The weak link

by thecheesus

Naruto is in his battle with Obito and Madara, when a weird and powerful storm sweeps the entire battlefield, including his friends away. Before it can hit him as well, the Sage of the Six paths appears to give him one last gift, to help his memories survive the Jutsu. He is struck by the lightning storm and wakes up in a hospital bed only to see Kakashi standing there. NaruHina

Okay everyone, I'm sorry for changing so much to the story, but I really feel like this is easier to read and overall a better way to do this ;) Here's some usefulness for reading this:

Italic signifies a thought,

'Italic with quotations signifies Naruto talking to the Kyuubi"

"Bjiuu speaking"

-TT- → Flashback

OOOOO → Random border I like to use =]

My English isn't the best, and I can't speak Japanese, all of the honorifics I know are taken straight from the manga so, sorry if I make any kind of mistakes here and there =]. This story is going to be quite slow for the first few chapters, because there is going to have to be a load of revealing this and revealing that and everything, so sorry about that lol. Without further ado, here's 'The weak link' updated and well for you guys, hope you enjoy!

OOOOO

When he looked up and saw Hinata standing over him, he panicked, she was standing arms spread out, as if to defend him from something. But what? Before he could even continue his line of thought, drips of blood reached his face and he froze. Whose blood was it? His or Hinata's?He saw Neji falling and realized whose blood it really was and caught him quickly. What happened? He held him carefully, not to disturb his wounds limit the damage. He saw the two poles sticking out of his back. Obito! He screamed out for a medic when he looked up at Hinata. Hinata's eyes shot open when she realized what had happened, she almost fainted. Shewas prepared to die for Naruto, she never wanted him to die for her... As she slowly looked down at her cousin, she heard his voice.

"Na..Naruto... Hinata-sama is willing to die for you... your life.. it's not your own anymore, it... now includes mine as well"

She looked at her cousin and nearly fainted again when she saw that he was impaled by the same large wooden poles that littered the rest of the battlefield. "Neji-niisan!" She yelled, as she put him down gently on his side, she quickly shot a panicked glance at Naruto, who was still looking at Neji with the same shocked eyes that just expressed a complete panick. "Why would you go this far for me? Sacrificing your life..." Naruto asked with tears in his eyes.

"Because... I was called a genius."

Those were Neji's last words as his eyes shut and his lifeless body hung limp over Naruto's shoulders.

She looked down, tears in her eyes and tried to look Naruto in the eye. He just sat there as Obito's commanding voice tore through the battlefield...

"I thought you said you weren't going to let us kill any of your comrades. Well, look around you, Naruto, feel your friends becoming cold in your arms. And realize... their deaths! Now, Just try saying it again, Naruto!"

Naruto didn't reply, he just sat there staring at Neji's lifeless body with a look filled with only despair and hopelessness. Hinata looked down at the Uzumaki and noticed the look in his eyes. Was he losing it? She wondered, was Naruto Uzumaki losing it? The number one knucklehead ninja, whose very nindo was to never give up, no matter what, losing it?

"I said, try saying it again!" Obito said, with fury in his tone.

Naruto looked around him, to see the entire battlefield filled with the dead, his friends, dead everywhere, all around him are fallen comrades and it was too much. In a rare moment of true despair, Naruto froze. There was no thought, no cohesive thought anyway, as pure panick persuaded his mind as his body was still frozen in place.

"Naruto, don't listen to this garbage!" Kurama yelled, he understood that Naruto had to be pulled out of this state,before anything bad happened. But his words fell on deaf ears as his mind was almost unapproachable by now. But before anything else could happen a hard slap to the cheek interrupted any line of thought and yanked Naruto's mind back into the battle and Hinata's words.

"Naruto-kun, do you understand the meaning of what Neji-niisan said? That your life is not only one, Naruto-kun. Your words and beliefs are not a lie! It's because of these words that you have gotten this far..."

"And it's not only you, everyone has kept those words in their hearts and that's how they're connected, it's why they're comrades. If everyone gave up on those words and thoughts...

Then what Neji-niisan did would become pointless too... That, would be the real way to kill your friends!"

