Naruto swung the shakujou up to intercept Sasuke's blade, knocking away his old comrades' chokutou with a practiced motion. Sasuke stumbled back, letting Naruto ready himself for a follow up. Spinning on his heel, he turned and thrust out his left hand, watching as a wave of force lifted Sasuke up and sent him flying back. The Uchiha doubled over, but disappeared without a sign moments before he impacted the side of the canyon wall. Naruto swung his weapon back into defensive form, turning a full hundred and eighty degrees to intercept yet another blow. He grit his teeth while Sasuke grinned.

They had changed. Naruto stood tall, cloaked in a flowing white robe marked with a blue sunburst along its trim, a robe of the Hakubo. Underneath it he wore a set of armor of brilliant blue styled after that of the second hokage, Tobirama Senju. In his hands he held a shakujou, a staff traditionally used by monks, topped with a circle that held rings of various numbers. In Naruto's case, this was a set of six rings. Not a surprising number, given that this staff had once belonged to the Sage of Six Paths himself, as had the six-jeweled necklace, similar to the one once given to him by Tsunade. They were relics of an ancient time.

Sasuke's grin deepened. He too had changed. The black robe marked with white-trimmed red clouds, symbol of Akatsuki. Beneath that rested armor similar to that of a samurai, slimmed in places to allow for greater movement, based on that of one Madara Uchiha. He wore his sword's sheath much like he had before, tucked into a belt, this time kept under his robe, but still across his back. The sword itself, however, had changed. Much like Naruto's staff, it was a relic of the Sage of Six paths, and it was deadly adept at channeling the young Uchiha's chakra. The only truly out place item seemed to be a simple pink crystal that hung from an even simpler string around his neck. He still wore that old hitai-ite, scratched by Naruto himself in this same valley years ago.

The pair showed signs that they'd been fighting a war for some time now, both holding themselves with a martial bearing. Both had become leaders of men, legends on the battlefield that shifted very essence of history with their presence. They were two sides of the same coin, as similar as they were dissimilar. They locked eyes as they fought, Sasuke's black and red mangekyou sharingan locking with the black rings of Naruto's rinnegan. Such a look would have been the end of it for any normal fighter, locked into one of the deadly Uchiha genjutsu. But since the gift from one child of destiny to another, such moves became useless on Naruto.

Of course, as demonstrated not long before, Naruto's own abilities from his eye, the Shinra Tensei and Banshou Ten'in, amongst others, were a great aide to the young shinobi, but against one who had learned to break the barriers of time and space they were far less useful. Indeed, neither Naruto nor Sasuke could use the full extent of their abilities, simply because they would be useless against such an opponent. This came down to a physical fight, knock out and drag down to the last, gifts of doujutsu used for little more than positioning. How funny that even after all the power they'd gained and all their years of training, they still returned to the most simple and basic of abilities. It was a great irony.

"I'll hand it to you, loser. You've managed to turn yourself into something respectable." Sasuke said, causing Naruto to grin in return.

"Hah, like I need your approval, you bastard. Trying to throw me off, hmm?" replied Naruto, using the Shinra Tensei to enhance a push back from Sasuke. The pair shot away from each other, causing a violent spray of water behind the pair as they slid back on the surface of the river.

"In fact, maybe it's time to wipe that grin of your face!" the blond-haired boy shouted, forcing a blast of gravity downwards, causing a fifteen meter high tidal wave to explode outwards from him. Sasuke barely moved, simply slashing up with his weapon, slicing the wave in two as it neared him, cutting a path for it to flow around him with his chakra. He was now prepared, however, for the massive sphere of mud and rock that appeared from behind the wave. He launched himself forward, hand sparking as he took the shortest path and simply let the power of the chidori smash his way through the sphere. His other hand began to burn with a black flame that slowly crept up his arm and down along the hilt of the Sage's blade, forming an armor of black fire as it did, trailing off into a blazing scarf. Sasuke knew quite well what to expect on the other side.

Naruto had used the wave to reveal the ground under the river, and then torn a chunk of it up. But even that was a ruse; a distraction to cloak his true purpose. In truth, Naruto had used the time to gather the energy of the world around him and the power of the beast locked inside. Just as Sasuke had expected, he found Naruto waiting for him, radiating with the power of the Kyuubi locked inside and the Natural Energy taken from around him.

