My note: the characters and concepts belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from them. Also, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (if this can be called imitation, really.)

This is a rewrite of my story New York Ninja. There were issues I felt I needed to address in that original story. Notably, that this is a crossover story and one fandom was being under-represented. I didn't want this to be just another story where Naruto ends up in another world and becomes a super-badass there. I wanted some involvement with his "home" world.

The stuff in italics is telepathic though (most of the time) and the stuff in [square brackets] is meant to be in a foreign language.

This story has at least three arcs to it. "Human Nature" is the first part. "Vessels" is the title for the second part. It's a work in progress at the moment.

Ultimate Ninja 1 - Human Nature

Four years ago...

Twelve-year-old Uzumaki Naruto dropped onto his ass, breathing heavily, grinning broadly despite his exhaustion. Who would have thought that one jutsu would be so hard to learn? But what a jutsu! So much cooler than the dumb old clone jutsu they taught at the Academy!

Naruto stood out in a crowd. He had unruly blond hair, bright blue eyes, and he insisted on wearing a loud orange jumpsuit to go with his notice-me! style of getting stuff done.

Naruto wasn't exactly the ideal ninja. Maybe that was why he had failed the exam three times in a row. He was dead last at the Academy, behind even the guy that slept all the time.

This was his last chance, Mizuki-sensei had said. Naruto had stolen the Forbidden Scroll of Seals. If he could learn just one move, Mizuki-sensei had said, if he could show Iruka-sensei he'd learned something cool, then he'd pass. There was nothing cooler than the shadow clone jutsu. "There's no way Iruka-sensei won't let me pass now!" Naruto almost-shouted enthusiastically.

It was getting pretty late though. Where was Iruka-sensei anyway? Shouldn't he be here already? Wasn't he supposed to meet Naruto out here? That's what Mizuki-sensei said anyway.

It had been dark when Naruto sneaked into the Old Man's office to swipe the scroll, but now it was getting a little cool too. It was probably already around midnight. Naruto wasn't tired yet though. It was probably the adrenaline still rushing through his veins. Naruto grinned to himself. Stealing the scroll from right underneath the Old Man's nose - what a rush! He'd felt like a real ninja!

Naruto glanced down at the Forbidden Scroll again. It looked just like any other scroll to him, only way bigger. The shadow clone jutsu was so cool though! And that was just the first jutsu in the scroll! What other awesome moves could he find written in the large scroll...? It couldn't hurt to look, right? Iruka-sensei wasn't even here yet.

Naruto nodded to himself. "Let's see what's up next... Shifting the Nine Worlds...?"

Naruto pulled the scroll onto his lap and opened it up a little further to read the next jutsu. He read and re-read the next jutsu's title a couple of times, frowning confused. "Huh? A time-space jutsu...? What's that supposed to do?"

After the jutsu's title, there was a lengthy and technical explanation of exactly what the jutsu was supposed to do. Naruto skipped over that part after the first couple of sentences. It was boring anyway! He figured he'd just try the jutsu out and see what happened for himself.

There were over a hundred hand seals to the jutsu, each seal meticulously recorded in neat, perfect penmanship. He read through the sequence a couple of times, until he was confident enough he'd get it right. Naruto rolled the scroll back up, tied it to his back, and started to form the hand seals.

It took him a good ten minutes. He forced himself to go slow, to make sure he got it right.

"Naruto!"

Naruto jumped, yelping in surprise, just as he finished the last seal. He saw the surprised look on Iruka's face, just as he felt the jutsu's effect unravelling all around him. He felt a tugging sensation, just behind his eyes. There was a rushing roaring noise that filled Naruto's head. The world went black; the last thing Naruto saw was the look on Iruka-sensei's face. Surprise and worry warred with each other...

And then...?

Bright white light filtered down through the green leaves of trees. Strange trees, he didn't recognise them at all. He heard birds, singing in the distance. A calm breeze rustled the leaves, setting the beams of sunlight to dance.

Naruto sat up. He must've landed on his ass. Maybe he passed out? The Forbidden Scroll lay a few feet away. He got up, hefting the scroll. He heard something in the distance, a strange honking sound. Naruto followed his ears. Where was Iruka-sensei? Naruto came to the edge of the wooded area.

There was a road, a really, really wide road, paved with some kind of black stone that was even, uniform, unlike the smooth cobblestones he was familiar with. There were all these yellow metal and glass things. They looked like carts, without horses. A lot of them were making that loud honking noise that he'd heard.

The buildings on the other side of the road were unlike anything Naruto had ever seen before. They were tall, so very tall, made of brick and metal and shiny reflective glass. They seemed to reach for the sky. There was strange writing everywhere, on billboards and signs and written in bright lights. Naruto couldn't read any of it.

Never mind where Iruka-sensei was... where was he now? This sure wasn't the Hidden Leaf village. There were people of all different shapes, sizes, and colours walking at the side of the road. None of them gave him even a second glance as he wandered out of the wooded area.

It had to be a park or something, Naruto realised absently, as he looked around, bewildered. Those impossibly tall buildings stretched as far as Naruto could see. They probably encircled the park.

"Where am I?" Naruto wondered.

A loud honking caught his attention. "[Get out of the road, you stupid kid!]"

Naruto jumped, surprised. He'd walked in front of one of the yellow metal carts. The driver was leaning out of the window yelling angrily at him.

Naruto hurried back to the side of the road and back to the safety of the wooded park area.

"Freaky..." Naruto muttered to himself.

He watched from the safety of a nearby tree, earning him some strange looks from passers-by. They certainly didn't think it was weird, these big yellow metal machines...

Naruto was starting to feel confused and just a little bit anxious. There were so many sudden questions, big and little. Where was he, that was the biggest one. What had that man yelled at Naruto? It was like he was talking in another language. What were those yellow metal cart-machines? How did they move? Were they alive? Who would build buildings so tall that they seemed to touch the sky and why? Two or three of those sky-high buildings could probably house the majority of Naruto's village. Comfortably even! Naruto's head felt like it was spinning. He needed to learn more. He needed to figure out what he was going to do. He needed to figure out what his next move should be. His stomach growled; he needed to eat.

Only one person could create such a state of panic and upheaval in the Hidden Leaf's ninja forces. This time, Uzumaki Naruto had stolen the Forbidden Scroll of Seals, a scroll of dangerous, sometimes wildly unpredictable techniques dating back to the founding of the village. That scroll... Why did it have to be that scroll...? The Third Hokage paced back and forth across his office, his anxiety barely contained. Some of the techniques on that scroll could really mess with the seal and that would put the whole village in danger.

Despite his advanced age, Sarutobi Hiruzen was the strongest shinobi of the village hidden in leaves. His dark eyes were still sharp as ever. He looked his age though; his face bore heavy lines, wrinkles and age-spots, and his hair was entirely white.

The Third Hokage had all his available ninjas out looking for Naruto, but he knew from experience that if the boy didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be. Naruto had learned to run away almost as soon as he'd learned to walk.

Umino Iruka burst into his office without warning. "Lord Hokage-"

"I tried to stop him, sir, but he just-" Sarutobi's frazzled secretary started. The elderly Hokage raised his hand, stopping whatever else the woman might have said.

"What is it, Iruka?" Sarutobi asked.

"It's Naruto, sir," the teacher responded. Sarutobi silenced him with a glance, then gestured for his secretary to leave. When he was sure that they were alone, that no-one could overhear them, he gestured for Iruka to continue. "When Mizuki told me what Naruto did, I went looking for him. I found him in a clearing. He had the Forbidden Scroll with him. From the looks of it, he'd been practising all night."

"What happened?" Sarutobi demanded.

"I... I don't know, sir," Iruka said. "It was like the space around him sort of... twisted...? Then he was gone, and so was the scroll."

"What?" Sarutobi started. He paused a moment, composed himself, before he once again looked over at the chuunin. "I need you to start again, Iruka. From the beginning."

It took thirty minutes to get the full details, including the handful of seals that Iruka had seen Naruto form. Sarutobi dismissed Iruka afterwards, but not before extracting a promise from the instructor that he would never reveal to anyone what he had witnessed.

Now, Sarutobi was alone in his office once more. The Third Hokage wasn't called the Professor for no reason. It was rumoured that he knew every jutsu in the Leaf village and he had a pretty good idea which jutsu Naruto had used. If that was the case though...

Sarutobi slumped down in his chair, breathing a defeated sigh. Naruto was gone, lost. Sarutobi recognised Iruka's description of the jutsu that Naruto had performed. It was a space-time technique, designed to banish someone forever. Shifting the Nine Worlds... There was no coming back from that.

There was a polite cough. Sarutobi glanced up. He'd sensed the ANBU of course, but hadn't acknowledged the man. The ANBU was wearing a white cloak and a mask that vaguely resembled a cat.

"Already?" Sarutobi muttered under his breath. The slight nod he received from the ANBU told him that he'd been heard. The Third Hokage stood, donning his traditional hat. The Feudal Lord of the land of fire had called an emergency meeting. This wasn't going to be good.

Naruto's nose led his stomach unerringly towards one of the park's open areas. He had to dodge a couple of those yellow metal carts and their angry drivers, but he found himself standing at the edge of the park, staring hungrily in the direction of a food vendor.

This vendor was based out of some kind of portable grill. He sold some kind of sausages in buns, with various condiments piled on top for extra flavour. Naruto wrinkled his nose at the idea of that slimy green stuff, but the smell of the cooked sausage overrode whatever dislike he had for vegetables. His mouth watered at the thought.

Naruto wondered how long ago he'd last had food as his stomach growled ravenously. Too long. It had been night, when Naruto had swiped the scroll and performed the jutsu that brought him here. But it was day here and he had no idea what time of day either. The sun was now sinking past those buildings, casting the whole park in shadows and painting the sky a beautiful mix of oranges and purples and reds.

Naruto stopped, when he saw someone else buy one of the sausages-in-a-bun. The man in question had paid with strange-looking money, pulled from a flat, black leather wallet which he'd kept in his jacket pocket.

And that brought home another point: Naruto didn't have any money.
Naruto glanced back at the man. He'd seen exactly where the man kept his wallet. The man had dark skin and he was bald. He was in pretty good shape, if Naruto had to guess. He had a patch over his right eye. Would it be right to steal from someone who was half-blind already?

Naruto's stomach growled again. Then again, the man's clothes were nice. He could probably afford to spare some money for a meal. They'd taught stealth at the Academy and Naruto was sneakier than most. He followed the man away from the vendor. If he was going to buy a sausage-in-a-bun, he probably didn't want to be seen mugging someone to pay for it. Naruto grinned to himself, a plan already forming. He created a shadow clone and sent it off.

General Nick Fury was caught totally off-guard when a short boy - maybe twelve - stopped abruptly in front of him. The kid was shorter than most around his age. He had spiky blond hair and clear blue eyes and his cheeks were marked with whisker-like lines. He looked almost like a cartoon fox. The kid could have been any jogger, out for an evening's exercise; he was dressed in a lurid orange tracksuit.

"[Sorry about this, mister,]" the kid said.

Fury frowned as the kid started making strange hand-puppets... There was an explosion of white smoke. Fury jumped back, startled, his hand going for his gun.

The smoke cleared. Fury couldn't believe his eyes. There was a very well-endowed, very naked girl standing there, just a few remaining clouds of smoke keeping her... modest.

"[Hi there!]" The girl giggled, winking at Fury.

This was... surreal.

Fury frowned, catching the hand in his pocket. He turned and faced another boy. This one was identical to the first one before that bizarre transformation had turned him into a girl.

"[Sorry boss,]" the girl said. She disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.
"[Damn,]" the boy muttered. He moved, faster than Fury expected, trying to sweep Fury's legs out from under him. It was only years of experience that let Fury step back, over the attack.

The kid used his momentum, twisted out of Fury's grip, and landed two quick kicks to Fury. He was knocked back a couple of steps. The forgotten hotdog in his hand went spinning through the air. The kid caught it with one hand and wolfed it down quickly. He made a face. "[Yuck! Onions!]"

Fury took a step towards the kid. "Give me the wallet, kid." It wasn't the money. Fury had maybe fifty bucks in there. His SHIELD ID was less easily replaced.

The kid frowned, not understanding. He formed a cross shape with his hands. "[Shadow clone jutsu!]"

