Life's Wild Card

Chapter 6

XXX

"Oh this is so not good," Kankuro whispered to himself as he frantically chipped at the sand covering his sister, to no avail. "COME ON WAKE UP!" He was blown away from his sister as a violent rush of wind blew him away as a sandstorm was brewing with the arena.

XXX

Despite a sandstorm raging, only the ninja were awake to see the chaos going on within. However there was little they could do as Sand and Sound Shinobi were attacking anything they could. Kakashi blew away a few of them as he released the genjutsu from the younger generation of shinobi around him.

"Ugh, who knocked me out?!" Kurotsuchi muttered before reality hit her hard. All around her, battles were going on and of all things, a sandstorm was raging in front of her. Looking towards the Kage Box as an explosion rocked it, she saw the Tsuchikage and Hokage locked in combat with Orochimaru and his bodyguard, the Mad Bomber Deidara. "No, what the hell is going on!" She shouted to Kakashi.

"A surprise attack from the Sand and Sound Village! " Kakashi said, "I know I don't have any authority over you, but will you please defend the area with Kiba?"

"You got it Copy Cat!" Kurotsuchi replied cheekily as she and Kiba took out a few enemy shinobi that came near.

"That nickname is annoying now." The Scarecrow like ninja muttered before turning to Karin. "Karin, I know you are not yet a ninja of the leaf, but I need to you, Sakura, and Hinata to get the civilians to safe shelters. Sakura will show you the way. Do this I will personally vouch for your entrance into the village ranks."

"Yes Sir!" Karin saluted with stars in her eyes before running off to do what was told of her.

"Guy! We have to get to the Hokage!" Kakashi shouted to his rival.

"HA HA! I love it and I bet I can take out more of the enemy than you on the way! Let our flames of YOUTH burn right through them!" Guy shouted back in glee as they made their way to the Kage box. Kakashi just groaned in annoyance.

XXX

Shukaku laughed gleefully as Gaara's body rose up to the middle of the sand storm before he was forcibly put into the fetal position and a sphere of sand once more surrounded him. The surrounding sand formed a faint image of the tailed beast's head as it chomped down on the comparatively small sphere.

With the floating head now fully formed, it stared down at Naruto with glee. "I am so going to enjoy beating you to death boy, then I'll break out here and destroy everything. SO MUCH FUN AWAITS!"

"Like hell am I going to allow that!" Naruto shouted.

"You don't have a choice, boy!" The beast roared as a gust of wind knocked Naruto off balance and a blast of sand soon after threw him up into the air like a ragdoll.

Damn, you got any ideas fox? Naruto thought in panic.

"Well, the only way to stop this is to wake the brat up. Seems the idiot has a hold of the boy when he is asleep. I can give you a bit of my chakra, but you will have to do the rest in getting there. Good luck kit."

"Better than nothing I suppose." Naruto stated as he tried to right himself in the air, which was harder than it looked. Noticing another blast of sand coming his way again, only this time it looked more like a giant fist, Naruto reignited his blade and sliced it down the middle.

Utilizing his enhanced speed with the Kyuubi's chakra, Naruto bounced off the glass created from his attack, looking like a red streak, and made his way to the face of sand, slicing the left portion of it down the eye in hopes of exposing Gaara.

"Nice try kid!" The beast laughed as another fist of sand slammed into Naruto from behind, knocking the wind out of him. Then another from the left and then from the right as it slammed him into the wall that had Ino's tower of sand still attached to it. Surprisingly, Kankuro was plastered to the wall right next to him.

"Any advice?!" Naruto as loud as he could with a few broken ribs and oddly enough, he felt heavy as well.

"I have never seen this from him before, it seems like the demon is trying new things, but I will say that he usually holds Gaara in his forehead," Kankuro replied frantically as sand began to encase him as well. However, that wasn't scaring him. "Please, I don't care if I die, just stop this madness so my sister doesn't die!"

"I am trying damnit!" Naruto shouted as he painfully crouched on the wall, bones aching and feeling slightly heavier. "I suppose I should have used this sooner. "Lion Style: Iron Protection" The golden lion hood he had shinnied as it took on a metallic look as well his own skin. It could be a lot more defensive but he hadn't gotten that far yet with this summon clan. He was regretting it now. That and he still had to learn things from the Ape Clan.