"Senpou: Shitai!" Naruto shouted, bringing the Sage's staff up into a combat stance as he did. His eyes had changed, cross forming in the center of his rinnegan rings, with a shroud of color surrounding his eyes as the white of them began to shift into a bleeding crimson. Red chakra began to form around him, bubbling and seething, and then suddenly began to change hue as green mixed in with it, forming into a brilliant yellow shield that began to climb up his body and grow out his back, forming one by one into a set of tails.

Sasuke touched down with the water again, causing it to sizzle and steam as the black flames of Amaterasu continued to grow around him, forming down his legs and over his face and chest. The Cursed Seal of Heaven began to radiate red, spreading its pattern across his body. His skin began to shift and change as the mark shifted into its second form, fire spreading across the wings that sprouted from his back. The fire spread across his entire body, undefined at first, but not for long. Slowly but surely it took form, similar to that of Susanoo, abet brought down to a far more personal scale.

"Enton," he began, bringing his sword up to his face as the black flames shot from the hilt to the length of the blade in record speed, being joined by arcing bolts of electrical power. This electrical power turned inward as well, jumping from the curves and spikes of the black flaming armor. The sound of a thousand flapping wings joined that of a legion of cackling devils, and he swung his sword down with a sudden flourish, "Hachiman!"

The pair stared each other down for a moment, water whipping around them. Hinata watched from a short distance away, hidden amongst the trees on the shoreline. Her body hurt, bleeding in some areas and sore in most. And then, right before the pair moved, she felt her consciousness begin to be dragged elsewhere.

They were all wearing black, clothes of mourning and sadness. Hinata could remember an event very much like this years past. Indeed, if not for spotting an elder Naruto than she would have thought she'd been pulled back to the day of the Sandaime Hokage's funeral. Naruto's brilliant blue eyes were wet with tears, but just as Hinata turned to see the icon of the deceased she felt the tug again, and was gone.

She floated into nothingness for a moment, instinctively searching for an anchor until a strange light pulled her down.

"How do you feel?" asked an orange masked man, gazing down at his handiwork as he did. Beneath his mask, his face curled into a self-congratulating smile. How easy this had been. Not simply the surgery, though that had gone as easy as one could expect. It was more than that, however; bringing Sasuke to this point that he'd ask for it was a victory in and of itself. Itachi's efforts to keep Madara from influencing Sasuke had proven to be for naught as the elder Uchiha sunk his claws deeper into the young revenge obsessed man.

"I feel… good. I can feel his power flowing through me." Sasuke said softly, though not quite as quickly or directly as the orange-masked Madara had expected. Curious. He suddenly looked up, eye catching something in the peripheral of his vision. Beneath his mask his face twisted into an amused grin, eye seeing beyond the veil for a moment.

"My, my… how interesting." He said softly, looking off into seemingly nothing. "The fox boy's pet has found a way through the veil as well. It seems the Uchiha aren't the only ones with secrets of the beyond."

Hinata felt a sudden wave of dread wash over her.

She shot up in her bed, eyes wide with terror. Swirling trigramatical patterns clouded her vision for a moment, and for the briefest of moments she saw into a distant place, one of geometrical prisms and utter separation from everything she felt and knew. And then, soon as they'd come, they were gone. She found herself drenched and panting in her bed for the second time. She simply sat for a moment, mind clouded with knowledge she shouldn't have, of people she never met and places she'd never been.

Of times that had not come.

Author Note:

I was putting the finishing touches on chapter 3 of part 2 when my PC's power supply decided to give up the ghost. Not wanting to just leave everything hanging, figured I'd write a short interlude to pass the time and give a bit more foreshadowing. Also lets me jump ahead to some very fun scenes to write.

Two notes here for language usage.

Senpou: Shitai is Sage Art: Four Noble Truths. It's a reference to a Buddhist concept, much like Pain's techniques, but in this case actually refers to the four separate sources of chakra that Naruto is balancing: physical, spiritual, natural, and beast.

Enton: Hachiman is not particularly directly translated. Enton is Blaze Release, the modification of the black flames. Hachiman is a tutelary god of warriors in Shinto and later merged with Buddhism to a degree. The technique draws upon the cursed seal on his neck, one he has established a high level of control over, as well as forming armor around his body and stimulating it with electricity similar to the Raikage A.