There was another explosion of that white smoke. When it cleared, there were more than a dozen identical boys standing there. As one the boys rushed him. They had some skill, there was some training there, but the boys didn't really work together. Fury ducked under a sloppy flying kick. That boy kept going, colliding with another. They both disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

They were fakes, Fury realised. It was some kind of trick. He kicked one of them and the boy disappeared, just like the last two. Fury took a strong punch to the gut for it. He took a step back. The nine boys left seemed to rethink their strategy. Fury pressed his advantage.

The fight didn't last long. The last of the kid's clones seemed to learn from the mistakes of the first, but Fury had a lot of experience. The original kid was gone when the smoke cleared. His clones were just a distraction. Fury's wallet lay twenty feet away. He picked it up. The kid had taken his money and left all the really valuable stuff behind. Fury would keep an eye out for the orange-clad boy. That clone skill was some skill. "Not bad, kid. Not bad at all."

Naruto had put some distance between him and the man he'd mugged. He needed time to figure things out. Naruto knew he wasn't in his own village anymore. If the title of the jutsu was anything to go by, he probably wasn't even in his own world. He had to figure this out. He thought about trying Shifting the Nine Worlds again, but he had no idea where he'd end up if he blew it this time. He didn't even know what he'd done wrong last time...

The shadow clone jutsu was another story entirely. He'd bolted the second he figured out that that guy he'd robbed wasn't just some guy in good clothes. He should have expected it, Naruto guessed, having grown up in a ninja village and all. That guy was stronger than he should've been, just a bit faster than he should've been.

When he figured that out, Naruto had left his clones behind to distract the man, emptied his wallet of all the money, then ditched it and taken off. He could now remember the fight though and he was pretty sure he'd lost. "Good thing I ran," Naruto muttered. He grinned. "As if that nosebleed could catch me anyway!"

He glanced down at the strange money. He wondered how long it'd last. At least enough for a meal, he figured. Maybe two? He really had no idea. About anything. He'd have to figure it out somehow. He had no idea how long he'd be stuck here for. It was a pretty safe bet the village wasn't going to send people out looking for him. Or if they did, it wasn't going to be to bring him back.

Naruto would need food and shelter, someplace he could train and practise. There were hundreds of techniques on the Forbidden Scroll. One of them had to be able to get him back. He could pick pockets for now, but he'd need to figure out how to talk to the people here.

Naruto made his way back to the food vendor, lost in his own thoughts. He pointed when the vendor asked him something in that foreign language. It seemed to work. Naruto thrust his money at the man, who frowned at him, then passed him back a lot of change and some more of that paper money. Naruto thanked him with a grin, to which the man's frown deepened. Naruto didn't notice though; he'd already sped off into the twilight.

Now that he had a full stomach, the young would-be ninja decided it was time to venture out into that huge foreign city. His head was constantly turning at all the new things he saw. He stopped at a bank of very flat, very thin televisions he saw displayed in the front window of a shop. They had televisions back home. They were mostly used for security stuff. Naruto had seen them in the Hokage tower. They were small and the screens were sort of round and black and white. You had to be pretty rich to own one. These were big, almost bigger than Naruto was, and vividly colourful. He'd never seen anything like it.

Naruto's wide-eyed wonder was getting him some strange looks from some of the people on the street. He quickly hurried away. He didn't want to look like an idiot or a tourist or anything. He needed to blend in. Naruto walked into the store.

There was no yelling for him to get out. There were no hateful looks or whispered words shared between customers. Why would there be, Naruto suddenly wondered. This was a whole new world. He could be a whole new person too, if he wanted.

Naruto wandered through the store for a few minutes, marvelling at just about everything he saw. He was looking at a bunch of nearly-empty plastic boxes with exciting pictures on the covers, when a pretty blonde teenager walked up to him. She wore a nametag, but Naruto couldn't read her name, written in symbols he'd never seen before. She smiled unconvincingly. "[Hi there. Can I help you?]"

Naruto frowned. "Huh?"

He hadn't understood a word she'd said. Learning how to talk to these people should be his first goal if he was going to survive here. Naruto shook his head and turned away, putting down the flimsy box he'd been looking at a moment ago.

This store had an entirely different exit too. It opened up into a vast indoor world. He wandered around for a long while, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells.

There was even a cinema. Naruto recognised it, because they had those back home. Curious, Naruto decided he wanted a look. He bought a ticket for some random movie, pointing to a poster with a man on it that looked like the guy he'd mugged.

The movie was about an hour and a half long. There was lots of talking and lots of explosions, but the fighting was boring. Naruto could beat those guys and his taijutsu was the worst in his class, everyone said. Not that he agreed with them of course. Naruto was going to be the best Hokage ever.

Unless he never made it back.

Naruto moved on autopilot while he thought about that. What would he do, if he never made it back? There were no ninjas in this world. At least, he hadn't seen any yet. He wondered what he was supposed to do now.

His legs carried him to a place with many food stands and a large seating area in the middle. He looked around and discovered familiar writing on one sign. Teriyaki! He hurried over. There were two people there, one cook and one girl at the cash register.

"[Hi,]" the girl said. "[What can I get you?]"

Naruto frowned. He'd hoped they would understand him. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The girl frowned. "You're in the mall?"

Naruto grinned, jumping in excitement. "I can understand you!"

The cook shared a look with the girl at the cash register. "Yes?"

"My name's Naruto," Naruto said. "I've been here for hours already and I can't understand what anyone says! But I can understand you!"

"Is this a joke?" The girl asked uncertainly. "Are you going to order something?"

Naruto frowned and opened his mouth to answer. Before he could say anything, he heard a shriek. Across the hall, he saw a young man running, carrying a woman's bag. An elderly woman was trying to catch him. And people were just standing around watching!

Naruto took off after the man. He caught up quickly and brought the man down with a flying tackle. Naruto used his momentum and rolled to his feet, snatching the bag away from the man. "[You just made a big mistake, kid...]" The man snarled. He pulled a knife.

The man slashed at him wildly. Naruto leaned out of the way. The man rushed at him. Naruto formed a shadow clone. One of them went high, the other went low. He swept the man's legs out from under him while his clone kicked the man in the face.

The man went flying back, landing in an unconscious heap, his nose broken.

The people around him looked shocked. Naruto's clone handed the bag back to the old woman. She snatched it away and hit him with her cane. The clone dispelled. "[Who asked you for help you mutant freak?]"

"[You better get out of here, kid,]" another man said. His voice wasn't as angry as the old bat's, but he was definitely threatening Naruto, Naruto could tell. The man was slightly over-weight. He had dark skin and black hair and it looked like he was going bald. This guy was dressed in dark blue. He wore a shiny-looking badge. His hand was on something he wore on his belt. Naruto hadn't seen anything like it before, but he was willing to bet it was a weapon. The other thing on the man's belt sure was, a tonfa baton.

"But I helped!" Naruto argued.

"[I don't know what you just said, but you better get out of here now!]" The man said, louder this time. He unclipped the button holding the device to his belt. It'd be easier to pull, if he needed to.

"This sucks!" Naruto declared, throwing up his arms in exasperation. He made a face at the old hag, turned around, and shoved his way through the angry crowd, lifting a wallet unnoticed off some guy in an ugly red checker shirt, as he went. He dropped it after he emptied out the money thirty feet away.

He left this shopping centre in a huff, heading back towards the park. It was dark outside. This city was lit up by millions of bright flashing lights. He couldn't even see the stars, like he could at home; the night sky was an orange haze.

Naruto would need to find someplace to stay. He could sleep in the park tonight, but that was a short term solution and he had no idea how long he was going to be stuck here. He made his way back towards the park, the streets busy with a different kind of crowd now.

There was some good news though. Some people in this world spoke his language. That meant he could learn theirs. And with shadow clones, it'd go a lot faster!

Sarutobi returned to his office to find one of his students lounging against his desk, not a care in the world. Jiraiya, the self-proclaimed super-pervert grinned as Sarutobi approached.

Jiraiya was a big man, larger than life. He had dark eyes and long, spiky white hair tied back in a ponytail. He was an accomplished ninja, all of Sarutobi's students were, but Jiraiya didn't wear the standard Leaf forehead protector. Instead, he wore something similar, a horned plate of metal with the word 'oil' carved into it. He was dressed in old-fashioned clothes, bright red and green, and he wore a large scroll slung across his back. Sarutobi could only hope that it contained his... other writings, not notes on some jutsu Jiraiya had crafted.

Sarutobi suppressed an irritated sigh. Jiraiya had found that damn book in his desk, Sarutobi could already tell by that shit-eating grin. He wasn't in the mood for Jiraiya's good-natured ribbing; this wasn't the time for it.

Saturobi quickly scanned his surroundings. The ANBU were still out looking for Naruto, though the elderly ninja knew that they wouldn't find him, not if they searched from here to the Hidden Cloud village. He checked anyway, just to make sure they were alone.

"I need you to do something for me," Sarutobi said.

"What, no hello to your long lost student?" Jiraiya asked, feigning hurt. The look Sarutobi shot him was enough to kill his cheerful mood. He straightened up. "What is it?"

"I am no longer Hokage," Sarutobi said.

"What?" Jiraiya asked, stunned.

"This latest... incident with Naruto was the last straw," Sarutobi said.

"What's he gone and done this time?" Jiraiya wondered aloud. "It couldn't be that bad, right?"

"He stole the Forbidden Scroll," Sarutobi said. Jiraiya made a surprised face. "When the Feudal Lord found out, he called an emergency meeting of the Council."

"They can't just-" Jiraiya started.

"It's alright," Sarutobi said. "I've nominated Tsunade as my successor. Better her than that war hawk Danzo."

"She'll never go for it, sensei," Jiraiya said.

The smile Sarutobi gave him was positively predatory. Jiraiya swallowed nervously. "That's where you come in... It's Tsunade or Danzo, after all."

Naruto laughed as the subway cops struggled to keep up with him. They'd caught him picking pockets again, but he was getting better and better at it all the time. It took them almost all day to catch him at it this time. And they hadn't actually caught him yet.

Naruto had been in this strange world for almost six months. He kept his head down, after that first incident. He made sure no-one saw him using jutsu. He'd learned from that first incident too. That didn't mean he'd stopped practising.

During the day, Naruto picked pockets. He was just a kid and couldn't get a job, but he had to eat still. At night, he alternated between reading through the scroll and trying to learn English. Thanks to a whole lot of television and the use of his shadow clones, Naruto was now able to understand the people around him. He was still no closer to finding a way home, though he had some devious new ideas about how to use his shadow clone technique.

Naruto recognised early on that the subway was probably the best place to pick someone's pocket. At rush hour, it was crowded and poorly lit, with too many people jostling each other all the time. No-one noticed one more person, bumping into people. No-one ever noticed him lift a wallet here and there. Naruto tried to steal only from people who looked like they could afford to lose a few dollars; they were pretty easy to spot.

Unfortunately, someone had spotted him. Apparently, it wasn't exactly an original idea and loads of other people came here to steal. They just weren't as good at it as Naruto was. Still, there were police that watched for just this sort of thing, and those police had guns. Naruto had learned about guns from television and he wasn't in a hurry to experience what it felt like to get shot, so he ran from the subway cops.

Naruto darted between the larger shapes of commuters, slipping easily around them, while the two subway cops had to jostle and shove their way through. It didn't help them any that they were kind of out of shape. They sure weren't ANBU. Naruto ran up the stairs towards the street level, the subway cops lagging behind.

"Can't catch me!" Naruto taunted, laughing.

"Come back here, you little punk!" One of the cops coughed, catching his breath at the bottom of the stairs. Naruto was already out on the street though. By the time those two made it up the stairs, he was a block away and still running strong.

Naruto stopped after five blocks. There was no way they were still following him. The best they could hope for was to call it in, as he'd heard on television, and hope some other police officers picked him up. Naruto looked around, making sure no-one was watching him, then dropped the transformation he'd been using.

He found out that first day that it was a bad idea to stand out, to draw attention to himself. People here had never seen a ninja before, not like Naruto anyway, much less jutsu. They saw him doing these things any genin could do and they ran away terrified.

Or they got mad. He'd only needed to experience that once. They called him a freak, a mutant. They looked at him like the villagers looked at him then. Naruto didn't know what a mutant was at first, but it seemed to mean something to them. He made sure not to do jutsu in front of anyone again. Just in case. He had loads of other ninja training anyway.

"That's a neat trick."

Naruto turned, surprised. He wasn't alone in the alley, but... He could've sworn...

There was a girl there. She was dressed in something skin tight. Only her face was showing though, the rest was covered up. She was pale and probably didn't see a whole lot of daylight. She had brown eyes. Her hair was weird, brown with a white streak running down the front. She probably wasn't much older than him.