"Don't tell me that is all you got kid! This is just getting fun!" Shukaku roared as the sand storm raged on and formed huge chunks that spun around the area, some looking like they would be happy to impale him at a moment's notice.

"Not even close." Naruto replied with a deadly edge as his lone Sharingan activated and leaped forward on the blocks and spikes to reach the laughing head that was mocking him, clones of himself appeared as well to try and confuse the beast.

XXX

"It's like they knew we were coming!" A sound shinobi screamed as he was cut down with kunai.

"We did." Ibiki, the head of the T&I department, replied as he cut down even more enemy shinobi that crossed his path in this part of the village. His command of this section of the village absolute in its defense.

Then Anko rushed by, riding a giant snake-like a horse, cheering in glee as the snake rode through enemies. Sometimes flipping someone in the air to make a meal out of them for the snake before turning to the next poor unfortunate soul that got in her way.

Or he hoped so, anyway, as he watched the scene with a sweatdrop.

XXX

"Fear me for I am here! Jiraiya the Gallant!" The man shouted from atop Gamabunta as the giant toad easily cut down an equally as a big three-headed snake that other shinobi were having issues with.

Despite this, the enemy still foolishly thought they could take him, only to be batted away like the flies they were.

XXX

A large shadow covered a battalion of enemy shinobi that was running further in the village and that was all the warning they got before they were cut down in a shower of incredibly sharp pieces of paper. The grateful Konoha shinobi looked and praised the beautiful blue-haired woman as she flew around on paper wings.

This was one of Jiraiya's children and students, Konan, the Angel of Konoha.

XXX

Another of his children was in the middle of the village, tearing through shinobi that dared attack the civilians with a decidedly large blade that he easily use with one hand. His yellow eyes showing his mastery of the Sage Arts.

This Orange Haired man was Yahiko, The Steam Toad Sage.

XXX

All around the village, powerful shinobi easily kept the enemy at bay. Sarutobi had complete faith in his ninja and it enraged Orochimaru to no end. He wanted this inane village wiped off the face of the earth. It seemed he couldn't have that as his forces were no match, but there was one thing he would have today and that is the Hokage's head in his hand!

He gained a sinister smile as he managed to stab the old man through the chest with his legendary Kusanagi blade, but that soon turned into a sneer as the man just melted into mud. Of course it wouldn't be that easy!

Looking around for the man, he silently observed Guy and Kakashi being given an extremely difficult time by the resurrected First and Second Hokages. Onoki was completely dominating Deidara and would soon be gone from this world, so that meant he needed to hurry up and kill his teacher before he was joined by another Kage.

Spotting the Hokage, Orochimaru cackled and leapt back into action.

XXX

Red streaks zipped all across the sand storm's moving platforms in earnest to strike from all directions. Shukaku seemed to anticipate this, however, forming rapidly spinning pillars to prevent such an attack. Each clone tried their best to cut down all obstacles but with each passing moment, this task was becoming that much more difficult.

The reason being that this was not normal sand anymore. It had a sparkling quality to it that proved to be made of refined minerals in the earth. This chaotic sand storm was the perfect obstacle of Offense and Defense. It was something that the beast had wanted to use for a long time, for it may act like a psychotic killer with no brain to speak of, but that was just an act. Like a lot of things in this deceptive world of ninja.

Time to end this! Naruto thought as the original made his way to the top of the sand storm and saw the opening he was looking for. The pillars only guarded the sides of the beast's head, not the top! "Chidori Circuit Burst!" Naruto shouted with his broken sword pointed down to the head of the beast. Large red bolts of screaming lightning short forth covering the area. Shukaku screamed in shock and agony as the storm around them stilled as large chunks of glass crashed to the ground.

As the pillars fell, all was quiet. That was until the still airborne Naruto shouted in shock as the sand around him trapped him in a giant fist. "GOTCHA!" Shukaku roared in glee as the fist rocketed upwards in delight, breaking through the ceiling of the barrier like shattered glass. The fist then grew in size as an arm was attached to it. And then a torso. And then legs. Soon, the one-tailed beast was finally formed as the sand storm fizzled out of existence.