Naruto looked up as he realized and pondered her words as waves upon waves of confidence hit him, it was almost religious. He realized for just a second how beautiful she looked and he knew that everything she said was true. There was no way in hell that he was going to give up. He stood up, still holding hands with Hinata and, ready to face what came now, he said: "My life isn't just one and I'll never give up!"

"Of course it's not just one! Did you forget about me, Naruto?' Kurama growled, 'Did you forget? Your mother and father did the same as Neji did when you were born, they sealed me, your enemy inside you and died entrusting the future to you... Your life was already connected to two others' when you were born!" You're right, sorry Kurama.

"Lets go, Hinata!" He said as Kurama gave her some more of his chakra, with renewed confidence and vigor he noticed he was finally able to give other people parts of Kurama's chakra and it worked through touch. For a second, Naruto felt a weird twitch inside his stomach, as he started to run around, tapping other shinobi and granting them Kurama's chakra. The twitch soon turned into a burning pain as he wondered if the chakra transfer techniques were straining him, but it didn't matter, he'd continue and help his friends, no matter what. He was about to run over to another platoon to grant them some extra power, when a weird sensation struck him, it's as if he took steps, that weren't really there, he'd take a step and then it would feel as if he hadn't moved at all. It only got worse as he felt a stinging pain rush through his head and promptly fell over before quickly jumping back up.

"Kurama, what's going on, I thought the chakra transfers wouldn't really strain me?" It took a while for the fox to answer before he said:

"This isn't the chakra transfer technique, it has nothing to do with my chakra. But I'm noticing these strange lapses as well." Even with his usual menacing voice, Kurama managed to sound surprised.

Naruto quickly shot up a glance over at Obito, only to see the man looking at the sky in a semi-interested way. He then noticed how nearly everyone had stopped fighting and started looking up in to the sky as if something bad was happening. He took one quick look and saw what looked like a yellow/orange thunder in the sky, with the occasional blue flash. It looked... interesting to say the least and it was clear that this was neither Obito's nor Madara's jutsu as they were both just as surprised and interested in this occurrence as the rest. The weird orange-thunderstorm became heavier as there were now visible lightning bolts shooting down into the ground, small light objects such as pebbles and loose kunai were starting to float upwards. All the dust and smoke clouds had already been sucked up into the ever-growing storm which was now gaining hurricane-like properties, including a strong wind and pouring rain. Naruto looked around him once more, only to see everyone around him frozen, unable to move. He saw what looked like giant barriers at the edge of his vision, slowly coming closer, even though they were still miles off in the distance. "Kurama, Kurama are you there?"

"Yes, this is... strange, I have no idea what's happening, it can't be genjutsu, as we can't both get trapped in one."

"Maybe somehow..." But before Naruto could finish his sentence, an imposing figure showed up in front of him, he looked rather old and had quite the long beard.

"Old man!" Kurama growled, which confused Naruto a little, "Do you know this guy, Kurama?" he said, confused at this rare display of excitement.

"Yes, this is the one you refer to as the Sage of the six paths..."

Naruto didn't believe a single word of it, until he heard the old man's voice. It was... something else, you could hear a thousand, no a million voices every day and still this would be the one you'd remember, it was so calm, so serene and yet still held so much authority. Before Naruto stood a man of great wisdom and that man practically radiated it as he spoke up:

"Ah yes, Kurama, so you were sealed inside this boy?" He was looking rather amused. "You, what's your name?" He turned to Naruto, with a slight smile on his face, but that smile quickly changed into a frown as the orange lightning struck right beside him. All of the serene and tranquil feelings that had overtaken Naruto, just from talking to this man were washed away when a stern and commanding attitude came out as soon as that bolt just barely missed the man.

"Quickly, the seal is failing, take my... gifts and use them wisely, ask the great Toad sage about what has happened here, he'll tell you what you need to know. Oh and Kurama, help this boy, will you, he'll need it." With that the frown was turned back into a smile.

As Naruto felt himself getting weightless, along with all of the other motionless people in the battlefield, the lightning was striking even more frequently. Everyone that got hit by the orange lightning strikes disappeared as if they were being sent away.