"Who're you?" Naruto asked.

"I'm real sorry about this," the girl said quietly. She took off her gloves, biting her lip and looking away for a moment. Something wasn't right here. Naruto took a step back when she tried to touch him. Something told him, it was a bad idea to let her.

His back hit a solid wall of muscle. Naruto turned around and looked up. And up. The guy wasn't wearing a shirt or anything, but he had a large, dark dome-like helmet with a red visor. "Wow. You're huge!"

The guy lunged at Naruto. He ducked under the giant's legs, jumped, and punched him in the back. It felt like punching a wall. Naruto swore, shaking his hand to try and distract himself from the pain. The big man chuckled darkly.

Naruto saw a flash of light. He jumped out of the way as a figure shot at him from a cloud of sulphurous smoke.

"[Let's just get this over with.]" It- He was blue all over. He had only three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot and he had a long tail. His eyes and mouth seemed to glow like fire. Like the girl, he wore a skin tight suit. The same symbol was present on the shoulder of his suit.

Naruto had to put some distance between them, to give himself some time to figure this out. He gathered his chakra and formed the distinctive hand seal. "Shadow clone jutsu!"

A dozen clones appeared in a cloud of white smoke. Nine of them rushed forward, piling on top of 'muscles' to slow him down, pounding on him with everything they had. Naruto sent two clones at the girl, then rushed the blue guy with his last clone.

The blue guy teleported out of the way. Naruto's clone punched the alley wall behind him and dispelled. Damn it. Muscles smashed himself into the opposite wall, dispelling half Naruto's clones. He managed to smash another couple clones while they were trying to avoid getting squashed against the wall.

Naruto had to dodge an abrupt attack from the blue guy. He tried to counter, but the blue guy teleported away. Naruto hit air. The giant grabbed him from behind, holding him in a crushing bear hug. Naruto drove his heel into the guy's crotch trying to get loose, but the big man didn't even seem to feel it.

"Like I said, this ain't our idea," the girl said, moving towards Naruto again.

Naruto flashed through hand seals. The girl reached out-

-And touched the surprised blue guy, who passed out. She looked as shocked as the blue guy. The big guy dropped the blue guy, also surprised, though Naruto couldn't see his face. He used their distraction to attack the girl. If he could push her into the big guy, her touch should-

She teleported away, like the blue guy had. He had only a second to realise before he felt her hand touch his neck. It was like all the strength left his body. His legs felt like they were made of jelly. Naruto collapsed.

"We got him," the girl said. Naruto couldn't see who she was talking to. He couldn't keep his eyes open...

Naruto was rudely awakened by a splash of water. He blinked blearily, looking around. There was a man standing over him, a solder. He was holding an empty bucket. He was bald and he hadn't shaved. Or he'd shaved badly, Naruto thought with a snicker, if the three jagged scars that ran across the right side of his face were anything to go by. Naruto didn't like the ugly look in his eyes though.

"Get up, freak," the man ordered.

Naruto blinked, shifted, and sat up, looking up at the man that towered over him. Where was he now? This sure wasn't the abandoned warehouse he'd been squatting in.

"Stand up," the man snarled. The man kicked him hard, catching Naruto completely off guard. Naruto retched and nearly threw up. The man tried to kick him again. Naruto caught his foot, was about to twist the man's ankle, when he was yanked back by the scruff of his neck.

A tall blond man held him up. This guy looked more like an animal than a man. He'd sharpened his teeth, or he was born with them that way, and they were a creepy silver. He hadn't shaved either, but he was somehow more feral-looking. He wore a necklace of what looked suspiciously like human ears.

Naruto twisted and turned to escape the man's grip, but he held tight.

"This one's got some fight to him," the soldier said, chuckling. He punched Naruto hard in the gut. The other man let him drop to the floor.

Naruto quickly rolled to his feet a good distance from the two men. He took in his surroundings more fully. He was in a white tiled alcove. It wasn't all that big, but there were two bunks for lack of a better word, a toilet, and a sink. There were more soldiers armed with big guns standing alert just beyond the alcove in the hall.

"If you're thinking about escape, don't bother," the soldier said. "My name's Colonel Wraith. I own your ass now."

Naruto said nothing. If this guy thought he was just going to sit back without trying something, he was a moron. It'd be tough to get past all those guns... but not impossible. If he used the substitution jutsu with one of them, somewhere in the middle, then used the transformation jutsu to look like them... It'd only work as a distraction, but maybe he could drop enough of them.

"In case you're still thinking of escape," Wraith said. He held out a small box, some kind of remote. He pressed the button. Blinding pain filled Naruto's head. He collapsed on the floor, clutching at his head, screaming through clenched teeth. He'd never felt anything like the white hot agony he was in now. "There's an implant in the back of your head. I push this button and you can say goodbye to the waking world, princess."

Wraith stopped holding the button down and the pain faded. Hesitantly, Naruto pulled himself to his feet, making sure to keep his distance from the two men in his cell. He kept his eyes on the remote in Wraith's hand.

"Good, we got an understanding," Wraith said. "Take him."

Without looking back, Wraith left the cell. Naruto watched him go, until the big blond guy shoved him, hard. He stumbled, but stayed on his feet. He glared at the blond man, who chuckled in response. Two soldiers moved in, grabbing him by his shoulders, forcing him after Wraith, through a labyrinthine set of identical corridors until they came to a large metal door. They typed a code into the console set into the wall next to the door and a moment later, the door opened.

The soldiers tossed Naruto through unceremoniously. The door shut behind him with a heavy clang that told him even using chakra, he probably wasn't going to be able to budge it. He pounded on it with all his strength anyway.

Naruto was left in a long, plain hallway. There were cameras hidden in the corners of the hall. They were watching him no doubt. Naruto looked around cautiously. There didn't seem to be anything too dangerous about the hallway. What was the point in shoving him in here and locking the door behind him?

He took a few cautious steps, then leapt forward as a large spike shot out of the floor behind him. It would've impaled him if he hadn't moved in time. Another spike shot at him from the left. Naruto ducked underneath, rolling to his right.

He stopped, stood perfectly still.

"Keep moving, freak!" Naruto turned and glared at the intercom.

"Why should I?" Naruto demanded, crossing his arms. He wasn't going to move an inch. Twin guns popped out of the wall behind him and fired. Naruto had to move out of the way, narrowly missing another of the spikes. There was a smarter way to do this. "Shadow clone jutsu!"

He created three clones and sent them forward at different angles. The first two were instantly dispelled and Naruto knew not to go their way. Naruto followed the third clone, until it was dispelled too. Then he repeated the process, learning each time from his clones. It wasn't exactly easy or without danger. He took a spike to the shoulder when he took a wrong step and it was only his reflexes that kept him from being killed outright.

It took him three hours to make it to the other end of the hallway. He was exhausted by the time he got there. Wraith was waiting for him at the door at the other end. Him and half a dozen armed soldiers.

"Do it again," Wraith ordered.

"Are you kidding?" Naruto exclaimed. "What's the point of all this?"

Wraith smirked and Naruto knew he wasn't going to enjoy the answer. "It's fun to watch."

"Screw you," Naruto said, crossing his arms. "I'm not doing it again."

Wraith pulled out the remote. Naruto watched him warily, but refused to back down. Wraith pressed the button and held it down. Naruto screamed and writhed in pain on the floor, exacerbating his wounded shoulder, and, after minutes that felt like hours, Naruto finally passed out.

The soldiers dragged his unconscious body past a series of other cells and dumped him in his own. Naruto feigned unconsciousness the whole way. One of them paused at the threshold throwing something black and cloth at him. "Welcome to Weapon X, freak."

Naruto waited for them to go before he opened his eyes and looked around. They'd thrown him something to wear, something skin tight and black, with a stylised X printed in yellow on the shoulder.

"They expect me to wear this...?" Naruto muttered to himself, holding the one-piece costume up. He winced as the movement reminded him of the injury to his shoulder. He peeled away his bloodstained tee-shirt to take a look. It was already healing, but it'd be a while before the injury had completely healed.

He was stuck here at least until then.

"I'm sorry, kid."

Naruto looked up. The girl who'd taken him down was in the cell opposite his. So was the big guy. They were watching him now.

Kill her... Kill them all...

Naruto looked around. Was there someone else here? Where was that other guy, the blue guy? He shook his head. He was alone in his cell. There was a green barrier that kept him inside. He knocked it with his hand and came away feeling tingly.

"Say somethin', would ya?" The girl asked. "Kid?"

Naruto glared at them for a long moment. Their eyes met. He felt an unexpected rage welling up inside him. The girl shivered visibly at his look. Naruto looked away.

"Forget about him, Rogue," the big guy said.

Naruto pulled his shirt off carefully. He needed to keep his shoulder out in the open so it could heal better. He looked down at his ruined shirt. Apart from the large hole in the shoulder, it was so stained with blood that it'd probably never come out. He looked back down to the uniform they'd thrown at him. It looked like he had no choice. For now.

He lay down on what passed for a bunk, staring up at the ceiling. He was going to get out of here. He just needed a plan...

Naruto was fine the next morning. He tested his shoulder anyway. There wasn't even a scar. Naruto grinned to himself. It was time to put his plan into action.

He reluctantly put on the skin tight black uniform he'd been given. Glancing up at the security camera, he frowned. If they saw him do this, it wouldn't work.

Naruto formed six shadow clones. That was about all that would fit in his cell without overcrowding. Then he dispelled them just as quickly. He used the cloud of white smoke as a cover, transforming into the blanket on his bunk. He'd hidden the real blanket underneath his pillow. Then he settled down to wait.

The soldiers that fed them in the morning came by after a little while. They didn't notice at first, feeding the other prisoners, the girl, the big guy, probably the blue guy too. One of the soldiers brought the food into the cells, while the other three kept the prisoners at bay.

They came to his cell. "Where'd that little fucker go?" One of them asked, dropping the tray of plastic cutlery and cheap flavourless food. "Quick. Open it up."

Naruto waited just a moment longer until he heard the distinctive hum stop. The footsteps came closer. Just a moment longer and-

Naruto leapt into action. His transformation dropped. He kicked the first soldier hard in the knee, spun around and delivered a crushing punch to the back of his head before any of them could react. He had only a moment to close the distance between himself and the other soldiers. They were even now raising their guns.

Naruto made it inside one soldier's defence, pushing his gun up and out of the way. He rammed his elbow into the man's chest as hard as he could, then kicked him in the head.

Naruto had to substitute himself with his pillow to avoid being mowed down in a hail of bullets. He was on top of the other two soldiers before they could react.

They were both out cold. The whole event taking less than a minute and a half.

He pulled one of their guns and put a bullet into each of their knees, then put a bullet into the camera. He tossed the weapon and made his way down the hall, transforming into one of the soldiers as he went. There were a couple of thick metal doors between him and the outside world, but he'd also pocketed the soldier's swipe card. About halfway there, he heard an alarm go off. A dozen heavily-armed soldiers stormed past, heading back the way he'd come from. None of them stopped to question him.

Naruto made it to the frigid outdoors before anyone realised that the soldier they had passed was actually moaning in pain, nursing a blown-out kneecap.

The choppers were in the air in record time, shining their spotlights everywhere. He created a shadow clone and sent it running, then transformed into a rabbit, hoping to blend in. They'd be looking for a big man, or at least someone human-sized.

For what felt like forever, he watched from his hiding spot in the bushes as snowmobiles went whizzing by.

He became aware of someone new. That big blond guy from his cell. He was sniffing the air suspiciously. If he could smell even half as good as an Inuzuka-

"Come on out," the man said. "I'll make it quick."

Naruto considered calling the man's bluff. Maybe he didn't really know where Naruto was hiding. Then the man looked right in Naruto's direction and grinned. His teeth glinted viciously in the morning light. He took a step towards Naruto.

It was now or never. Naruto dispelled the transformation and leapt at the blond man. The blond man snarled and tried to gut Naruto with his claws. Naruto twisted midair, avoiding the claws. He landed a solid kick to the man's head.

The blond man staggered back for a moment, before rushing back at Naruto. Naruto formed a dozen clones. The first two were dispelled by the man's claws. The next one went low, dodging, sweeping the man's legs out from under him. Naruto leapt high. Two of his clones attacked from the sides, kicking the man hard, sending him up into the air. Another two clones kicked him higher. Naruto met him coming up with the heel of his foot and sent him slamming into the frozen ground.

