Author Note: Disclaimer, no contents of Naruto have been thought up or invented by me. This is purely a work of fan fiction and is not meant for promotional or finical endeavors. This is meant to be made in respect and admiration for Massashi Kishimoto's series and all the content of Naruto are property of Massashi Kishimoto.

Please respect the fans, and fandom of the series by remaining polite and open minded while reading.

Pain.

Pain so overwhelming that it blinded the senses. Turning all in the world that shined into an unwelcoming darkness. Suffocating the screams that accompanied such a level of pain until they become nothing but echoes of the mind – half forgotten memories that twisted in upon themselves until they came back out as hideous laughter.

This was the type of pain Uzumaki Naruto had found himself subject to for what seemed like years, but what that little kernel of logic that was left to him – that had been built up in concrete by his training as a ninja – reminded him constantly had lasted for only a month at most.

It whispered this and that if it had started, and if it continued, then at one point it must surely end.

The problem was that his maddened mind laughed at this. It laughed at many things. At one point it had even gotten to laugh at Naruto when in a twist of insanity he had come to the revelation that he must surely have become a being that was a pure avatar of laughter.

Most of all though it laughed at Team Seven. The laughter would cackle and hoot that they had dared to dream that a group of infants such as them could have set a trap for the Snake Sannin, for the omnipresent Orochimaru.

The laughter would reach a crescendo whenever it came to the idea that for three years Sasuke could manage to infiltrate and lay the ground work for a double cross and assassination against the Snake-nin and the sly Kabuto.

Three years of training, three years of anxiety, and three years of fretting over supposed secrets which in reality had been nothing more than an amusing side game for the traitorous Sannin.

Orochimaru and Kabuto had been ready. The reunited Team Seven had been unprepared. It had been disastrous. Naruto had been put down last, captured and chained like a mad dog as he had struggled endlessly in hopes of reaching the unconscious forms of Sakura and Sasuke as they had been dragged off.

As scenes and visions of what had happened came back and banished the darkness, as the pain reached a new level of ascendance for the first time in what was left of his memory the laughter let out one final parting chuckle then silenced.

Then, the young ninja truly remembered.

Kakashi. Orochimaru had cast Sasuke aside like a dirty rag when Team Seven's mentor had gone down bloodied from trying his best to extract his students from a plan gone bad. Then... then he had been taken. Kabuto and the damned Snake had disappeared with their Sensei and when he had finally seen any of them again the lazy Jonin had been gone.

His body had walked, it had talked, but it had been the Snake in control. It had been the Snake who owned the body and their Sensei – Kaskashi the Copy-Nin – had been gone.

That had been when the torture had really started. The three of them, staring in disbelief as what was left of their teacher picked up knives and scalpels and hammers, and... and tools the blond jinchuriki had no name for but soon simply associated with unending pain and laid them upon their flesh.

Teaching them. Teaching them what the cost for their hubris was to be.

As all the memories piled up and assaulted him without rank or order or reason Naruto began to feel again.

Their were tears coming from his eyes. His body convulsed as it spat out blood and bile and the burning pit of fire that his throat had become made itself known. The all encompassing darkness receding and took shape around him as the dim cavern he had been introduced to what seemed like so long ago.

The familiar, almost friendly, silhouettes of rack upon rack of torture implements gleamed as best they could in the half-light that radiated in a series of soft rays from each corner of the chamber. The once shining metal table Naruto had been secured to was sticky with his own blood, urine, and sweat. As the young ninja's eyes slowly focused through the lazy haze they had accustomed themselves to his breath caught in his chest at what he saw.

"Ah. So the most stubborn of members of Team Seven awakes finally then?" The voice that spoke in response to Naruto's gasp was kindly mocking backed with intelligence and cruelty. Grey haired and outfitted in the purple of the Village of Sound Kabuto pressed his glasses closer towards his eyes as he made himself known to his captive. The medic-nin chuckled to himself and smiled as the younger ninja seemed to not even notice him – being far too captivated by what hung above him to give his sempai even the time of the day.

"The question though is who is the most stubborn, now isn't it? Is it our little friend Sasuke?"

Naruto felt anger and helplessness and even fear flow through him as he looked at the first body hung in chains above him. Uchiha Sasuke's pale form was stripped naked above him horribly bruised and shrunken in on itself. The eyes he had been so proud of plucked from their sockets leaving nothing but gaping holes behind. As he looked on the details started to blur as each little thing he saw was burned into his memory: the brain exposed and mutilated, chunks of flesh missing here and there, cut upon cut sliced through the flesh in nothing more than the goal of pain, portions of the body skinned with muscle and bone gleaming gleefully.

"No." Kabuto's voice mused. "No, I don't think that's the case." Naruto flinched as he heard the Sound Nin slap a fist into an open palm as if he had discovered the answer. "Was it Sakura? The Haruno girl must have had some hidden depths – and if she did we would have found them without a doubt, right?"

Naruto's whole body shuddered as he turned his head and pressed it into the filth surrounding him, hoping that the smell and horror would overcome him. Hoping to be sent that black oblivion of before instead of look upon what was surely the second body in chains.