"HA, you thought you had the upper hand? Am I a joke to you?! I am all the sand, boy!" Shukaku screamed out in glee as he formed the shape of a finger gun and blasted the captured ninja on the floor of the arena, creating a large crater in the ground. He then brought the giant fist down on the boy in a loud earth-shattering crash that deepened the crater.

And all went silent in the area except for the hysterical laughter of the mad tailed beast.

XXX

"No! Please get back up!" Kurotsuchi fearfully whispered to her friend as all the Shinobi stopped their fights in the arena stands, of course, all the Shinobi that were left were just Leaf Shinobi and one Stone. Still, the shock of such a sight rattling everyone.

"COME ON! GET BACK UP DUMBASS!" Kiba yelled frantically, "YOU BEAT ME! YOU CAN BEAT THIS GUY TOO!"

Soon, all the leaf shinobi were shouting at Naruto to get back up and fight.

XXX

Everything hurt. It hurt so much. Naruto was barely conscious at this point and his Iron defense had run out when the force of that fist slammed into him. The coarse sand that hit him multiple times had caused his skin to be shredded and made him lose a lot of blood. Not to mention that it felt like a lot of bones were broken. Maybe that heaviness from earlier was the beast's ways of trapping him. Oh well he had other things to deal with at the moment, like staying awake, with his willpower doing that for him. He knew that if he blacked out now, that was going to be it for him. He was going to die.

But what could he do now against this goliath before him? Trying to open his eyes more, he figured he could only see out of only one eye, he noticed he was staring at the ground where a lone piece of shattered metal lay. All he could hear was a ringing in his ears and everything that wasn't near him looked fuzzy.

"Are you really going lay there and die? I thought you were different kit. Is my interest in you misplaced?" The Kyuubi's voice rang through his head in disappointment.

With a jolt, the world came back in all of its clarity with Shukaku grinning down at him. "TIME FOR A DOUBLE TAP!" he shouted before sucking in as much air as he could as his fist got ready to hit his own stomach.

"No, I am not going to lose here. Not like this!" Naruto replied in cold fury as he got to his knees painfully, noticing that his left arm was broken in a few places as it hung there uselessly as blood flowed down it freely. I am going to have to use one of them. Almost agonizingly slow for him, he reached out for the shard of metal and tucked it in his fist.

"THEN GET UP AND FIGHT!" The old fox roared along with everyone else. Despite this, he knew that the flame-haired boy was spent and he couldn't give any more of his own chakra at this point as the boy's body would just give out from the pain.

That was when the fox noticed something strange in the mindscape, the running water of the waterfall was raging and he saw a large chain being dragged along with it and it was moving. The ground started to shake and it seemed like the hill the waterfall was growing. Then the water took on a golden glow. "Oh he is defiantly interesting!"

Naruto charged up as much of his chakra that was possible into his fist, more specifically the lone piece of metal in it. In his anger and desperation to win this battle, he never noticed his chakra turning a golden color as it burst all around him while his hair took on a crimson glow. His normal eye went complete white while his Sharingan eye finally opened and shifted once more into its golden atom state.

"Wind Style: Drilling Air Bullet!" The one tail shouted as he pounded his stomach to expel the air.

"Lightning Style: Railgun!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs as he flicked his thumb upward, sending off a ringing shockwave inducing bolt of golden lightning.

While normally wind beats lightning in a fight, however, Naruto's attack was so overcharged with the mysterious golden energy that as the lightning hit the giant bullet of air, it pushed past it in a sonic boom that sent the force of the air to the sides, pushing those seated further in and those standing into the walls that cracked under the pressure.

As the golden streak continued its upwards ascent, it blasted through the one tail's head, completely exploding it, leaving Gaara in midair. Despite hearing what he thought was more shattered glass, he saw the opening needed. Once again charging his body with his enhanced bio-electricity, this time taking on a golden color as well, he shot up the Shukaku's sand body in a spiral motion so the beast wouldn't catch him. Jumping off the reforming neck, Naruto's right fist connected with Gaara's face, forcing him awake.