"Damn it! What is your skull made of?" Naruto yelped, nursing his foot for a moment.

The man pulled himself to his feet, much to Naruto's disbelief. That last barrage should have put him into a coma! He had to be a mutant, like that girl, Rogue, or her wall-of-muscles friend. Naruto cursed his luck and got ready for round two.

He heard the distinctive sound of guns being cocked. Naruto was surrounded.

Attack... Kill them all...

Naruto looked around. There was that voice again. He shook his head and raised his hands. Three darts hit him square in the chest anyway. Naruto dropped to the ground unconscious.

"He's human," Doctor Cornelius said. He was consumed by the image displayed on the screen, a three dimensional double helix construct, the kid's DNA.

"What?" Wraith demanded. "That's impossible. The things he can do..."

Doctor Cornelius nodded his head absently, as if in agreement. The boy's basic abilities were borderline super-human. He could move very fast, react very fast, if the situation called for it, which it certainly did in the gauntlet. He could hit very hard too, if the copy of Nick Fury's stolen report was anything to go by. He healed abnormally quickly. That first wound he'd sustained in the gauntlet should have put him out for two weeks minimum, but he was back on his feet the next day. He didn't heal as quickly as Wolverine or Sabertooth, but for someone without the mutant gene, he healed much too quickly.

And then there were his other abilities. He could transform himself to look like objects or people. This ability made his first escape attempt a confusing rush that saw him well past the perimeter before he was recaptured.

He could substitute himself for things and people around him too. This ability acted like a crude form of teleportation. They were somewhat prepared for this ability. He'd used it on Nightcrawler when they'd apprehended him, using Rogue's ability to incapacitate the teleporter. He probably would have escaped, if he'd known about Rogue's ability to absorb other mutant powers; he had the uncanny ability to think up complex and tricky plans on the fly.

The boy's ability to create copies or clones of himself was particularly impressive, the focus of Doctor Cornelius' attention right now. Footage of his performance in the gauntlet looped and Cornelius could actually see the boy learning. When those clones were killed, the boy retained what they had learned. The ability had such potential!

But the bottom line was, that boy should not have been able to do any of the things he could do. Doctor Cornelius couldn't explain it. There were some anomalies in Ninja's genetic structure that Cornelius wanted to study, but nothing to explain the range of his abilities. "I've studied his DNA extensively. There's no sign of the mutant gene anywhere. Believe me, I'd know it if he was a mutant."

He glanced over at footage again. Ninja had just reached the third run-through of the gauntlet. His movements were noticeably smoother this time through. His time was steadily improving each time through too. He could do it in ten minutes now, without ever injuring himself.

"How do you explain it then?" Wraith demanded.

"I can't. Not yet," Cornelius said, shrugging his shoulders. He returned his attention to the double helix model of the kid's DNA. That kid, Ninja... He had potential...

Naruto had been a prisoner in this place for four months now, maybe five, he couldn't tell. They forced to run through that hallway every day. He was getting better at it too. He found that, if he focused his chakra on his feet, not only did he move faster, but, if he kicked off against the wall, he could sometimes stick to it for a moment and avoid the spikes for precious seconds longer. It was something he was practising alone in his cell after lights out.

Naruto had tried escaping three times now. They had taken sadistic pleasure in breaking his legs last time he'd tried. That was over a month ago. He'd healed up since then but he hadn't tried to escape again. Not yet anyway. They were keeping a close eye on him, but if they thought he'd run out of tricks...

Naruto had to grin at that. When he did finally get out of here, he was going to make sure they never, ever forgot about him. He just needed a foolproof plan of escape first.

"Wake up, Ninja." Naruto opened his eyes. He hadn't been asleep anyway. He hardly slept in this place and when he did, he dreamt of those terrible crimson eyes. Wraith was standing outside his cell. Not alone, of course. Wraith was never alone. If he ever came alone, he'd be dead before he could reach for his stupid little remote. "Time to earn your keep."

The barrier dropped. Naruto paused for a moment. "What's going on?"

Wraith grinned. "We're going on a recruitment drive."

"Huh?"

The soldiers accompanying Wraith entered Naruto's cell cautiously. The last three escape attempts had proven to them all that Naruto could be seriously very violent if he wanted to be. And he was only getting more violent. It wasn't exactly in character for him. He couldn't explain it. He'd fight as hard as he could, sure. He'd rush in headfirst without a plan. He'd had enough time to himself to figure that out. Naruto couldn't do that here. He was trapped, with only himself for company. Was he maybe going a little crazy? Hearing voices urging him to kill?

The soldiers pushed him out of his cell. The others were already in the hallway, Rogue, Juggernaut, and Nightcrawler. They didn't look any happier about this than he was.

They were escorted towards a waiting helicopter. Heavily-armed soldiers were already piling into other helicopters. It looked like they were going for a full assault.

"It's going to be a good time," Sabertooth said, grinning as he climbed into their helicopter. Rogue, Nightcrawler, and Juggernaut followed him in. Naruto hesitated a moment.

"Where are we going?" Naruto asked.

"Upstate New York," Wraith answered. "Get in."

Naruto frowned, but followed the order. Rogue wouldn't look at him, he still couldn't understand Nightcrawler, and who knew where Juggernaut was looking with that stupid-looking helmet of his. It was going to be a long, awkward journey.

It was dark by the time they arrived wherever they were supposed to be going. Naruto watched the others drop down into the wooded land beneath them first, blurry black shapes against a dim grey landscape. Wraith stopped him before he could follow.

"If you're thinking about using this as an opportunity for another one of your escape attempts," Wraith warned, pulling out that hated remote. He grinned sadistically. "Don't bother."

Naruto glared at the man for a moment. Then he turned and jumped from the helicopter, aiming for a nearby tree, and from there to where the others had already assembled.

"Nice landing," Juggernaut said.

"Shut up, dome-face," Naruto shot back with an annoyed glare. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. They started to move towards their final objective. Naruto slouched after them as they made their way to the house on foot. He would have stuffed his hands in his pockets if this skin-tight monstrosity had any pockets to begin with.

House? It was more like a mansion or a castle! Naruto stopped short when they reached their objective. This place was supposed to be a school? Not quite what Naruto had in mind when they described this place during the mission briefing on the flight over. The soldiers took up positions at the edge of the tree line. They were nervous, jumpy. Naruto could tell by the way they held their weapons and looked around.

"Kill the lights and aim for the kitchen," Wraith ordered. "I want the psychics taken down first."

Two soldiers with laser scopes attached to their guns took aim through what Naruto had to guess were the kitchen windows. Another one took aim with a bazooka. It was amazing what you could learn from action movies, Naruto reflected briefly.

"Fire!" Wraith ordered.

The riflemen opened fire first. They weren't shooting bullets but some kind of dart. They shattered the kitchen windows and hit their marks just a moment before bazooka-guy fired at the wall. The explosion lit up the night and killed Naruto's night vision for a moment.

"Stand back and hold your breath, gentlemen-" Naruto snorted at Wraith's description of his soldiers. "It's time to release the Juggernaut."

Naruto watched the Juggernaut start to run, head presumably down, in the direction of the mansion. Another squad of soldiers fired more explosives at the house.

"Get in position, Ninja," Wraith ordered. "You're on clean-up."

Naruto thought about it for a moment. The look on Wraith's face was enough to discourage anything rebellious. If he did this, if he attacked these people, he'd be no better than Rogue, Juggernaut, and Nightcrawler. But he didn't exactly want to catch a bullet in the back of the head either.

"Four down, four to go," Juggernaut reported over the radio. "They're all yours now, Ninja."

"Move!" Wraith snarled.

Naruto hesitated a moment longer, then leapt from the cover provided by the tree-line and sprinted towards the mansion, well ahead of the soldiers. He smashed feet first through a first-floor window and into some kind of den, or living room. Two people jumped up off the couch, startled.

Naruto rolled to his feet and took them in, in an instant. The woman was tall, slender, dark-skinned with long white hair. She was dressed in a mauve top and a brief black skirt. The man was much bigger than her, broad-shouldered, looked quite strong. He had long dark hair and looked like he hadn't shaved in a bit. He was dressed in a loose-fitting shirt and jeans.

"What-" The woman started.

"Who-" The man said at the same time.

Naruto threw himself forward, creating a dozen shadow clones. He hit the man first, slamming into him with half a dozen fists. The man slammed into the wall hard.

"Henry!" The woman screamed. Three clones rushed in her direction. One of them was dispelled by a lightning bolt through the chest. The other two adjusted their angles of attack. One of them kicked her legs out from under her. The other clone landed an axe kick at the same time. The woman slammed into the floor hard, hitting her head. She was out cold.

"Get away from her!" The big guy snarled, leaping at Naruto. He managed to dispel several of Naruto's clones before another clone broke a lamp over the back of his head with a precision throw. The man's movements slowed significantly. Naruto hit him with another clone barrage and the man went down easily.

"Sorry," Naruto muttered, feeling dirty.

While his clones tied those two up, he made his way further into the mansion. What he needed was someone he could substitute himself with. These X-guys had to have a lot of friends, right? Back-up? They were supposed to be famous or something, according to Juggernaut. If he could convince one of them to stay hidden, he could transform into-

He was in the foyer when he felt the temperature drop drastically. He looked around. The kid coming down the stairs towards him was covered in ice. Or maybe he was made of ice, Naruto couldn't tell.

"They made you wear a skin-tight uniform too, huh?" Naruto asked. "Don't you just hate how it rides up?"

"Who are you?" The kid demanded angrily. "What have you done with my friends?"

"It's not me," Naruto said. "I hate doing this as much as the next guy. Well as long as the next guy isn't that psycho Sabertooth."

"Leave us alone," the ice-guy said. "Get the hell out of here or I'll-"

"You'll what?"

The kid spun around. Naruto punched him hard, knocking him to the floor. "Substitution jutsu," he said. "I never really thought it'd be so handy until these bozos kidnapped me."

"That's it!" The kid sent a blast of ice at Naruto, but all he froze was a nearby chair that Naruto had used as a substitution. These guys were too loyal to each other. No way would one of 'em agree to lay low, not when they could maybe fight and win right here and now. Naruto would have to find some other way.

Right now though, he had to worry about this kid trying to freeze his ass off.

Naruto grinned deviously as he formed about a dozen shadow clones. He hadn't had the chance to use this technique yet. They all formed the same seals.

All of them transformed at the same time. When the smoke cleared, the ice-guy was looking around wide-eyed at a whole bunch of pouting naked girls. "Come on, mister! Be nice!"

He spun around, totally stunned. He didn't notice the real Naruto sneaking up behind him until it was too late. The kid went down with a punch to the back of the head.

Naruto dispelled the jutsu.

"I call that my harem jutsu!" Naruto told the unconscious kid. The ice had melted, leaving a normal-looking kid behind. He had brown eyes and blond-brown hair and he looked totally average otherwise. Naruto stooped down and zip-tied the kid's hands together at the wrists, then his ankles.

"Sabertooth, this is John Wraith. Give me a sit-rep on Wolverine ASAP," Wraith said over the radio. "Have you got him bagged and ready-to-go, or do you request a little more time, buddy?"

"Negative, Colonel," Sabertooth responded. Naruto had to grin at that. It meant that one of these guys was still at large. The one that Wraith really wanted too. This could work out. "Wolverine ain't in the school or even in the surrounding area. Hasn't been here for ninety minutes either, judging by the lack of a decent scent."

Naruto started looking around for something to leave a message with. They were going to torch the place, burn it to the ground, so he'd need something fireproof.

"Ninja, sit-rep!" Wraith demanded.

Naruto frowned in annoyance. "I fought three of them. A big guy, a woman with white hair, and an ice-kid."

"Beast, Storm, and Iceman. Did you win?" Wraith demanded. That was a stupid question, Naruto thought. He was talking to the Colonel, wasn't he? As if he'd lose!

"Yeah," Naruto grumbled. Damn it! Was there nothing in here that'd survive being set on fire by a flame thrower?

"Report back then. That's all of them," Wraith said.

Naruto felt no need to respond. "After this is over, you guys need to invest in blackboards or something," he told the unconscious ice-kid. "I thought this was supposed to be a school or something..."

When the soldiers showed up to pick up Iceman, Naruto reluctantly followed them out. He hadn't found anything with which to leave that Wolverine guy a message.

The others were standing around, guarded by several soldiers with guns. Naruto joined them reluctantly. He looked Rogue in the eyes for a long moment. "Sorry."