"Wait what's that supposed to mean you old geezer! What's happening to my friends! Tell me!" Naruto shouted at the old man, who was strangely content to let the boy float up and shout at him. He smiled at Naruto the same way grandpa-Third always did. In a panic his thoughts ran amok, he asked his friend in disbelief: "Kurama? Why is he smiling? Everyone is disappearing! What the hell is going on here? Why is he looking at me like tha-

His inner conversation was cut of by a massive piercing blast of lightning that struck him right in the stomach. He was now unconscious.

OOOOO

A hot, burning sensation overtook his entire body, swiftly waking him up before shock had him down again. He had suffered second degree burns over two thirds of his body with even a small third-degree burn on his chest. It hurt like hell and there was a lot of other damage, but it wasn't irreparable.

Something was off, his arms felt... weaker, legs shorter and chest thinner. And his skin felt weird, numb, he couldn't feel any kind of breeze, or his shirt covering his chest.His thoughts and emotions scattered as he woke up realizing that he had been knocked out after talking to the Sage of six paths. The Sage of the six paths, of all people had talked to him while there was some crazy jutsu being activated, it was all just so surreal... And that's when it hit him, that it was quiet, that there weren't any sounds of battle, it worried him. He didn't know what had happened but he sure as hell wasn't about to let his friends face Madara on their own.

He opened his eyes, it hurt like hell, but he had to see where he was in order to get back. All he could make out was that the place had a white wall and a door, but the rest was still a massive blur. Even after a couple of minutes spent focusing, his eyesight wasn't restored so he dove into his subconscious to talk to his friend and figure out what was going on.

"Kurama, what the hell happened? Something is off, I mean I feel tiny and my entire body hurts like hell, I feel as if I've been cooked damn it!"

"I don't know, I just saw the old man again for a minute, and now... I feel as if we were transported."

"What do you mean, transported? Did that old bastard do this?" Naruto knew he had to find out what happened quickly, he had to go back and fight alongside his friends, he wasn't about to let them down, and he certainly wasn't about to let Neji down.

'No, this... this is something else, it feels similar to your father's space-time jutsu. I remember when battling him, I was sent away by it, this feels... similar." Kurama being patient worried Naruto, but not as much as getting back to his friends before it was too late, so he shoved his thoughts away and asked:

"What're we gonna do now? We need to get back, I can't just abandon them like this!"

"Can you try to move?"

Naruto tried to move his left leg but before he moved it even an inch, the same burning pain swept across his leg and thigh as he let out a load primal roar, the pain was too much for even an inch of movement.

"No..." He noted, back in the subconscious.

"Your wounds are too serious, I'll have to focus my chakra on restoring them, just rest but be perceptive, if you hear or smell anything that can give us any kind of clue as to where we are, it would help get us back."

"I... can't give up now. ll make it back and help them, I just need a bit more power to get back up on my feet and then I'll kick Madara's ass once and for all!" Naruto never gave up and he wasn't about to start either. He sat up straight, opened his eyes and despite the overwhelming pain kept moving. His eyesight hadn't restored properly yet but Kurama's chakra was already taking effect, he moved his leg over to the left side of the bed he was lying down on, wait what?! He thought as he realized he had been lying down on a bed all this time. It was because of his burns that he hadn't even noticed he wasn't lying down in some sort of crater in the middle of the battlefield, or maybe even a random field in the middle of nowhere. To his credit, the hospital beds were really bad and it was kind of hard to feel anything when your body is covered with burns, which in turn were covered in bandages.

He could still barely see a thing, but it was getting better, Kurama's chakra was helping his senses recover, and his skin slowly lost its' paralyzing numbness, which made him realize that he was covered in bandages and wasn't wearing his jumpsuit anymore. Thoughts of who had been treating him, where he was and what had happened to the rest were running through his head, in that instant a familiar voice broke through that line of thought like a jackhammer would break through the Hokage's office windows.

"Naruto-kun, don't move, you need to rest." The familiar, lazy but soft voice struck Naruto with a burst of surprise.

"Kashi-sensei!" He tried to yell, but it ended up sounding like a short, high pitched squeek. Kurama's chakra still hadn't restored his body completely, it took time, the damage was extensive.