BUMP BUMP!

Whatever he was going to say next died in his throat as both boys felt a pulse rock through then. They heard Shukaku scream in confusion until only Naruto heard it in his head as a brown electron like dot formed on one of the golden rings in his atom-like eye.

As the body of the Shukaku broke down and fell to the ground, some of it swept upwards and caught the falling boys and gently carried them to the ground safely. The sand on the walls released their prisoners and slowly slid down to the ground. Despite this, Gaara laid on the ground and looked at the standing golden and crimson boy in awe and a lot of fear. Weakly, he tried to crawl backward, "No, I will not disappear! I will not cease to exist! I won't! Get away!"

Unfocused eyes stared down at Gaara as the golden aura faded away to nothing. "We shouldn't be doing this, you and I," Naruto spoke out quietly, but it was just enough for the redhead to hear. "We've both been there in that dark and lonely place and chose different paths, but we are not alone. Not anymore…and that is what makes us stronger."

Temari and Kankuro jumped in front of Naruto and stood protectively over their little brother, shocking Gaara that they still cared enough to protect him despite all that he did to them. "We won't let you hurt him anymore." The blond girl growled defensively, making his eyes widen and then look to the sky. He had a lot of thinking to do.

"That's enough," Gaara replied tiredly. "It's over."

Gaara, wow, he is that spent. Kankuro thought as he grabbed hold of his little brother and took his shoulder over his, Temari doing the same. They turned to leave but didn't get far as leaf shinobi surrounded them. They knew when to give up at this point but Gaara had one thing to say.

"Temari…Kankuro, I am sorry."

Kankuro just smiled sadly at his brother, "Don't worry about it." He almost panicked though as he watched Gaara's eye droop before completely closing. However, nothing happened with the Shukaku again like it usually did when the boy fell asleep. Just what happened there?

As the sand siblings were taken away, Ino made her way to Naruto, rubbing her head where Temari had wacked her a good one. There was a bump forming already. She smiled at her follow blond tiredly and said, "You did it, you won."

Naruto blinked slowly as it took a second for him to process that in his nearly unconscious state. A smile crept on his face and his eyes fully closed. "That's nice, because I put the rest of what I had left into that attack and I am just glad it didn't explode in my face like it usually did."

After he said his piece, his body crumbled, only for Ino to catch him and lower him safely to the ground. She smiled at him with a look in her eyes as she ran her hand through his hair, "Rest up, you did great." She said as an extremely tired Kakashi jumped down to meet them. "Now it is my turn to get stronger. I want to be able to fight at your side."

XXX

Naruto woke up to a strange scene in front of him as he was once again sitting in the stone throne of his mindscape. The gated waterfall still raged on as it usually did, but he noticed that further down the line, it passed through a large desert of all things.

Looking across from him, the Kyuubi sat as well in his roguish human form, but now there was another throne, one that had sand swirling around it before forming another man as well. This time he was a tanned bald man in Japanese priest clothes. He opened his eyes to reveal that the sclera of his eyes were black, with yellow irises and pupils that each took the shape of a black four-pointed star with four black dots around it.

Kyuubi spoke first while leaning on his fist in a bored manner. "So the mad sand tanuki is with us now. This should be fun." came his sarcastic reply.

A tick mark of anger rose on the bald man's forehead and raised a fist to the red-haired man. "YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY TO HAVE ME!"

"Wait, you're Shukaku?" Naruto asked with wide eyes. This just didn't make sense!

"Yup!" The one tail chirped before an annoyed look crept on his face. "However, your seal prevents me from taking over in your sleep…which is kinda boring."

"I don't see that as a problem." Naruto replied with a shrug as the nine tails chuckled at his brother's misfortune. "But that still doesn't explain why you are here."

"I have a theory on that and it has to do with that damnable Sharingan you have." The fox had just a passing theory on what was going on with his container's eye, which is why he was willing to tell the boy. Now, the golden aura and the chain in the water he had seen before was something the great beast knew all too well and he would enjoy watching Naruto figure that one out as when he mastered that power, he would have the strongest jailer ever.