Naruto had given them all a hard time, because they'd kidnapped him. Because they'd managed to beat him. Rogue especially. Now he'd done the same to these guys. He didn't like this feeling. Not one bit.

Naruto watched the regular soldiers set to work with their flame throwers. The insides of the mansion had been pretty much trashed when Juggernaut went lumbering through. They were just planning on destroying the building entirely. Burning down whatever it stood for. And Naruto just watched...

Another explosion rocked the village, this one closer to the arena. The invading forces were drawing closer. Up on the roof of an adjacent building, the Fifth Hokage and the former Third Hokage faced off against the traitor, Orochimaru. They were insulated from the outside chaos by the barrier Orochimaru's subordinates had erected, a barrier which kept out help.

"How nostalgic," Orochimaru said, grinning. "Wouldn't you say so, Sarutobi-sensei?"

Orochimaru had changed very little, physically, since he fled the Hidden Leaf village. He had an unruly mop of long, dark hair, a pale face, and unnatural amber eyes that appeared almost serpentine thanks to the purple markings either side of his nose.

Even though he was outnumbered two to one, Orochimaru didn't seem worried. His body language was relaxed and confident, as though he had already beaten them both.

"Orochimaru... Always so cocky," Tsunade snarled angrily. The Fifth Hokage didn't look her age. She had long blonde hair, tied back in two loose pigtails to keep it from her brown eyes. There was a mark on her forehead in the shape of a purple diamond.

She was dressed in her official Hokage robes, but she wasn't unprepared for a fight. Sarutobi was wearing full ninja armour. They'd been expecting something like this since Orochimaru made his presence known during the second round of the chuunin selection exams.

"If only Jiraiya were here," Orochimaru mused, his sick grin never leaving his face. "Then it would be a real reunion, wouldn't you say?"

Almost as if on cue, a massive toad landed on a distant snake with a noisy road, sending up a great cloud of dust. The figure in the distance was unmistakably that of the Toad Sage Jiraiya.

"This ends now," Tsunade snapped, already moving. Orochimaru barely dodged her opening attack, her fist shattering the roof he'd been standing on. Sarutobi was flashing through seals fast as ever. A moment later, the surface Orochimaru had landed on became unstable. He leapt aside just a moment before it turned to mud. And Tsunade was coming at him again. Orochimaru scowled. He'd sorely underestimated them. The sounds of the war grew closer too, but the tide had already turned against him...

Naruto lay on the bunk in his cell, staring up at the plain white ceiling. He practised running through his hand seals, muttering the seal's name as he formed it. He didn't want to get rusty. He'd done pretty well with just the basic academy techniques so far. These soldiers couldn't see through a simple transformation jutsu and he was getting better all the time.

"What are you doing?" Iceman demanded. He was still a little sore at having been beaten in such a humiliating way and it was evident in his tone of voice. They'd put him in the cell opposite Naruto's along with Colossus.

Colossus was a large man, a wall of muscle not unlike Juggernaut though proportioned differently. He had black hair and blue eyes. Naruto heard he was supposed to be able to turn himself into some kind of metal man. He was supposed to be super-strong too, not that Naruto would know anything about that. Juggernaut had taken Colossus out when they'd attacked; Naruto hadn't had to fight him.

Naruto stopped, midway through his seals. "I'm busting out of here. I gotta be ready for when the opportunity comes along."

"And you're going to be ready by making hand puppets?" Iceman shot back sarcastically.

"Don't listen to Ninja," Juggernaut said from the cell next to Naruto's. "He's already tried three times and they caught him every time."

"Hey shut up!" Naruto shouted, jumping to his feet.

Kill him! Kill him now!

Naruto shook his head and sat back down on his bunk. "I'm going to get out of here."

"The only way any of us will ever leave is in a body bag," Juggernaut said darkly. "Sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be."

"I don't give up and I don't go back on my promises," Naruto said, too quietly to be heard through the cell wall. "That's my ninja way."

"What's your story, kid?" Cyclops asked. "You don't seem like you fit in with these guys."

Nightcrawler, Cyclops, and Marvel girl were in the cell next to Iceman's. Cyclops would probably be pretty average-looking, Naruto was willing to bed, without his visor. He was average height and not particularly broad-shouldered. He even had average brown hair. He was supposed to be able to shoot laser beams or something from his eyes.

If Naruto had to choose one word to describe Marvel Girl, it would be hot. Or gorgeous. Or beautiful. Apparently, she was some kind of psychic. She could read minds, so Naruto tried really hard not to think about it. She had short, fiery red hair and green eyes, and that skin-tight uniform of hers made it really difficult not to think about how gorgeous she really was.

"That your recruiting speech?" Juggernaut laughed. Naruto frowned in annoyance. "I heard he ain't even a mutant!"

"What?" Iceman asked. "No way. He could make copies of himself and teleport and trans... form... uh..." Naruto looked up at Iceman who flushed bright red at the memory of how Naruto beat him. Naruto grinned mischievously, but he didn't say anything. The second that these Weapon X bastards found out he'd learned to do the things he could do and hadn't been born with those abilities, they'd probably try to beat the how out of him and he wasn't feeling all that co-operative.

It wasn't because his techniques were Leaf village secrets or anything. He'd had a lot of time to actually think about his life while he was stuck here. There were people back home that he missed, but there were only a handful of them. Most of the Leaf village hated him. He'd seen their looks, overheard them whispering when they thought he couldn't hear. Or maybe when they knew he could. He couldn't explain it. He wanted to keep this for himself, a reminder of some of the good times.

"If you're not a mutant, what are you doing here?" Marvel Girl asked.

"It's like Iceman said. He looks like one of us," Rogue said. "Who's goin' to know the difference without a thorough blood test? Ninja's stuck here, like the rest of us."

"Not forever," Naruto promised himself. He was going to make something of himself and that was something Naruto couldn't do while locked up in a cell.

"You know, I think we should make some kind of a formal complaint to Colonel Wraith about this, Rogue," Juggernaut said. "I appreciate they have to move us while they're repainting our cells, but did they have to make us look at these ugly turncoats all day?"

"Ugly?" Naruto asked. He laughed. "You're one to talk, dome-face. You're so ugly, they make you wear that stupid helmet when they take you out for a walk!"

"Shut up you little twerp!" Juggernaut shouted angrily.

"Or you'll what?" Naruto taunted.

"I swear to god, I'll-"

"Can't you see he's tryin' ta provoke you?" Rogue asked, sounding exasperated. Naruto grinned to himself. Sure, he could understand why they'd kidnapped him. That didn't mean they were all friends or anything. "Cut it out, Ninja."

"Aw what's wrong, Rogue?" Iceman mocked. "Can't handle a joke?"

"Iceman, cool it," Cyclops ordered.

Naruto laughed. "Good one!"

Cyclops shot him a disapproving look before he turned back to Rogue and Juggernaut. "I'm not saying we become best friends or anything, but if we want to escape, it'll go a lot smoother if we're not fighting each other."

"Ain't you been listenin' to a word we said?" Rogue asked. She sounded frustrated. "There ain't no way outta here!"

"They put these things in our heads," Naruto said, just loud enough so they could hear him. "Wraith pushes a button on this little remote control and it feels like you're going to die from the pain. Keep that in mind when you're making your escape plans."

"How do you know?" Storm asked angrily. Storm was that white-haired woman Naruto had beaten up. She was in the cell next to Rogue's. She was bunking with the big guy everyone was calling Beast, but Doctor Cornelius had taken him away someplace.

"He used it on me a couple of times," Naruto said quietly. "To get his point across."

"You're just a kid..." Marvel Girl whispered almost inaudibly.

"Tell that to those bastards," Naruto said.

"We will get out of here," Cyclops promised. "When the President hears we're being held against our will, the feds'll be all over this place like a rash."

"I've been here four months already. Maybe longer. They don't let us sleep regularly," Naruto told Cyclops. "Those guys have been here even longer. There's not going to be any outside rescue. They probably don't even know we exist. And if they do, they just don't care."

"Unfortunately, the last hope we had of getting out of here alive was executed by that slap-head in the wheelchair you seem to hold in such high esteem," Juggernaut said.

"I swear to God, Juggernaut, I'm going to clean my boots with your teeth when we get out of here," Cyclops snapped.

"So much for working together," Naruto said. He lay back down on his bunk and went back to practising his hand seals. His cell didn't have the comforts of a pillow and blankets. They learned after his first escape attempt that giving him anything he could transform into to fool them was a bad idea.

Kill them all!

Naruto stopped and squeezed his eyes shut. He could see those terrible crimson eyes again, just shutting his eyes. Naruto tried to drown the others out. He tried to drown that voice out.

"Henry?" Iceman started. There was something in his voice that cut through Naruto. He opened his eyes. Sabertooth strolled past smirking viciously. There were two soldiers behind him, dragging along the big guy, Beast, who was chained up like some animal. He was blue now, all over like Nightcrawler.

Storm gasped as they lowered the barrier to her cell and let Beast just tumble inside.

"I did this. This is my fault," Naruto said quietly. He watched Storm worry over Beast frantically. He didn't like this feeling. His fists clenched unconsciously. He felt a spike of rage. Unbeknownst to anyone, even Naruto his eyes burned crimson for just a moment.

Wraith found Doctor Cornelius in his lab. Cornelius' desk was a cluttered mess, but prominent in that mess was Ninja's file, open to the evaluation of his performance. Doctor Cornelius' interest in Ninja had peaked when he discovered that the boy was not a mutant. He was able to do amazing, impossible things and yet he was still somehow human. Wraith didn't really care; Ninja was still a freak as far as he was concerned.

Cornelius was studying a complex model of Ninja's DNA. He had long since run an obsessive and exhaustive search for any anomalies, any unknown genes, anything that could explain Ninja's abilities. He'd found nothing.

"Still wasting time with Ninja?" Wraith asked.

"I'm working on something, John," Cornelius said. "What is it?"

"Thought you might like to know, I'm sending the new recruits out on their first mission," Wraith said with a smirk. He glanced over at Cornelius' monitor. "What're you working on anyway?"

"Ninja's DNA," Cornelius said.

"Still?" Wraith asked.

Cornelius shot him an irritated look. "To be more precise, I'm working on a way to introduce the mutant gene into his DNA," he said.

"What?" Wraith asked.

"You yourself said he's had some kind of assassin training already," Cornelius argued. "He could be the next Wolverine."

"You're not giving him a healing factor," Wraith said firmly. Ninja was enough of a handful without being able to nearly-instantly heal from almost any injury they could inflict. As it was he healed frighteningly quickly.

"We have to show some kind of results, John," Cornelius said. "Or they're going to shut us down."

"And you think making mutants is the way to go?" Wraith asked. It was more of a rhetorical question.

"You've seen that leak from accounts, John," Cornelius said. "They've been cutting back our budget every year, reinvesting in regular forces."

Wraith remained silent for a moment, a pensive look on his scarred face. "Alright. I'll sign off on this experiment of yours. But you're not giving him Wolverine's DNA. I've got a better idea."

"Whose then?" Cornelius asked.

Wraith moved over to one of the computers Cornelius wasn't using at the moment. After a few moments searching, he pulled up the file he was looking for. "Hers."

The sound of heavy boots in the hallway outside Naruto's cell woke him from a fitful sleep. He opened his eyes. That thug, Sabretooth, stood in the hallways along with a dozen soldiers. He looked really happy about something.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked.

The soldiers pushed and manhandled the X-Men from their cells.

"The newbies got a mission," Sabretooth answered. Naruto watched them march the X-Men down the hallway and out of sight. He wondered what kind of mission they'd have. Would they be forced to destroy someone else's lives, just like he had? He lay back down and tried not to think about it.

"Where d'you think they're going?" Naruto asked. Only Juggernaut and Rogue had been left behind. Nightcrawler had gone with the X-Men.

"Who cares?" Juggernaut asked.

"Not you, sounds like," Naruto responded.

"They're traitors to their own kind," Juggernaut said. "I don't expect you to understand, you little twerp."

"More of this mutant superiority crap?" Naruto asked. "Your parents were human, you know."

"Yeah," Rogue said darkly. "Don't remind me."

More footsteps echoed down the hall. Naruto got up and moved towards the barrier to see who was coming. There were half a dozen soldiers and several men in white lab coats. They stopped outside his cell. "Step to the back of your cell, turn around, and put your hands on your head," the lead soldier ordered.

"More tests?" Naruto grumbled. He'd been poked and prodded to an annoying degree here.