"I don't think – ah, ah, ah." Kabuto cut himself off to admonished his audience. "We can't continue if you don't play the game." A strong grip locked itself around Naruto's jaw and forced his head to move. Forced him to look.

"This really is my best work to date anyway, I think you should enjoy it."

Naruto's eyes widened. The body. The second body hanging in front him was just as badly mutilated as the first, but hung their and defied all his expectations.

The limp figure was more muscular, broader in the shoulder and stockier.

The skin, still bleeding from fresh wounds in a myriad of unstaunched rivulets, was a sun-kissed bronze instead of a pale cream.

The fuzz left on the shaven and cracked open head was unmistakably the wrong colour.

The eyes were blue.

The hand at his jaw jerked the young ninja away from the scene until he had just taken in. His vision was rapidly focusing and unfocusing as his mind tried to make sense of what he had seen as Kabuto's twisted, sadistic face bloomed into view. The body had been- had been-

"Naruto!" Kabuto's voice caressed the word as it shouted out with glee.

Naruto's mind raced around itself in confusion. It was impossible. It couldn't have been him. It was impossible. The boy closed his eyes – panic blooming up the boy wondered whose eyes, whose eyes did he close? Whose body was heaving as his breathing was escalating out of control into hyperventilation?

Who was he?

"Naruto! Naruto!" Kabuto's voice sing-songed out as the boy felt the hand move off his jaw, grabbing one of his arms and then forcing it up as the medical nin made his open his eyes.

His arm, the body he was in's arm, thrust into his vision Nartuo's breath caught. The limb was splotched. Somehow, the arm was made up of three different colours of flesh; patches of bronze skin linking two different patches of pale skin seemingly seamlessly.

"We made you all one. Your precious Team Seven together forever." Kabuto told the boy as he shook the arm in his grip slightly. The medic nin's voice completely calm again, as kind as it had been when they first met at the Chuunin Exam.

Kabuto let the arm fall back down with a thud of flesh and a clank of chains. Naruto was sure the man was still talking to him, but the young ninja had stopped listening. His mind was awash in confusion and anguish. Did what Kabuto tell him mean he was in Sakura's body? Did that explain all the pieces of flesh carved out of Sasuke and his bodies'? Where they alive in his mind, still unconscious but still there? Was he alone again? How was it possible? How -

Stop. The heavy voice rumbled in Naruto's mind ending his endless stream of questions.

You are in the useless one's body. They thought distance could end our bond little jailer. Release me and vengeance will be yours.

Kyuubi? Naruto's mind focused on that one point, focused on the existence of his enemy since birth, his responsibility.

Release me while you still have the power to do so. Release me while you have the mind to hear me little jailer.

No. All Naruto could think was that one word. Releasing the Kyuubi would be against everything he had ever stood for. Releasing the Kyuubi would only validate what everyone in the village had thought he had stood for.

Do not tell me you can stand this injustice. These are not villagers ignoring you, these are not glares, these are not petty crimes. What has been done is unforgivable little jailer, and I am the force to make all you hate never forget that.

You are my responsibility. Naruto could not release the Kyuubi, not when it would do its best at destroying the entire world. There was no way vindication of his pain was worth that. Orochimaru and Kabuto were monsters, but human monsters. They could be stopped by -

Naruto's chain of thought cut off as Kabuto tapped a finger against his forehead. The medic nin was giving the boy a smug smile, like a teacher having caught a pupil he knows hasn't been listening.

"We've had you for weeks now you know. The project you and your team became didn't just complete itself over a single night Naruto-chan." The sound nin's voice twisted as he tacked the term of endearment on to the other ninja's name, it was a but more accurate than 'kun' now.

Naruto's glare hardened at Kabuto's words. He did not want to listen to the man gloat. He wanted nothing more than the medic nin's throat to be between his teeth so he could tear it out.

"That was quite a bit of time for me and Master to work on more than just you. And with Kakashi's body – well Naruto-chan the possibilities were nearly endless."

Naruto's eyes widened once again and this time he tried to surge upwards, tried to make his visions of the enemy nin's demise reality. Kabuto just smirked as the chains that held his captive clanked and clacked at the futile gesture.

"Konoha is gone."

No.

"Only one of the Sannin still breathes the air of this world now."

A uncontrollable red rage bubbled up in Naruto's mind as Kabuto finished speaking. The former blond knucklehead of Konoha snapped his eyes towards what remained of his body. Taking it all in, taking in every wound on his own body and linking it to one of his precious people, one of the citizens of the Leaf.

Then with a grunt that have made Sasuke proud Naruto reached out, he didn't know how but he did, but the ninja reached and simply pulled.

Naruto could feel the power bloom from the remnants of his body as the last of the seal on the Kyuubi disintegrated. He could feel Kabuto's fear as what the medic nin had believed had been made impossible was achieved.

Kabuto grabbed Naruto's face once more and shook him, panic finally showing in the older ninja's face for the first time. "No!" He shouted as he shook the former-blond again and again.

Finally smiling Naruto stared directly into Kabuto's eyes and for the first time since he had awoken, the first time in what seemed like ages he cleared his dry and scratchy throat and spoke.

"Yes."