"Oh, what is that?"

"A mutation." The Kyuubi began. "The Sharingan's past is a dark one and I know the stages, but it seems to have taken a different one with your blood mixed in. Usually that would result in an eye called the Rinnegan" Shukaku's attention perked up at that as he listened more intently, "but yours is far different. Here, look."

Water bubbled up from the nearby stream as it rose up and traveled to the area between the three. Slowly it took the form of Naruto's usual blue eye to show what the beast was talking about. Then it bled into that of the three tomoa eye of the Sharingan. Those three tomoa then begun spinning in a circle rapidly and formed a ring as the red of the eye went black while the ring went gold and split into three, almost making it look like six rings. Finally, two dots formed on a couple of the arcs. One brown and the other a crimson red.

"It is quite different, don't you think brother?"

"Oh yeah, but what does it do?"

The red haired man shrugged, "I mostly have no clue, but what I do know is that brown dot didn't show until you did, giving me the notion that it can completely absorb great sources of energy like us in an instant but at the cost of extreme exhaustion to the user. In Naruto's case though, he was already at that point from fighting you and your old container, so this put him in a near death like state, forcing me to keep him alive."

"So I am going to have to figure out what the other powers are on my own." Naruto said before his eyes widened comically. "Wait, near death?! How long have I been out?!"

"Oh, about a week or two."

"Oh…that bad huh?"

"Hey I tried my best to keep you alive but it proved that it was both a good and bad thing." Kyuubi explained. "Luckily, it would seem a lady name Tsunade has stepped in and stabilized you."

Tsunade huh, he hadn't seen her in a while. She was the head doctor at the hospital. That was another thing, they had interacted a lot when he was a kid in his training with his teachers. After he was sealed, he didn't see much of her other than he knew she was on a gambling vacation. It seemed she was back. Good, he liked her.

Frowning at not knowing how long he was going to be in his own mind, nor what to even call this new form of his eye, he decided to shrug it off and asked a question that had been plaguing at his mind while a table formed between the three of them from the earth. Not to mention he was going to have to befriend another beast within. "So I get that Shukaku is the one tailed beast's name, do you have a name as well, Kyuubi?"

The red haired man stared at Naruto for a long time in contemplation. He was still unsure if Naruto would continue to interest him but the boy did want to work with him instead of sealing him away further to keep him quiet. He closed his eyes for a moment before glaring at the boy. "If I tell you my name, you will have to continue to interest me while I put my trust you. A name is not just something you give out willy nilly. That is a human thing…along with Shukaku's."

"I promise I will not betray that trust, you have my word," Naruto replied seriously, the tension high in the air while Shukaku stayed silent.

The ancient beast contemplated Naruto's words for a moment. This was one thing the blond, sealed or no, always did, and usually his word meant law. A cocky smirk crossed his features and said, "You will learn in time that our names have a certain power in this world, but you may call me…Kurama."

Naruto had no idea what Kurama meant about names but he was honored that the great beast decided to grace him with his name. "Thank you. Now…wanna play go fish?"

Both men stared at the flame haired boy for a moment, no sense of logic reached them until they figured that Naruto was going to be like this for a while and shrugged. They really had nothing better to do.

As they played multiple games, Kurama saw the question in Shukaku's eyes that he was questioning as well. Was this the boy that their father had told them that was going to eventually unite them all?

Only time would tell.

XXX

A full month had passed and Naruto had finally graced the world with his consciousness. The first thing that came to him was the annoying sterile smell and the near silent buzz of the lights of the hospital. He figured he ended up here but this place was just so…boring!

The next thing that came to him was the weight on his right arm and a strange wetness that came with it. Carefully opening his eyes to adjust to the bright light, he saw a shock of messy red hair. Karin looked to be sleeping on his arm and was heavily drooling on him.

"It is a rather cute sight to see when family is seen like this, no?" came a familiar voice to his left. The Hokage smiled at Naruto as he moved to see him and smiled. "I want to thank you Naruto."