"Naruto-kun, lie down alright? You've got to rest now. Remember, the sooner you recover, the sooner you can train for your fight agains Neji!" That sentence crashed into Naruto's brain with the speed of light, or maybe even something faster, like a crazy space anomaly Raikage that was on super speed mushrooms or something. It shattered everything that his brain was processing, even the pain that was constantly getting worse, since his senses were recovering as well. He looked at Kakashi's face, still covered in a mask, not a scratch to be seen on the jonin's face, as a matter of fact, his entire body looked as if he didn't just spend the last couple of days fighting a war against one of the most dangerous shinobi ever. He turned his head and saw something familiar through the window, Hokage mountain along with some random part of the village. It was a surreal experience, he knew his eyes must've been fooling him when he saw only four faces on the stone monument. After all, his eyesight hadn't really recovered yet, so he turned his head back to the familiar masked jonin in front of him.

Before Naruto's brain could stop himself, he blurted out a ton of questions as he felt his voice return.

"Kashi-sensei what do you mean fight against Neji?! Where's Madara, what happened to everyone else Kashi-sensei?"

"Naruto- Kurama tried, but to no avail as Naruto kept on spouting out questions as Kakashi gave him a Look of disbelief.

"Kashi-sensei! How long have I been out? Did you defeat him? Is he dead? Is Hinata okay? Is Tsunade baa-

"NARUTO!" The fox noticed, long before Naruto would, that Kakashi had no idea what the kid was talking about, the jonin was staring at his student as if he had been on some kind of party drug.

"He clearly doesn't know what you're talking about, so stop talking to him right now!"

Naruto wasn't thinking clearly at first, he had seen his sensei again, unharmed which must've meant that... They won! They had to have won, why else would he be in a hospital bed, recovering and why else would Kakashi-sensei look recovered and well rested?

That line of thought was again, shattered when he saw his legs, they were short, really short, the same went for his arms, and his hands were tiny and weak! What happened next was something that only Naruto's best of friends knew he was capable of: Rational thought and rapid deduction. His brain raced and figured it all out, the only thing that made sense. He didn't feel stupid afterwards though, because the conclusion was so far-off anything he had ever even presumed possible that it wasn't likely to ever even come across his thoughts if he hadn't remembered Jiraiya's lectures on space-time jutsu. It all added up, the tiny body, only four faces on the Hokage mountain and Kakashi talking about his fight with Neji. His mind turned to his inner friend and he said slowly: "Kurama... I think we've been sent back in time."

The fox gave him a serious look and gave him a nod. He had already figured it out but he needed for Naruto to figure it out himself, otherwise there was room left for doubt and doubt is dangerous.

Naruto was used to dealing with the unlikely and even the unbelievable, he and every ninja in the world had first-hand experience with the latter, as Madara's power opened up a whole new category on the 'unbelievable' scale. Naruto was so sure, but it was so surreal, time-travel wasn't exactly impossible, just ask anyone who controls some form of space-time jutsu. But this, this is something else entirely...

"Naruto, we need to figure out what kind of power could do something like this, I think the old man used the last of his power to preserve our memories and powers and maybe that's why your body was affected so much by the jutsu."

"So do I tell anyone? I mean they kind of have a right to know, don't they?"

"Remember, most people still hate you now because of... me, they will only think you're crazy and since the old man said to ask the Toad Sage, that's what you'll do."

"So I need to ask the super old Toad over at mt Myoboku, okay, but I'll need to get a toad summoning contract to get there."

"Well, how did you get that last time?"

"I got it from Jiraiya-sensei before, he is the only one with a toad summoning contract right now, so I'll get it from him and we'll just ask that old bag of toad what to do... It'll be nice to 'meet' that old pervert" Naruto chuckled at the thought of seeing his dear pervy-sage again. But before he could put any thought as to how he was going to do all this, Kakashi's voice interrupted him and pulled him out of his conversation with Kurama.

"Naruto-kun, are you alright?" A confused Kakashi said.

Shit Naruto thought what do I do know? He wasn't a great liar, it was a personality trait that he was a little embarrassed of, since shinobi had to be able to go undercover and assume fake identities. His friends always exploited that, they knew he was a terrible liar when under pressure and used it against him in a lot of situations, especially Sakura.

"Oh, it's nothing Kashi-sensei, I just had a weird dream, that's all." To make it a bit more believable Naruto added his signature wide grin after he had finished his sentence. It seemed to have worked because Kakashi looked visibly relieved.