"I won't say it again, you little freak," the soldier said. He pulled out a copy of Wraith's remote. Any excuse and they used it on him.

"Okay, okay!" Naruto said. He moved to the back of his cell and turned around. He heard the soldiers enter his cell as he put his hands on his head. They wrenched his hands back around. He stifled a gasp of pain as they handcuffed his wrists together.

Naruto was dragged out of his cell. He saw Rogue and Juggernaut watching with interest. This wasn't like when they performed all those tests before. What was going on? The soldiers and the men in lab coats led Naruto down a labyrinthine series of corridors that all looked the same, until he came to a new lab.

There was a bed in the middle, lots of high-powered lighting, and some sleek, expensive-looking machines that Naruto couldn't even begin to identify. His six month television education hadn't covered this world's evil medical experimentation. He was starting to get a bad feeling. He was just about to run when the lead soldier shot him with a dart gun. Naruto just had time to look down, before his eyelids began to feel heavy. The world seemed to spin and his legs gave out underneath him...

"There's been a change of plan, Marvel Girl," Wraith said, over the radio. There was an edge to his voice that Jean didn't like. "The boys with the calculators just decided that the good doctor's resume isn't quite what we're looking for right now." Jean could hear the sadistic grin in Wraith's words as he spoke. He was enjoying this. "A rather well-toned young SHIELD agent just handed me a termination order."

Jean shared a stunned look with Storm. "W-what?"

"The mission directive just changed from hire to fire, honey," Wraith said. Jean tried to suppress a shudder at the term of endearment, even though he didn't mean it. "We'd very much like you to do the honours in this little instance, my favourite little mutie."

"Are you out of your mind?" Jean demanded. "We're not going to kill anybody."

The scientist they'd been trying to recruit looked nervous and took a step away from them. The man was sweating.

"Believe it or not, that's what eighty-five percent of new recruits say in your position, Jean," Wraith said. "Hence the reason we've developed a clever backup initiative I'm just about to demonstrate."

Her distress beacon had been activated by remote, Jean realised with a start. Cyclops and Nightcrawler came running in. "Jean, what's wrong? We got your distress signal."

Jean realised with horror that this was what Wraith had been planning. Cyclops collapsed, screaming and clutching his head. His face was set in a mask of agony.

"Cyclops!" Jean shouted involuntarily.

"Okay. Now, suddenly, the situation has become very, very straightforward, Marvel Girl. You either get over this shyness you have about following orders or we detonate the sub-cranial homing device in young pretty boy here's head," Wraith said. His voice was cool, calm, and Jean knew he'd do it, despite all the effort Weapon X had gone to recruit them. "You have fifteen seconds to make a decision, Jean. The guy you flirt with or some stranger who was willing to launch a gene-weapon at innocent kids in Pakistan. Who's it gonna be, lady?"

"Don't do it, Jean! Don't give in to him!" Cyclops shouted through the pain. His entire body went rigid as a fresh wave of torture washed over him.

"Oh my god!" Storm whispered in disbelief.

"Very noble of you, Cyclops, but put yourself in Jean's size fives," Wraith said. "Could you let her die if the situation was reversed? This guy's a fanatic."

"Oh my god!" Storm repeated, louder this time. "Why are you doing this?"

"Let's just say there isn't much point in having an elite army of killers if they're all operating on PG-13 morality," Wraith said. It was more than that though, Jean knew. He enjoyed seeing them suffer. He was watching this entire scene, from the safety of the Weapon X base, on the feed hacked from the facility's own security cameras. "Now do as you're told and start acting like a soldier, or little Scott Summers goes out like a light bulb, honey."

"P-Please," the scientist stammered. "My name is doctor Atul Pandya. I am married to an artist named Geeta, and I have one son and three daughters."

"Five seconds, Marvel Girl," Wraith reminded her.

The scientist kept talking in a desperate babble, trying to forge some kind of bond with Jean, something that would keep him alive. She realised this and at the same time she knew it wouldn't be enough. She'd known Scott for a long time. "I went to Balliol College in Oxford. I collect dinky cars. I have an overactive thyroid condition for which I have to take four tablets every day..."

"Three seconds."

"I'm not an evil man. Yes, I have done evil things, but I'm just an ordinary human being like you are, Jean," the scientist pleaded. "I'm every bit as real as your friend..."

"Two seconds. One."

"Oh god, I am so, so sorry..." Jean whispered. She reached out with her telekinesis. The blood vessels in the man's brain burst. It was nearly instant. Nearly. Jean felt the scientist's thoughts, broadcast loud and clear. The panic and terror, followed by such terrible silence. She was crying, she realised.

"There's hope for you yet, little lady," Wraith said, sounding so very pleased with himself. Jean wanted to be sick. Her legs felt so very weak. "Get back to base, all of you."

Naruto didn't know where he was now. Those bastards had drugged him and then... and then... Nothing. He couldn't remember. He shook his head and looked around. He was in a vast dark cavernous place. There was barely any light. It reflected, dim yellow across the ripples of murky water that came up to his knees. There were pipes, thin and thick across the ceiling and some along the walls. He had to be in some kind of sewer or something. Naruto could just make out the massive bars of a cage.

"At last, my jailor comes to see me," a deep, familiar voice boomed out in the darkness. This was the voice he'd been hearing. This was the voice urging him to violence. Hateful crimson eyes opened somewhere behind those bars and now Naruto could make out the massive form of a monstrous fox.

Rogue was leafing through a trashy magazine, one she'd read half a dozen times before. Suddenly there was this noise, like a low rumble in the distance, muffled by thick concrete walls and heavy steel blast doors. It grew louder very quickly. The ground trembled. The lights overhead flickered.

"Wha-" One of the guards started. A wave of energy hit with a deafening roar. Rogue screamed as Juggernaut was thrown into her, both of them crashing to the floor. The reinforced concrete ceiling collapsed on top of them.

Everything happened so quickly. It was over in a matter of moments. There was ringing in Rogue's ears. Everything was dark. Things faded in and out. Did she pass out? Rogue was having trouble breathing. Her heart raced. She could feel it trying to bust out of her chest. There had been some kind of explosion!

Rogue was pinned down by the rubble. She cried out in agony as she tried to move. There was a shooting pain in her left arm and she could taste blood in her mouth. She was hurt bad, she knew.

Juggernaut groaned. He had taken the brunt of the ceiling's weight, shielding Rogue. "C-Cain," Rogue coughed. "Cain, w-wake up!"

"M-Marian?" Juggernaut groaned. He sounded woozy. The rubble above him shifted as he tried to move. "What... what happened?"

Rogue's panic grew. She didn't know what to do in this situation. They were buried alive. "Don't! Don't move!" Rogue gasped. Her breathing was shallow, short. She couldn't seem to get enough air. "This... this w-whole place c-could come down on top of us any second!"

It had the opposite effect. Juggernaut tried to push himself up. The rubble shifted above him. Rogue was about to use her power on him when she saw a bright light. Juggernaut shifted a massive chunk of reinforced concrete, groaning, his muscles straining in the effort.

Daylight!

"W-we're going to make it, Marian," Juggernaut grunted. He was still shielding her with his body, doing it intentionally, Rogue realised. Juggernaut carefully eased away another large chunk of rubble.

She could see him better now. His face was a bruised, bloody mess. Rogue hadn't seen him so much as injured before. A thin sheen of sweat covered his skin as he worked hard on digging them out.

Rogue wanted to help, but her arm was broken. She couldn't borrow Juggernaut's powers either, without risking his life. She was helpless and she hated the feeling. It took Juggernaut a half hour to dig them out.

"Fuck..." Juggernaut whispered, when he finally managed to clear enough of the rubble to get a good look around. "You gotta see this." He reached down and helped Rogue up to the surface. He treated her like she was made of glass, being careful not to jostle her broken arm.

Rogue stumbled out of their hole, leaning heavily on Juggernaut for support. The sudden sunlight hurt her eyes, but they adjusted quickly enough. The Weapon X facility was gone. There was nothing left but a crater. Maybe there were survivors, here and there, people that had been lucky, like her and Juggernaut, but a lot of people were going to be dead.

In the centre of the crater, what drew her eyes...

There was a monster with four tails. It seemed to stretch its muscles. Then it roared.

The X-Men were more subdued on the return trip. Cyclops tried to comfort Marvel Girl, but he didn't understand. He'd been there, but... She'd killed that man. She'd killed him in cold blood and... Marvel Girl could still hear his thoughts. She could still feel the fear he'd felt. Marvel Girl remained silent, eyes scanning the landscape below as their helicopter flew by.

The Weapon X complex was located in the middle of nowhere, in the mountains of Finland. The mountains were beautiful, pristine, and under other circumstance, visiting them might have been a nice break from dealing with the anti-mutant crap that seemed so prevalent everywhere the X-Men went. They'd been kidnapped though, tortured with sleep deprivation and testing, dehumanised and treated like animals. The impassable, implacable mountains were just another prison, keeping them caged.

"Sir, there's a problem," the pilot reported. Sabretooth growled under his breath, but turned his head to acknowledge the pilot. "I just lost contact with base."

"How far out are we?" Sabretooth demanded.

"We should be coming up on it soon," the pilot responded. Sabretooth nodded. Marvel Girl took the whole exchange in absently, her eyes staring off out the window.

The first sign that there was anything wrong came when Marvel Girl noticed the thin column of smoke, rising up in the distance. As their helicopter crossed the last mountainous ridge, the true extent of the damage became clear. Weapon X was gone. Just gone. There was a crater where they'd expected to see the military complex.

The hurried exchange between helicopter pilots was completely ignored. They were all looking out the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of what happened.

"Take us in closer," Sabretooth ordered. The pilot nodded. Sabretooth turned to the X-Men. "We're going down to take a look. If any of you even thinks of trying something..." He left the threat hanging, giving them a sadistic grin. He had that remote in his hand, his thumb on the button.

As they got a bit closer, Marvel Girl could just make out the figures of Juggernaut and Rogue. Rogue was limping, her arm hanging useless at her side, and Juggernaut was a bloody mess. As she watched, Juggernaut took a vicious punch across the jaw that sent him spinning away, end over end across the rubble.

"What... what the hell is that?" Iceman muttered.

Marvel Girl followed that fist back to the... the monster that stood there. It was definitely some kind of animal. It had large ears that stood up, like a fox's. Its eyes both faced forward, meaning it had the ability to track its targets. White light spilled from its eyes and mouth, outlining a row of jagged, dangerous-looking teeth. Its body was red-black, reminding Marvel Girl almost of the colour of a fresh blood. It swished four thick tails behind it in agitation.

There was something unearthly that hung in the air, an oppressive sense of dread that filled each and every one of them. It was like they were bugs about to be squashed. The feeling got stronger, the closer they got.

Juggernaut lifted a large chunk of concrete and hurled it at the monster. Two massive, almost elastic arms exploded out of the ground, catching the missile and crushing it, letting the rubble fall to the ground harmlessly. They retracted back to the monster while another fist caught Juggernaut. Rogue shrieked and hurried to help the big mutant, but there was nothing she could do.

"We have to help them," Cyclops said. They piled out of the helicopters.

A thick wall of ice formed between Rogue and Juggernaut, and the four-tailed monster. Iceman slid along on an ice-slide, freezing the monster in place with a thick layer of ice. "I got it!"

The four-tailed monster didn't react at first. Then the ice started to crack.

"I think I got it..." Iceman started. He wasn't so sure anymore.

The ice shattered, sending sharp shards flying in every direction. The monster growled, the sound sending a shiver crawling up Iceman's frozen spine.

Storm took to the air. Black clouds rolled in from out of nowhere. Thunder rumbled ominously. All of a sudden, black turned to white. Lightning flashed down, smashing into the beast. The thunder that followed almost instantly left everyone's ears ringing.

The monster pulled itself up. The ground around it had turned to glass, but it didn't seem affected at all. It had just shrugged off her attack. "What... what is that thing?" Storm gasped.

The monster roared in anger. Two giant arms shot up, trying to bash her from the sky. Cyclops stepped up, opening a full-powered optic blast at the monster. It dug its limbs in and weathered a blast that could punch through reinforced steel. Nothing seemed to stop it.

"I-it just appeared... There was an explosion. Me an' Cain were lucky to survive! When we dug our way out, that... that thing..." Rogue gasped. She was crying. There was real fear in her voice. Rogue looked anxiously at Juggernaut, who was bleeding badly. She ignored the blood dripping from her own shattered arm. Marvel Girl was next to him, trying to treat his wounds. "Is he gonna be alright?"