Quirking an eyebrow at the elder man, Naruto asked with a raspy voice, "How do you mean?"

"You saved my life, my boy," Sarutobi explained. "If not for that last ditch attack you pulled off, then I would have resorted to an attack against Orochimaru and his summons that would have ended my life. That golden streak shattered his barrier and passed through his head before any of us had any idea of what happened. We won, destroying him and his bodyguard with Onoki's special jutsu. Konoha survived the invasion with little to no causalities."

"At least the damn thing worked, usually the railgun would just explode in my face."

Sarutobi widened his eyes at that before he roared in joyous laughter, waking up Karin. "Come to my office later on Chunin Naruto, there many things we must discuss about the future. I'll let Karin fill you in on a few things." He replied before his form poofed out of existence. Just a shadow clone then, huh?

"I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE OK!" Karin shouted with tears in her eyes as she hugged him

"Thank you but I am fine now." Naruto replied, hugging his cousin back. Why does my body feel…normal?

"Because Tsunade and I kept your body from degrading in that bed." Kurama explained.

Huh, neat. Thanks, Kurama. The blond replied happily because he also felt something else. He felt stronger somehow…odd.

"How long was I out and what happened in the meantime?"

"Well, you were out for a whole month and while you were knocked out, each of us has been keeping watch over you since we were worried," Karin replied before a perverted grin crossed her face. "Got your own little harem going on."

"You know I don't want that, right?" Naruto asked with a monotonous voice, having been used to his cousin's antics.

"Spoilsport." Karin pouted. "Anyway while you were out, the Tsuchikage and Kurotsuchi left for their village with Kurotsuchi giving me a message to tell you to not slack off in your training." At this, the male Uzumaki snorted, not really surprised by his unofficial rival. "Ino and Hinata came over a lot like I said and Shino has been helping me with my training since I am a ninja of the Leaf now."

"Congrats." Naruto replied with a warm smile.

"Yeah, Kakashi helped me to be one. Grass doesn't seem to miss me anyway, they think I died with the rest of my team in the forest."

"Their loss." Naruto stated, "So who else got promoted?"

"You got promoted to Chunin as a field promotion because the Hokage deemed that you fighting another Jinchuriki and winning with no Jinchuriki training was enough for him. That and Shikamaru got promoted to Chunin and I have heard nothing but complaining from that guy."

"Can't say I am surprised, he barely wants to be a ninja." Naruto laughed out.

"GUY GET BACK IN BED BEFORE I FUCKING BAN YOU FROM USING THE GATES AGAIN! IT IS BAD ENOUGH YOU TAUGHT YOUR STUDENT THAT AND I HAD TO HEAL HIM TOO!" A sudden scream interrupted them as a busty young-looking blond then walked into their room with an annoyed expression of her face. That quickly changed into a soft smile as she saw that Naruto was awake. "Hey brat, long time no see. How are you feeling?"

"Surprisingly I feel better than ever," Naruto replied with a confused expression at that. Still it was nice seeing Tsunade again. Once he was sealed, she kept her distance from him. But that didn't make much sense to him. He felt that he was still missing something. "How are the kids?"

Tsunade rolled her eyes at that. Yep, her Naruto was back. It was a little known secret that Jiraiya had adopted three kids he trained in Rain and that she did her best to help. Mostly to keep the old perv from corrupting them. Still they were seen as an unofficial family. "They are fine and missed you a lot, however, Konan has taken great interest in your friend Ino."

"Heh, I figured that when I saw the paper rose in her hair." Naruto replied. They chattered for while after that. It wouldn't be until the next day that he was released.

XXX

CRASH!

Yep, he felt stronger and he was faster as well, he found that part out the hard way as he ran into the wall of the Hokage's office. For a moment, nothing happened until he was held at sword point by a couple of ANBU guards. However, the old Sarutobi just laughed and told them to leave.

After they were gone, he felt a change in the room, seals activating, which made him feel what they were about to speak of was going to change his point of view of things.

Placing an ornate looking scroll in his desk with a serious face, the Hokage began, "Now that you are a full-on Chunin, I feel it is time to fully initialize the Fallen Leaves program that we started so long ago. You may have saved my life in this previous attack, but I feel you have only prolonged the inevitable."