"You've got to rest now Naruto-kun, you've been badly burnt, the medics here will take good care of you and Sakura, Sasuke and I will come to visit tomorrow, don't get in trouble and rest some more alright?" Kakashi wore a nice smile through his mask and it relieved Naruto, it meant that he wasn't going to ask any more questions, at least for now.

Kakashi waved goodbye and left the room. Naruto tried to move his leg again and it hurt like a bitch, he didn't think moving was a great idea for the moment, so he settled down on his back and decided recovery was the best course of action. For now, at least.

Kakashi was now making his way out of the hospital, his mind still racing at what he had seen, did the Kyuubi do this to him? What was going on here? He knew all of the attendants at the preliminaries had seen what happened literally moments after Kiba got carried away by the medics...

-TT-

Naruto had just defeated Kiba when his entire body started glowing bright orange, giving off a deep humming sound. There were small pebbles around the boy on the arena floor that began floating upwards as if gravity was being inverted. It was only seconds before Naruto lost consciousness as he shone even brighter. A low thump could be heard throughout the arena grounds as Naruto fell over, followed by the sound of a dozen tiny stones hitting the arena floor. This was bad, and Kakashi knew it was.

His skin was red, covered in blisters and the floor was washed with blood, Kakashi looked in horror as the medics rushed over to the boy with the head medic yelling out orders. What happened? Was his only thought as he rushed over to see a small crowd gathered around the boy. The floor underneath him was charred and almost molten and more than one medic burnt his fingers trying to lift the boy up. He was still too hot to even touch? Kakashi had seen strange things happen, but to see one of his own students, hurt like this, out of nowhere, it shocked him and everyone else in the arena seemed shocked by this sudden... incident. Naruto was promptly picked up by some medics with a high tolerance for pain, and carried off. Kakashi noticed the scorched jumpsuit had molten into the boy's skin on his upper chest, that was going to leave a nasty scar as well. He only hoped the boy would get through this, he knew he had exceptional healing abilities, due to the Kyuubi's chakra, but this was serious, life-threatening almost. He had to figure out what had caused this before it could happen again...

As the Hokage himself went down onto the arena floor to check the scene, his heart almost sunk in his chest when he saw the burnt boy being carried off into the hospital. His limp unconscious body hardly breathing. It was horrible and for a moment he regretted not handling his... situation differently, but there was no time for regrets, this had to be fixed. When he saw the scorched ground he saw a very familiar pattern scorched into the ground, the whirlpool symbol of the Uzumaki clan. An Uzumaki seal? Could this mean... ? He thought, he had hoped to get a chance to talk to Kakashi before the medics rushed off, but the jonin was already gone along with the medics. As Hokage he couldn't leave before the preliminaries were finished so he returned to his seat in the audience and ordered an anbu to keep an eye on Naruto, make sure he was safe and notify him if anything happened.

The preliminaries continued, Kakashi missed the match between Hinata and Neji, which he heard was particularly grueling, but he arrived in time to see Rock Lee lose to Gaara. Kakashi's mind was still with Naruto and Sasuke at the moment, one of his students had received a curse mark by none other than Orochimaru of the Sannin himself and the other, had just spontaneously been set ablaze by who-knows-what. Still the other matches were quite impressive and some quite tragic but that's the way the exam works and Kakashi knew it. At least Chouji's match went without someone being badly injured...

After the results and matches for the actual third round were announced, Kakashi left for the hospital again only to meet the Hokage halfway on his way there. "Hokage-sama, are you visiting the hospital as well?" He had already guessed it, since this road lead to nothing but some random houses and the hospital.

"Kakashi, there's something we need to talk about, it's about Naruto-kun." The seriousness in Hiruzen Sarutobi's voice was ever present, but his kindness was there as well.

"Did you find out what happened to him? Even with my sharingan I could hardly see what was going on, but he was injured quite seriously, the medics said he'll be out cold for at least a couple of days. They put him in a medically induced coma, because the pain he'd feel when awoke would make treating him impossible. This is really bad, Hokage-sama, if the Kyuubi can do this to him, what should we do, I mean what can we do?"