"I think so," Marvel Girl said, nodding her head.

"We gotta retreat!" Iceman called out. Another wall of his ice shattered under the monster's onslaught.

"We can't move Juggernaut in his condition," Marvel Girl said, shaking her head.

The four-tailed monster sent two massive arms out. It caught their hovering helicopters in its gigantic hands. The four-tailed monster crushed them as if they were made of tinfoil. The explosions were muffled by its hands.

"We ain't goin' anywhere now," Sabretooth growled. He glanced down at Marvel Girl, still trying to treat Juggernaut. "Leave him! He's dead weight. Worry about yourself. It's us or that monster and I ain't about to lose to some animal on steroids!"

"You bastard!" Rogue snarled.

The monster stopped. Its head turned, its eyes now tracking Sabretooth intently. It straightened up, opened his mouth wide, then wider, impossibly wide. It reached inside its own mouth, grabbed something, then pulled. An implant tore free with a spray of blood that stopped almost the second it started. The beast caught the tiny piece of plastic in its claws, then crushed it. It grinned viciously at Sabretooth, its eyes narrowing.

The four-tailed monster sunk into a crouch, its muscles bunching.

"That... that was an implant!" Storm said.

The ground shook, walls of concrete and steel wrenched from the earth by massive, held suspended by limbs of red-black energy. The monster roared again, sending massive chunks of rubble hurtling at Sabretooth. He ducked and dodged, but the chunks were too big. A massive fist burst through one of the larger chunks. Sabretooth was caught completely by surprise. The fist sent him spinning to the ground.

"That thing is one of us?" Colossus shouted.

"The only one of us not here is-" Iceman started. He looked around, quickly taking a headcount. "Ninja!"

"I've got a plan," Marvel Girl said grimly.

"Jean-" Cyclops started.

"We're not stopping him," Marvel Girl said. "We can't even slow him down. If this keeps up, we will lose." She looked away. "Ninja isn't normally like this. This has to be something else."

"What do you need?" Cyclops asked after a long moment.

"Keep him busy," Marvel Girl said. "I'm going to try and reach him telepathically. Ninja has to be in there somewhere. He's the only one that can stop this."

"Oh my! He appears to be doing something new," Beast observed.

The four-tailed monster roared. Its body shook, expelling hundreds of strange blue and red spheres of energy. The monster crouched again. Its back was straight, its head thrown back. Its four tails curved up and over its head, each pointing at the monster's open mouth. All of a sudden, all that energy rushed in, forming a dark grey mass.

"[I do not like the look of that,]" Nightcrawler muttered.

The monster compressed the mass of energy. The ground beneath it caved with the force. It opened its mouth wider-than-wide again. The X-Men could hear its bones cracking to accommodate it. Then it leaned forward and swallowed the mass.

"What the..." Iceman muttered.

All of a sudden, the monster ballooned out, its body almost comically round. Nightcrawler teleported in behind Sabretooth just as the four-tailed monster fired its attack. They blinked out only seconds before that... that... Marvel Girl didn't have a word for it.

Black turned to white again. Wind roared around them throwing up dust and debris and forcing them to throw themselves to the ground for shelter.

There was an eerie calm when Marvel Girl looked up again. Storm's clouds had disappeared, probably blown away. The stars were out, she noted absently.

"Get offa me!" Sabretooth snarled, violently shoving Nightcrawler. "Next time you do that, I'm gonna add your ears to my-"

He stopped when he caught sight of the devastation. The entire western half of the valley was gone. Trees, rocks, everything. Just gone, as far as the mountains which were now glowing dull red.

This was out of their league. This was so far out of their league...

"Oh my god..." Storm whispered to herself. Her eyes were wide.

The four-tailed monster growled. Its elastic arms lashed out, catching Sabretooth completely by surprise. The monster wrenched Sabretooth back.

"We... we can't win this..." Iceman muttered quietly.

"I have to try and reach him!" Marvel Girl said.

Sabretooth screamed. The four-tailed monster was trying to tear him in half, holding him by his arms in two massive red-black fists. Sabretooth's arm was ripped off instead. The surprise sent the feral mutant spinning away.

The monster growled and turned towards where Sabretooth was now screaming in pain. It pinned Sabretooth with a massive hand of red-black energy, shattering the ground beneath him. The four-tails moved slowly towards Sabretooth, its grin eerily bright.

"Whatever you do, do it fast!" Cyclops yelled at Marvel Girl. He fired another optic blast at the four-tailed monster. The beast staggered. Iceman and Storm joined in, putting everything they had into this.

The four-tailed monster was thrown back. It lost its grip on Sabretooth. Nightcrawler teleported him away to safety. The monster roared in anger.

It became harder to breathe. That feeling, that they were all about to die, became almost impossible to overcome. The monster dropped to all fours, growling and snarling. The sky seemed to darken, the stars somehow becoming dimmer. That evil energy surrounding the monster grew. All of a sudden, something like the beginnings of a skeleton started to form around the monster's body. A spine, shoulder blades, a skull, and legs all seemed to come from its red-black body. Suddenly, it had six tails too, instead of just four.

The six-tailed monster roared in anger and opened fire on them, spitting out a barrage of energy shots. Colossus wrenched a thick, bent slab of what used to be a blast door from a nearby pile of rubble. He put all of his weight behind it to deflect what shots he could.

"Hurry, Marvel Girl!" Colossus shouted. "I don't know how much longer I can-"

The last blast punched right through his makeshift shield and slammed into Colossus with physical force. He was hit so much harder than when he'd derailed that train in India. Colossus was thrown through the air, but he never hit the ground.

Marvel Girl held out her hand. She'd caught him, telekinetically, but her eyes were still fixed on the monster. "Stop!"

The monster growled angrily, but it couldn't move. Its eyes were locked with hers.

"Jean! What are you-"

"It took me a moment to get through the-" Her eyes went wide as she realised what she was feeling here. "Oh my god! T-that's not just Ninja in there!"

The monster roared again. Its tails thrashed violently against Marvel Girl's control. Marvel Girl's nose started to bleed. She shook with the effort of keeping it contained. Her voice was strained when she said, "I said stop!"

Naruto had no concept of time. He stood before the cage and looked up at the monstrous nine-tailed fox locked away behind those strong bars.

Everything suddenly made sense now. Why the villagers looked at him the way they did... Why everyone acted the way they did when he was around... His birthday, the day that the nine-tailed fox attacked... Everything.

This was the reason. The nine-tailed fox wasn't killed by the Fourth Hokage at all, like they taught in the Academy. It was somehow locked up inside of him instead.

"Ninja!"

Naruto turned, surprised. Marvel Girl was here. What was Marvel Girl doing inside his head? And why was she wearing only her underwear? "This is why they hated me," Naruto said quietly. His voice echoed in the large, dark space, despite how quietly he'd spoken. Naruto recognised sadness in his own voice, the resignation there. "I never knew."

Marvel Girl hesitated, but waded towards him through the dark sewer. He started, when she pulled him away from the cage, when she turned him around to face her.

"That doesn't matter right now," Marvel Girl said. "We need you."

"What?" Naruto asked, surprised.

"Don't listen to her, brat," the fox snarled. Its dark, hateful voice reverberated throughout the chamber. "Do you really think you can trust her? She's one of them."

"Ninja, please," Marvel Girl started. "We need you to take control of your body again. You're letting that monster rampage!"

"What?" Naruto started. "But it's still-" The water suddenly looked suspiciously red around him. Naruto narrowed his eyes and looked a little closer at the cage and the nine-tailed fox. "What are you-"

"So the brat finally notices," the fox rumbled, a dark chuckle like a growl escaping its throat. Its teeth glinted like a row of razor-sharp daggers; that damn fox was grinning. "What are you going to do about it?"

"This is your body, Ninja," Marvel Girl said.

Naruto nodded and reached out and touched the paper seal covering the lock. His eyes narrowed again. "Yeah. This is my body."

The six-tailed monster stopped thrashing abruptly. The X-Men tensed, not knowing what to expect. Marvel Girl coughed, her entire body wracked with a spasm. She tasted blood and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

The six-tails' skeleton shattered, exploded into thousands of shards of bone that seemed to just disappear. The red-black mass of its body seemed to evaporate, leaving Ninja standing there on two unsteady legs. He was wearing only a pair of torn, stained green hospital pants. He was so skinny, Marvel Girl realised absently. The seal which kept the nine-tailed fox at bay stood out on his abdomen for a moment more, before it faded.

Ninja collapsed, unconscious. She rushed to his side, checking his vitals. Ninja was physically fine, no injuries, not even so much as a scratch. The X-Men had thrown everything they had at him and he was physically fine.

All of a sudden, there was chaos. The air was full of helicopters, kicking up great clouds of dust. There were at least six of them. They circled, reminding Marvel Girl of vultures. The area was lit up by searchlights. Shielding her eyes against their glare, Marvel Girl could just make out the SHIELD insignia emblazoned on the bottom of one of them. She shared a grim look with Cyclops. They both thought the same thing: Weapon X reinforcements.

The other X-Men were on edge now too, as the helicopters landed, one a little closer to them than the rest. An armed contingent of soldiers poured out, followed by Nick Fury.

He'd seen better days. It had been the other team's assignment to rescue him from his captors in India, while Marvel Girl and her team broke into the genetics facility. Fury had probably been on the way to some secret SHIELD base to recover from the ordeal when the Weapon X facility was destroyed. Its destruction must've sent out some kind of signal.

Cyclops reached for his visor, just in case.

"Easy there, cowboy. No-one's here to fight," Fury said, raising his hands disarmingly. Cyclops hesitated, but lowered his hand. Fury glanced at two of the soldiers accompanying him. "Organise a search party. Start looking for survivors."

"Yes sir!"

They watched the soldiers go off, digging cautiously through the rubble for survivors. Not many people could have survived that, Marvel Girl knew. Rogue had been extremely lucky she was in the same cell as Juggernaut. Not many people would have similar luck.

"What happened here?" Fury asked.

"We're not sure," Cyclops said tersely. He shared a look with Marvel Girl. He wasn't about to volunteer any information to these people. He certainly wasn't about to sell-out Ninja. He was one of them. Weapon X was a SHIELD-sanctioned program; as far as Cyclops was concerned, these people were just as responsible as Wraith and his soldiers. "What happens next?"

"Hey... I know that guy..." Ninja slurred. He sounded woozy. He was pointing at Fury. Marvel Girl glanced at Ninja, who was trying unsuccessfully to sit up. She gently helped him up.

"You've looked better, kid," Fury said, with a chuckle.

"I'm not the one all bandaged up," Ninja scoffed with a grin, leaning heavily on Marvel Girl's shoulder for support. His exhaustion was obvious. That transformation of his must have taken a huge toll on him. Marvel Girl couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Ninja actually tired. He endured everything Weapon X had to throw at him with seemingly endless stamina and energy.

"We're shutting this place down," Fury said. "You're all free to go, pending the outcome of an investigation."

"Why should we trust you?" Iceman asked.

"There's been enough violence," Marvel Girl said firmly. Ninja looked up at her, before he nodded, looking away, looking around at the devastation he'd delivered. His eyes became distant. His hand crept unconsciously to his abdomen. Marvel Girl gave him a reassuring squeeze. She fixed Fury with a look. "We're going home. All of us."

The smouldering ruins of the village hidden in tree leaves could be seen through gaps in the massive wall that encircled what many considered the most powerful shinobi village. The damage of the recent invasion was extensive, but the villagers were resilient. They would rebuild. They were so busy that nobody would have noticed the two figures standing atop the wall, gazing down.

"They've escaped complete annihilation," the first man said. He was the taller of the two. Like his partner, he was dressed in a long black robe with a red cloud print. He wore a wide straw hat and was distinguished by the massive object he carried, wrapped in bandages and strapped to his back. A closer look revealed he had almost blue skin and strangely shark-like features. "But it looks like they've suffered heavy losses."

The shark-man seemed to think that was funny somehow.

"For such a prosperous village..." the other man said. "It's pathetic."

This man could've been called handsome, if not for the utter lack of emotion on his face and in his eyes. He had long black hair and strange red eyes that marked him as a doujutsu-user. "Even with Lady Tsunade as Hokage, they were still unable to avoid this fate."

"Heh. That's unlike you..." The shark-man said, grinning. His teeth were sharpened into points. "Do you still have lingering affection towards your homeland? Has it changed so much?"

"Sarutobi's replacement as Hokage or the circumstances of his removal..." The doujutsu-user said. "Changes nothing."