"Fallen Leaves? We started….what the hell is going on?" Naruto asked with arms crossed. What did he not know because he was sure he never started anything in the past like this named program?

"We figured you would be confused." Hiruzen sighed as he unrolled the scroll to reveal a complex looking seal. Naruto recognized that is a storage seal mixed with a blood seal, something vaguely familiar to him that dealt with the psyche and a….preservative seal? "When I picked the leader of the Fallen Leaves, he felt that he was not ready but most leaders are never ready. However, he had the forethought to predict a few things and set a few things in motion that led to you be sealed and bringing out the façade we created for you. We felt it was necessary to fool ROOT enough that they would not suspect that we knew what was going happen. Would you like to meet the Leader?"

"Since it feels like I am missing something, yes, I would." Naruto replied, hating feeling like he was in the dark here. The old man was telling him these things as he should already know. That was concerning to him.

Hiruzen nodded once before facing the seal over to Naruto. Shrugging, Naruto slammed his hand on the seal, adding chakra to activate it. The seal glowed brightly before a poof of smoke briefly obscured their vision. When it dissipated, Naruto stared at someone leisurely sitting on the desk. Some kid. No…not just some kid, he was looking at a far younger version of himself, where he only had one eye. He was a leader? What?

"You lost me." Naruto deadpanned, looking past his clone to the old man, hoping this was some joke.

"At this point, I would hope you would be lost. I am sure things don't seem right to you, like something was missing. Like you were missing something and that was me." The kid said, getting the original's attention back on him. "Things were happening to fast with Root that we had to do something. Root was getting too powerful and erratic. We had to make them believe we had no idea what they were planning. Make them believe that things were as they usually were while also picking up the pieces of a recent attack."

"And you had a plan?"

"Of sorts." The Leader replied. "Thanks to Jiraiya, we knew that Danzo, a man that was both a part of the village council and the leader of an organization to usurp Konoha for his own gains, was giving up trying to control the village from the shadows. Instead, he was going to cause the Fall of Konoha and create his stronghold in its place. That is when we figure we needed a contingency plan, the Fallen Leaves program. Jiraiya informed us that his new army…would destroy us easily and with barely any warning."

"Then how would we fight that? How would we plan for something like that?" Naruto asked, panic forming in his stomach.

"By remembering what the founders built in the first place." The young clone simply stated before poofing from existence.

And it all came back to Naruto as he fell on his hands and knees as memories, plans, strategies…information rushed into him as pieces of a long-forgotten puzzle snapped into place for him. The Leader's separate personally finally re-merging with his own. Completing himself as it were.

It was all so…overwhelming and he understood why he was so reluctant and felt that he was just not ready to be a leader.

Because…it was all him.

Konoha was a people, not merely a village. A fickle people but a united people none the less.

He and Itachi formed a contingency plan with the Hokage and other selected members. HE had created a seal that spilt his personality so badly. Part of him going into the scroll to start everything off. The rest being sealed off to create an illusion that Danzo had nothing to worry about. For this plan to work, he had to rejoin that village that he hid himself from for so long and prove himself in a way to them. Otherwise, they would never follow him after the village fell and it was going to fall. They would lose people but that would motivate them in the end as well. The only part they hadn't accounted for was where to regroup in the end. However, recent events with his family's own past came to mind. Using the homeland of the Uzumaki would be a great idea. But they had to find it first, so they would have to find something in the meantime.

Then there was the brewing trouble of Itachi's family back then. So it was Itachi's idea of killing two birds with one stone. End the Uchiha and create a way into Danzo's Forces but letting the man come to him after his 'defection' from the village.

The plans and strategies were all there in his mind now and with them mostly being his, he understood his younger self's reluctance to be the leader. Too many things could go wrong. But most leaders had that kind of self-doubt. It was only natural.

Naruto breathed in deeply before standing up and meeting the Hokage's eyes, the eyes of a leader, and nodding.

Yeah, they had a plan to finish.

