author's notes

Hey all. I feel a little broken that this story is finished. Thank you so much for sticking with me all these years. I started this five years ago in high school. Now I'm a college grad, an EMT, and a web designer. But Naruto has been with me all this time and I wasn't kidding when I said that I would finish this story if it killed me (hasn't yet!). The reviews were honestly the reason that I kept going, because I already knew how the story played out in my head, so I had no need to write it out unless you guys told me that you needed to read more. And you did.

What's coming next? A few people mentioned a sequel. I am not opposed to it, and you see that I left the ending open to future endeavors. However, my true intentions are to rewrite this story into an original novel. There are a LOT more themes I wanted to explore that I couldn't because I had already written myself into a hole. Rewriting the story would allow me to untangle the threads. Also the research I did over the years made half of this story obsolete. I need to rewrite it because hey, did you know that steel is very brittle in cold temperatures? No? Me neither when I wrote that Konoha had steel doors! Oops.

So we'll see. I may not be able to resist and continue editing this fic, or I may rewrite it into an original work. I will post an update when/if I am to take the story down so that people have a fair chance to save it. I intend the original to be different enough that it will be a new read entirely, but the core plot will stay the same.

Or the ending of Naruto may force me to write a sequel. I don't promise this outcome, but hey. Who knows.

Thank you all so, so much, especially to my beta who helped for a few chapters and for the amazing artwork I received. And thank you for every single review. One word or two paragraphs, doesn't matter - I appreciate it all the same.

Best,

Lady Storm