WARNING: I do not edit out violence, gore, or swear words, but I DO leave out sexual content. No worries about that.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Chapter One: Setting the Stage

Thunderheads looming ever closer threatened the approaching storm, but the crimson figure didn't care.

It was over.

He stared at the crumpled heap in front of him, barely recognizing the teen's features beneath the drying blood; the raven-black hair was completely caked and the bleeding eyes showed the now nearly extinct Uchiha trademark fading away.

After seven years of training, fighting, learning and creating new jutsus, he had tracked the stupid fool down.

And his greatest mission was finally over.

Naruto took a subconscious step forward, a hand extending towards his former friend, and felt a funny tug at his navel. Or where it should have been.

He pulled his gaze from the body before him and came to rest it instead on the mess of guts sliding slowly from his own, accompanied by a pulsating slush of blood. The last attack of the Uchiha had left Naruto on his way to join the avenger. There was no way that damn fox would be able to repair or replicate his organs. But Naruto didn't care anymore.

Heh. I knew we were both going to die.

The blond fell to his knees and numbly touched his organs out of curiosity. Ew. Gross. Never quite realized how slimy they were. Dimly he heard something like a purr and lifted his head, searching for its source. There was nothing nearby, but after a moment of puzzlement he felt his body vibrate with a repetition of the sound and realized it had to be thunder. And it had to be directly overhead to make his body vibrate that hard or let him hear it, considering he was nearly deaf due to an attack by Sasuke on his ear drums.

His vision was consumed by a flash of white and he looked across the shredded battlefield to see a dark blot at the forest's edge. He squinted his eyes in confusion as it shuffled towards him. Little flashes of blue-tinted electricity skipped erratically along the earth to dance about the thing. Naruto's fading mental process marked the enlarging dot as a travel-cloaked human, and the lightning phenomenon as the effects of some sort of elemental affinity. He felt like the person took years to get to him, but eventually the figure—a woman, he now saw—stood before him. She had the taut aged skin of an older ninja, reminding him of the one time he'd seen Tsunade without the jutsu that made her appear younger.

The two gazed at one another, each sizing the other up, one with exhausted confusion, the other with thoughtful bemusement. Naruto caught a flicker of movement behind the woman and saw that spiral-masked bastard, Uchiha Madara, sprinting towards the two.

Except it was like he was frozen in time. Naruto realized this when the cloaked figure stayed in place for more than a second with both of his legs off the ground. That's when he realized he hadn't vibrated again, meaning there was no more thunder, and looked up to see a lightning strike poised above his head like a dagger waiting to fall.

The woman beside him knelt and swept a critical eye over his broken body. His shirt had been torn off by the rebound of one of his own Wind Shurikan Rasengan and his torso was covered in bruises, lacerations, and burns. Three injuries stood out even to an untrained eye: a slash through his back on one side of his spine, digging down enough to cause the kunai to be lodged in his body and buried to the hilt; the cut through his stomach, leaving what should have stayed inside all over the outside; and a gaping hole in the center of his chest, where the lightning from a Chidori had stopped his heart momentarily, until the demon fox's chakra had jump started it again. The woman shook her head at the devastation and her eyes flickered to the mangled heap of Sasuke, then returned to pierce Naruto's own gaze with determination.

She had decided.

"Naruto."

The voice was gentle, comforting, soft, but held unmistakable authority; the blond imagined that a grandmother would sound something like that. His eyes stayed locked with hers as she stood and put her hands on her hips.

"You won't ever forgive yourself, will you? You think you could've saved him; that you should've tried harder, done more. You refuse to recognize that it wasn't your fault. You think you somehow caused this. Caused him to leave, abandon everything he once knew. You never saw the truth in his eyes, did you? You couldn't see the truth he tried so hard to bury. No one could."

The mangled teen crinkled his brow in anger as soon as he comprehended her words; anger at this stranger, who presumed to know so much about him; anger at himself for the guilt he'd thought buried for years suddenly spreading through him like a poison; anger at Sasuke and Orochimaru and Itachi for this ridiculous mess they had made. He tried to snarl at the woman, but only succeeded in managing a gurgling cough and realized his lungs and throat were filling with blood.

The white-haired woman smiled sadly, "Yet you persevered. Out of all of them, you were the one with the most hatred and fear to live off of, yet you made the most friends, the strongest bonds. I think it's time you got what you actually deserved. You exceeded all expectations and never even needed my guiding hand. Until now. What is it you want, Naruto?"

The boy was undoubtedly confused, but the question brought one immediate answer to his mind.

I want to fix it all.

The old woman didn't seem shocked at the thought. She smiled.

"I can give you that."

She touched him on the forehead with the first two fingers of her right hand.

Naruto realized her fingertips were glowing pure white.

And then he saw pure black.

Read and review, please! Constructive criticism is always appreciated. =)

And if you don't like the plot, character development, etc., please don't complain. Just don't read it. Flat out complaining is not accepted nor will it be tolerated.

Now, if I mess something up (jutsus, storyline/details that I didn't intend to change, etc.) please let me know.

That's all. Thanks for reading my story!