XXX

Onoki smiled as his granddaughter cheered in celebration with her father. While she failed at the Chunin Exams, they were a formality with him. He knew his shinobi and family well enough to promote them. Besides, with her mission record, she deserved to be promoted and that is what he did.

As they went off to celebrate with a meal, he frowned and looked out his window. The words of the Hokage brothering him.

The next time you hear about Konoha, things will have changed.

Something big was on the horizon but he just wasn't sure what.

XXX

In a darkly lit room, Sasuke Uchiha's body lay motionless. He wasn't dead, but heavily sedated from the natural pain a crushed and ripped out arm would create. As if materializing out of the shadows themselves, Danzo Shimura appeared and approached the boy with a few of his agents and one man in a lab coat.

He quietly observed the boy for a minute before saying, "A broken tool you may be, but a broken tool still has its uses." Turning the man next to him, "Tanuki Shugaraki, I think it is time we test out the Uzumaki technology we…appropriated from their land before things went, heh, south for them."

Tanuki was a tall man with a light complexion with shaggy black hair. He had a narrow jawline with pronounced cheekbones and facial stubble. He wore a black kimono under his lab coat. He frowned and said, "Very well sir, but I must warn you of a hidden seal I found within their prototype. Despite my knowledge of seals, I am unsure what this particular one does."

"It matters not to me. I just want to see if we can still use the boy or if his usefulness has ended prematurely. I don't care about Itachi's threat." Danzo replied indifferently, he had a plan for that Uchiha anyway if he were to go against him.

Tanuki nodded. Walking over to a nearby dimly lit table, he took what looked to be an arm completely made of metal and covered in seals. Reaching Sasake, he began to attach the arm to the boy. A few seals lit up and attached themselves to his nerve endings and completely fused to the boy. Other seals lit up as they tested his chakra to work in conjunction with it and then shut off, signifying a success. All seemed calm and correct in Tanuki's opinion but he was waiting for the final seal to light up. The seal that he knew nothing about.

And it did as he feared. He marveled at the complexity of it because it was still beyond him. At first, the seal just continuously flashed red but then the very darkness around them bent and covered the arm in a swirling mass.

Both Danzo and Tanuki calmly watched as Sasuke's body rose of its own accord like it was possessed. As it hung there, the guards thought they were ready for what they were about to witness, but the darkness traveled to the rest of the boy's body, twisting and perverting it until he was no longer recognizable to them.

The entity before them snapped its eyes open to reveal Sasuke's senjutsu enhanced Sharingan, only they glowed more brightly and a large white grin split its face. It observed the two for a moment before outstretching its arm and Zabuza's large blade flew into its hand, the darkness perverting it as well. Then in a voice that echoed with many others said, "The Demon Zabusa's Executioner's blade…how…fitting for what we are."

"And what exactly are you?" Danzo demanded more than asked.

The entity chuckled darkly, something that sent shivers down the room's occupants and instilled a primordial fear in them. "We are the last thing all life sees. We are the reason to fear the Shadows. We are….THE END!" Soon the laughter increased in volume and echoed off the walls as it disappeared into the shadows from whence it came, leaving just one more thing to say. "You're plans for this world are going to keep us…busy for quite some time."

Tanuki's analytical mind was trying to comprehend what they witnessed and he could only come one thing. "I think that seal was meant to call forth Death itself in order to try and control it."

"An experiment into nature itself…the Uzumaki were indeed as dangerous as predicted." Danzo stated ominously, glad he had manipulated events to cause their downfall. "But it doesn't matter anymore. Preparations for the Fall are nearly complete. Tanuki, get the Gozu Tenno ready, with the Kyuubi's presence in the village for so long, it should have created the necessary amount of negativity for that summon. And get that ready."

"As you wish sir." Tanuki replied with a bow and left the room with a grim look on his face.

"You two, get in contact with Hanzo and have him prepare for my arrival," Danzo ordered. They nodded and disappeared, leaving the Leader of Root alone in that dark and empty room. "If Death itself knows about the Fall and doesn't feel the need to stop me when it clearly can now then I must have its blessing."

After all, he felt that it was his destiny to End Konoha and twist everything into his world view.

XXX

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