfortable with, but the overabundance of nothing but time and his own thoughts dragged him inward at a speed which left little room for discontent.

At first, he focused his thoughts on his friends… his godfather… his teammates. The worries of his life – the Akatsuki, Orochimaru, his comrade's fall from grace… everything followed. He dreamed of fictitious solutions to everything, some much more ridiculous than others. He reveled in his imagination, letting it pull him along through the darkness until such time that whatever gods had cursed him to this fate determined he had suffered enough.

Then… then, the debilitating thoughts of self-reflection began.

On the second day, Darkness embraced him.

Naruto barely escaped.

Naruto jolted awake, his breathing harsh and erratic.

'Every night this week,' he grumbled to himself mentally, urging his stiff body to rise from the tree he was resting upon. 'Every night, I have the same dream. Why didn't…'

He froze, his mind racing at the sudden realization that had blitzed through his thoughts.

'Why didn't I just let him do what he wanted? Why did I have to insist on training? Why didn't I just…'

He mentally sighed in exasperation. 'Just… why?'

Because you were afraid.

Naruto froze, then scowled, as he jerkily made his way back to the path to continue his journey. 'Hmmph. Afraid? Me? Of what?'

Akatsuki. Falling behind your rival.

Naruto could almost feel the voice smirking inside of his mind.

Yourself.

'Myself?!' He mentally screamed. 'Why would I have been afraid of myself?!'

Perhaps not as you were, but as you are now.

Naruto just grumbled internally, his body moving him down the gravel pathway, the trees lining the road waving in the gentle breeze. The sun had yet to dip down past the horizon, yet the sun's warm embrace did little to stave off the chilling winter air that whipped away any measure of heat that still held itself to his skin.

Still, he did nothing.

Nothing but continue walking.

To where, he wasn't sure.

But he walked anyway.

He wished he could walk these roads for forever, in a vain attempt to forget the world and simply drag himself in unquestionable circles for the rest of his natural life… whatever that was, now. He had hoped – initially, at least – that his walking would lead him somewhere important. Maybe his feet had a moral compass, and would steer him towards a new life – one that wasn't… busy.

He winced when he remembered what it had been like the last time he encountered human civilization on a large scale. His mind still shivered and shook at the pain - please make it stop - it's too much - the PAIN that had bubbled up around him, wrapping him in a snare and refusing to let him free, no matter how much he had struggled.

When he passed out and woke up the next morning on the outskirts of town, he felt only relief that he didn't have to relive that moment again…

…at least, not willingly.

He could handle small villages, where maybe ten or twenty people lived. It gave him a headache, but on nowhere near the same scale as the larger towns, making it reasonable enough to ignore. It wasn't like the people he met didn't leave him alone soon after anyways.

He winced at the thought of returning to the Leaf in his current state. As much… as much as he wanted to, wanted to see his friends again, see his home again, he was force into the vagabond lifestyle, forever searching for something.

Anything. Anything at all that could help him.

And he feared that the only one that could was gone.

On the third day, Naruto was at war.

Internally, he was exhausted – his mind had been playing a tricky game of cat and mouse with itself for what seemed like several lifetimes. A sickening thought would surface, and it would take every ounce of his being to force it back down to the dark recesses of his mind once again.

'You did it. You were the reason Sasuke left for Orochimaru.'

"No! No, I didn't! It wasn't me!" he would shout out loud, but no sound came out. "He's doing it because he wants to avenge his clan! But he doesn't have to do it alone!"

'You're nothing but a burden to Sasuke. You're nothing but a burden to everyone you know.'

His eyes would widen, unseen in the darkness. "That… that's not true! Granny Tsunade wouldn't've sent me on this training trip with the Pervy Sage-"

'She sent you away for a reason. You're weak. You're useless. You don't deserve recognition.'

Line after line, self-doubt after self-doubt.

On the third day, Naruto gazed into Darkness's eyes.

They were his own.

Author's Note(s): WOO! IT'S POSTED! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the Kyuubi rewrite. This fic is about six months in the making - I've spent so much time and gone through so many word documents planning this entire thing out, frame by frame, plot twist by plot twist, that I never thought I'd actually finish the first chapter. I can't wait to see what you all think.

Right now, things seem pretty confusing, right? Good! Don't worry, that's just this first chapter. Things are going to start making much more sense as we go along.

To all the people that read Kyuubi and gave me the much-loved support right out of the gate, I want to say a most heartfelt "thank you". Without you, I wouldn't be writing at all. To all the people that read Blonding, a sincere "thanks" as well. The amount of love and passion I get for that fic is mind-boggling, to tell you the truth. And I appreciate every last drop of feedback and support.

Alright. Enough with the sappy first chapter AN!

The cover photo is by the fantastic (and I truly mean fantastic) artist "NightLiight" on DeviantArt. Please, head to my profile page to get the link to properly check their stuff out. It's all amazing. (And you get to look at it closer up, too!)

The story description is by my beta, Infamous Storm. His link's on my profile page, too, so go send him some love! He writes some fantastic stuff. Thanks for the help, man!

It's important to note that this chapter is primarily just a feeler - I wanted to make sure there was interest in it before I continued. And there seems to be! Which is fantastic. I will, however, be waiting until most (if not all) of Blonding is complete before resuming work on this fic. I want to give both of them the time they deserve. So it may not happen for a few more weeks, but Chapter 2 will be here soon.

Thanks for reading. See you then!
-Endo

Uploaded on: 1 May 2016
Edited on: 18 Sept 2016
Official beta for this chapter: Infamous Storm
Final word count: 2,546 words