"If you say so," the shark-man chuckled.

The hidden leaf village had done a good job smothering the rumours, but people still talked. A year ago, the village's forbidden scroll of seals had been stolen. The rumours varied wildly about the culprit, from missing ninjas to an infiltration team from the village hidden in the clouds.

The fallout from that incident had cost the elderly Third Hokage his position. Despite lobbying from one of the more powerful council members, Danzo, the feudal lord had decided on Jiraiya as Sarutobi's replacement. Jiraiya had refused, substituting Tsunade instead. No-one knew what he'd said or done to convince the Legendary Sucker to come back.

Despite the political upheaval, or perhaps because of it, the village had seen better day. They had been caught completely unprepared for an assault by the hidden sand and the hidden sound, during the Chuunin Selection Exams. They had driven the enemy off, but it had cost them dearly.

The shorter man dismissed that line of thought. They weren't here to sight-see. "Let's go." The shark-man just chuckled and followed the doujutsu-user down the wall and into the village.

They had searched for two fruitless hours for any sign of the nine-tails. The boy obviously wasn't in the village. They'd been made anyway. The two men made their way out via one of the small canals that fed the village water. They stopped abruptly.

There were two leaf village shinobi standing in their way, a man and a woman. Both held jounin rank.

"You're not from this village," Sarutobi Asuma said. This man was the son of the former Hokage. He had dark eyes and dark hair and he had a scruffy black beard. A soggy cigarette hung loosely from his lips. He wore the standard uniform for a jounin of the hidden leaf, his hair covered by a black bandanna. "What's your business here?"

"It's been a while," the shorter of the two strangers said. "Asuma. Kurenai."

"You could only know our names if you were a shinobi of this village," Kurenai said. Kurenai was only recently promoted to jounin rank. She had long dark hair and strange crimson eyes. She chose not to wear the standard uniform, instead opting for a white and red outfit.

The shorter man raised the brim of his hat to make eye contact with the both of them.

"Y-you're-" Kurenai stammered.

"There's no mistake," Asuma grouched. "Uchiha Itachi."

The shark-man grinned. He removed his hat, tossing it aside. The shark-man wore a forehead protector from the hidden mist village, though he'd scratched through the village symbol. "Are they acquaintances of yours, Itachi? I suppose... I should introduce myself as well. I am Hoshigaki Kisame. Pleased to meet you, and hope to get to know you later."

"There's no later," Asuma said, pulling his trench knives. "I'm gonna take you down right now!"

"It seems they don't like you much in your home village, Itachi," Kisame said, still grinning, like this situation was the biggest joke he'd ever heard.

"I've heard of you... Hoshigaki Kisame, a former Kirigakure shinobi... an outlaw shinobi currently being sought by the land of water for charges such as assassination and subversive machinations against the state," Kurenai said, her face slipping into a grim mask as she readied herself for a major fight. "You two are major felons."

"Itachi..." Asuma said. "You've got guts to come back here again after what you did..."

"Asuma. Kurenai," Itachi said. "Please do not interfere. I don't want to kill you."

"For someone who's committed parricide, that's an odd thing to say," Asuma said. He'd already started channelling chakra through his trench knives. "Besides, there's no way you would just show up nonchalantly for absolutely no reason. So what are you after?"

Kisame drew his sword, bringing it down heavily on the concrete. The ground splintered with the casual force of the impact. "He bothers me. Shall I kill him?"

Itachi seemed to consider it. "Well, it doesn't seem like we'll be able to just walk out of the village without a fight. Just try not to overdo it. Your moves tend to attract attention."

Kisame's grin became broader. "Understood."

Naruto woke up in the middle of the night with a pounding headache. It still took some getting used to, waking up in a real bed again. Even the mattress in his old apartment wasn't as comfortable as the one here, to say nothing of the plank he'd had to sleep on while he was with Weapon X. A quick glance at the window told him it was still dark out.

They were living in a large rented house now. It was a temporary arrangement, while SHIELD investigated what had happened at Weapon X. They weren't prisoners, General Fury had explained, but they weren't free to go either.

It had surprised Naruto that none of the mutants had given him up. He wasn't sure what would happen, if SHIELD ever found out that he'd been the one that destroyed the base. It wasn't something he liked to think about.

Naruto was bunking with Bobby. Bobby unconsciously used his powers, cooling his surroundings. Which meant sleeping under two extra blankets, as far as Naruto was concerned. And waking up in the middle of the night sometimes, like now, shivering cold.

Naruto groaned in annoyance and pulled the blankets up a little higher around him. The chill in the air kept him from falling back to sleep though, once he was awake. Naruto sat up, shooting a dark look at his roommate, who sprawled across his own bed, oblivious to the cold he'd caused.

And Naruto had a headache on top of everything else. Wrapping one of his blankets around himself, Naruto shuffled from the room. There was a light on downstairs; someone was still awake. He hadn't glanced at his alarm clock, but glancing out the window at the pitch black, Naruto could guess it was pretty late.

He made his way on auto-pilot to the kitchen. Marvel Gi- Jean was sitting at the table, nursing a cup of hot cocoa. She looked up as he walked in, offering him a smile. "You're up late."

"I couldn't sleep," Naruto said, trying to stifle a yawn. Jean smirked. Naruto went to the cabinet and took out another mug. After some hunting around, he found a packet of cocoa powder, which he emptied into his mug, pouring hot water from the kettle over it and stirring as he went. He grabbed the steaming mug with both hands, relishing the warmth for a moment. He plopped down next to the redhead. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Jean asked.

"How come you're still awake?" Naruto asked, taking a sip of his own hot cocoa. Jean seemed to have forgotten hers. Her eyes became distant. Naruto wondered what she was thinking about. Was it that mission Weapon X sent her on? To kill that scientist, Atul Pandya? Did she still wake up with nightmares of that man's dying moments? Naruto could easily picture the terrified look in the small doctor's eyes, just a moment before the blood vessels in his brain ruptured and he died. He could imagine the doctor pleading for his life, trying to forge some desperate connection with Jean that would save him.

"I couldn't sleep either," Jean said quietly, looking away.

"One of those nights, I guess," Naruto said, taking another sip of his cocoa. Jean smiled slightly, taking a sip of her own cocoa. Things had changed between him and Jean. The other X-Men were wary around him, afraid of him, or what he contained - Naruto was never really sure. Jean was different though. There was this... connection between them now. Naruto didn't know how to really describe it. He found himself wondering what would happen at the end of all of this. Where would they all end up?

"Don't worry," Jean said, covering his hand with her own. Hers was warm from holding her hot cocoa. "You can stay with us."

"As long as I'm not bunking with Bobby," Naruto said, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "He's having that dream about Rogue again. It's driving me nuts!"

"What...?" Jean asked, surprised. She was looking at him funny again.

"You didn't know he has a crush on her?" Naruto asked, frowning in disbelief. It was so obvious. It was almost as obvious as classmate Sakura's feelings for Sasuke, the bastard show-off. "He dreams about her almost every night. Vividly."

"He told you?" Jean asked.

"The others are still..." He trailed off. He didn't really want to go there. He glanced over at Jean. She was giving him that sympathetic look again. She'd seen first-hand what he contained, after all, but he was still uncomfortable with that look. "It's kind of obvious, isn't it?" He finished lamely.

Silence settled over them for a while, the both of them pretending to enjoy their hot cocoa. "What am I thinking right now?" Jean asked.

"You're the psychic," Naruto said, grinning. "You tell me."

"Just... guess," Jean said. "For me."

"Something about me mind reading or something," Naruto responded, without even having to think about it. Jean went very still. It took Naruto a little longer before he came to the same realisation. Later on, he wouldn't be sure of the source of his realisation. He sat up. "No. That's not possible."

Five hours of exhaustive testing later, the scientific explanation that Beast gave him went right over Naruto's head. The sun was just coming up. Naruto sat at the kitchen table and watched as Jean and Henry McCoy - the guy they called Beast - talked using big words that he hadn't learned while teaching himself English. They might as well have been talking in some other language entirely, back and forth like a tennis match, as far as he was concerned. What the heck was a retrovirus? And splicing genomes?

Jean realised what was wrong first. Whether it was by reading the blank look on his face, or by reading his mind, Naruto couldn't tell. "There's no way to know for sure yet, without thorough blood tests, but you seem to be able to read minds," Jean said. "You're a mutant."

"I'm not a mutant," Naruto said, frowning and shaking his head. "I'm not even from this world."

"Do you remember anything about the experiment they performed on you?" McCoy asked. "Did you overhear anything?"

Naruto shook his head. "They shot me full of tranquiliser the moment I arrived. The next thing I remember is..."

Looking out over the devastation he himself had caused, the ruins of the Weapon X facility. He could still remember the acrid smell that lingered in the air. He could still picture the nervousness, the uncertainty, the fear on the faces of X-Men.

"It's possible that they took something from one of us, either me or the Professor or some other telepathic mutant, the genes that give us our powers," Jean said. "And they put it into you."

"Why'd it take so long to show then?" Naruto asked. "I haven't exactly been going around reading minds since then, you know."

"You've been keeping to yourself," McCoy said.

"Because you're all afraid of me," Naruto responded. Beast opened his mouth to argue, but Naruto wasn't done. "It's okay. I get why. Even if things hadn't gotten so... crazy, I helped them kidnap you. I don't really fit in here. I'm not really one of you."

"That's not true," Jean said.

"Yes it is," Naruto said. He grinned. He wondered if she'd see through it. Jean always saw through his grinning, his joking, and he knew it wasn't because she was psychic. "It's okay. I don't mind."

Jean frowned and Naruto knew instantly that she'd seen through. "You're staying with us," she said firmly.

"I'm not a mutant," Naruto said.

"It doesn't matter," Jean said. "The Professor tried to teach us tolerance before..." Before he was blown up in Naruto's transformation, like hundreds of other people. His body would probably never even be recovered from beneath the rubble, like hundreds of other people. "Don't think that," Jean rebuked gently. She reached out, covering his hand with hers again. Naruto was reminded of the weird bond they had. "It wasn't your fault. The Professor wouldn't blame you either."

Naruto shrugged, noncommittal. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to consider his predicament. He'd need to figure out this mind-reading thing for sure. He didn't want to wander into another one of Bobby's dreams if he could help it. He also wanted to train his ninja skills. Even if he didn't like it, his time with Weapon X had taught him that his skills weren't all that great yet. He still had a long way to go, but if he trained hard...

"You can learn those things with us," Jean pressed. She'd been reading his mind, Naruto knew. He frowned slightly, at the invasion of his privacy. Jean withdrew her hand. The look on her face told him she knew she'd pushed him maybe a bit too far.

"I'll think about it," Naruto promised. "You'll help me figure this mind-reading thing out?"

"I promise," Jean said earnestly. Naruto grinned cheerfully. Jean thought he was taking this sudden telepathy really well. Naruto's grin became even broader at that thought.

"So it's true, yeah," one of them said. In the darkness, it was difficult to separate one speaker from another by anything except for speech patterns. There wasn't enough light to give the members of the group more than a looming, indistinct form. This speaker stood a little ways away, his voice coming from Itachi's right. There were nine of them in total. "Your little brother abandoned the Leaf village. Just like his older brother."

"Will this cause a problem?" Another speaker asked, coming from Itachi's left.

"Heh. Kid's nothing special," Kisame scoffed.

"Tell that to his former teammate," that second speaker said. "I heard he killed him."

"What news of the nine-tails?" This new speaker instantly had their attention, even that first speaker falling into respectful silence.

"The nine-tails brat made off with Konoha's forbidden scroll," Kisame confirmed. Itachi could hear the grin in the rogue ninja's voice. He thought the whole thing was hilarious.

"Uzumaki Naruto has disappeared," Itachi confirmed, his voice not even hinting at his annoyance. "Even Jiraiya-sama has been unable to locate him thus far."

"He probably blew himself up, yeah," that first speaker laughed. It sounded like he greatly enjoyed the idea.

"He likely used some forbidden jutsu," their leader said. "Konoha is famous for a number of space-time techniques."

"What's our next move?" This voice came from Itachi's left.

"We will continue to capture the tailed beasts," their leader ordered. "We will make efforts to follow and capture the nine-tails when the time is right. That is all."

One by one, the presences of the other ninjas faded from the dark cave, until Itachi and Kisame were alone. Itachi glanced over at the grinning shark-man in the darkness, before they made their way back into the outside world. The hunt was only just beginning.