Kabuto let go of Naruto and let him fall back to the table, his captive forgotten as the medic nin sent jutsu after jutsu at the body hanging before him.

As Naruto fell all he could think about was how soft his voice sounded now. With all that had happened to him, even with the changes, it shouldn't have sounded so... nice, should it have?

Letting out a pleasant chuckle Naruto's vision blurred as he felt tears fall down his cheeks. He knew that the both of them would die soon. The Kyuubi's power was enough that on release he and Kabuto would both be reduced down to nothing but ash.

Naruto just sighed, it would be good to see everyone again.

Then, coinciding with one last scream of frustration and rage from Kabuto, an unbearable heat bloomed and the world went white.

Do not think I will just let you off as simply as this little jailer, if you wished for death then you should have made a deal with the Shinigami. You have given me this world and in turn I will exercise my right of gratitude. I do hope you learn to enjoy your new prison.

Feeling as if he was being choked by the whiteness that surrounded him Naruto finally felt panic start to settle upon his mind again as pain rose again across his body.

It was like he was being pulled apart.

– –

Naruto stared blankly into the stream in front of him. His hands mindlessly scrubbing his arms slowly as they tried to rub out the dried blood covering his scabbed flesh.

The Kyuubi was gone from him, but it had sent him... away as he had freed it. He had awoken perched precariously at the very top of a tall tree. The swaying of the grand giant had done nothing to help his disorientation at waking up from what he had known – known – was to be his death.

A lump in his throat formed as he remembered the sight he had been faced with upon regaining consciousness.

Konoha.

A Konoha from the past, a Konoha untouched by the invasion during the Chuunin Exams. The Konoha of his youth, when everything had still been innocent and earnest. When it had just been the excitement of being a ninja and finally working towards the ability of being recognized.

Naruto smirked as a bittersweet expression took over his face. Recognition. That wasn't something that would end up happening now.

The reflection that mirrored Naruto's face as he did his best to clean this new and battered body that was now his was simply not Naruto. It was new. Softer. The short crop of hair that was regrowing on his scalp was nowhere near the bright, electric yellow that had made him so easy to spot. Now it was a boring, medium brown, the only thing exciting about it was the pale red colour that shaded strands in streaks at shocks that promised to at least give him interesting, natural highlights once it grew out.

The skin on his face was three shaded, the same two pale tones along with the more jarring bronze that Kabuto had showed coloured his arm and assumingly this entire body.

Dark eyes. Not green. Not blue. But a black that made Naruto choke up every time he looked at them and realized that they were now his.

Which was a whole 'nother problem Naruto admitted as he fell back against the bank of the stream with a sigh. The Kyuubi had said he was in the body of the "useless one" and the bodies Kabuto had shown off had been Sasuke's and his own.

Which made him in Sakura's body.

Which made him a girl.

Which he had no clue in hell what that even meant, but was extremely thankful that whatever the Kyuubi had done to send him into the past had also found some clothes for him somewhere.

Even if they were green and not orange.

A lot of cool people wore green, Guy and Lee for example.

Standing up and brushing off the sleeveless green tunic that had been bestowed upon him the wished that wherever the Kyuubi had picked up his attire he could have snagged some weapons too. Naruto stared at the charcoal grey pants he had on and figured he should just be thankful that they were loose, comfortable and most of all pants – even if they didn't come equipped with a single shuriken or kunai to name.

There wasn't much to say about the sandals, they were sandals. They matched the pants and did their job. Though if his arms hadn't been showing he probably would have gotten some more bandaging to cover up the rest of his skin being showed off by them. The splotchy three colours melding together without a single stitch like they did was almost more creepy than if he had been some needled together monster.

"I'm alive though." Naruto told himself, trying his best to get used to how calm and soft his voice sounded now.

Nodding to himself with some new found confidence Naruto looked at the tree he had climbed down from. Just a few hops and he could be back at the top looking from afar at Konoha.

Looking at home.

The ninja shook his head at that thought, he was... he was a different person now and in the past on top of that. No one looking even slightly the way he did and at his age should be near the village, not when he was obviously a ninja. He had in fact probably been spotted already when he first woke up and a capture team would be mobilizing.

Which meant he needed to be gone.

Turning his back on grand tree Naruto began to walk the other way, feeling out his new form. Find his steps sure as ever the boy bent towards the ground and shot off running.

He wouldn't be gone long he told himself, he just needed to find someway to get in.

To be recognized once anew.

And this time, he could change things.

It would be good to see everyone again.

That's the wrap of the first chapter. Others should be coming soon after I deal with my other business (got some forum based RP's I am involved in that need posting) and if I'm not lazy chapter two should come out later this very day (July 11, 2013 based off Eastern Standard Time - a Thursday).

I almost ended it at the Kyuubi's last speaking part, but I would rather readers know my skill and intention as a writer than mislead them with a stand alone piece that could be considered quite enticing by some and go many different ways.

Review with any thoughts and I shall do my best to respond respectfully as possible.

P.S.

Small update on this chapter as of 15-05-2014. Thank you FNK for letting me know about the embarrassing use of "blinding" instead of "blinded" in the very second line of this chapter!