"I don't think the Kyuubi is responsible for this, Kakashi-san. After he was carried away and the bit of floor that got burnt up cooled down, there was an Uzumaki seal visible on the ground for just a few seconds, before it disappeared again."

Kakashi was quite surprised. "What kind of seal could have caused this? And what would've been it's goal anyway? To kill Naruto?" This situation was getting stranger and stranger, Kakashi was a very composed individual during stressful situations and hardly ever let any kind of emotion show in said situations. However, this was different, this was something his anbu training never prepared him for, the worrying, it was like some advanced form of psychological torture. But as a member of the anbu he knew how to compartmentalize quite well and just saved the awful worrying for his cute students later on, back at his own apartment. For now, he needed to find out what to do about this situation and not get caught up in emotions while fixing this all. Just as his mind returned from this train of thought, Hiruzen Sarutobi spoke: "The purpose of this seal is... unclear at the moment, all we can be certain of is that it came from Naruto himself, it was meant for him and him only. Let's not continue with wild speculation. For now, our main goal should be protecting Naruto from any threats, if this is indeed an assassination attempt, we're looking at a dangerous opponent with access to at least one lost Uzumaki seal."

The Uzumaki were fearsome and powerful sealing-jutsu users, that were exterminated for that very fact. Their home village was attacked and razed down into a pile of rubble and the survivors of the attack fled to villages with close ties to the clan, including the Hidden Leaf.

"I've sent three Anbu officers over to the hospital, Ox, Raven and Horse are there, guarding him at all times. He's at the safest place he could probably be in the village." Sarutobi noted, Kakashi agreed.

"Hokage-sama, I know we can't speculate on anything right now, but when we brought Naruto over here, I noticed how some villagers reacted to seeing him injured so gravely, some were even happy to see him suffer. I knew it must've been hard for him, but I never knew people hated him."

"Kakashi-san, it's a very unfortunate situation indeed, many villagers cannot see past the fox and instead punish Naruto for the very thing he is protecting them from. Naruto has had many 'accidents' while growing up, it's unfair but I cannot force them to change their feelings about him, I can only protect him to the best of my abilities as Hokage." Kakashi knew the Third good enough to know that, while you couldn't really hear it from the way he was talking, he cared deeply for Naruto and it was obvious that it was very painful, having to protect a young boy from the very people he has been protecting since his birth.

Kakashi, thought about the many regrets he used to have, one of them was never really spending any time with his old sensei's orphaned son. He knew the kid had it rough growing up without his parents, but he was too spent up with his anbu missions to ever even spend time in the village. He'd be here for a few hours to sleep and eat, then he'd be off on a mission again. As a man who had spent the better part of his first 20 years regretting so much, he knew of what little use regrets actually had, so he stopped regretting everything he'd done wrong and instead focusing on making some things better. "Sandaime-sama, I'll check up on him twice a day, when there's progress I'll inform you."

"That's alright Kakashi, you just focus on your other students' training and maybe come visit the boy every now and then, my men will keep watch and inform me of any developments. I must go now, please send my best wishes over to Naruto for me." With that, Hiruzen Sarutobi left, along with his two guard anbu. Kakashi nodded and continued walking over to the hospital.

It started to rain, at first it was just a light drizzle, but it quickly started pouring just minutes after. Kakashi asked the attending nurse for Naruto Uzumaki's room number. After a short walk up three flights of stairs and through a hall or two he finally arrived at room number 147. He opened the door to see a young unconscious boy trying to open his eyes, only to quickly close them again, he watched for a while until the boy tried to move his legs, he screamed in pain and Kakashi was about to call for help as he settled back down on his back.

"Naruto-kun, don't move, you should rest." He said..

His voice was met by an excited squeek coming from the young boy lying down on the bed.

-TT-

Author's note:

This is my 2nd attempt at writing this story and I must say it's been really hard. I have the main story set out for now, but the minor encounters, character interactions and everything are making this a lot harder than I initially thought, that's of course also because I don't have any experience writing stories ;] . I uploaded this 2 weeks ago, but I've updated it and made drastic changes to the chapter and fixed some errors here and there. I hope you like it better this way!

I'm gonna work on chapter 2 now and I think it'll be easier from here on out since I now know how I'm going to write this from now on. Thanks for reading and reviewing!