The Dark Guardian
Rated: T

Summary: Naruto's mind was shattered at a young age. Now he must either unite all the pieces or be swallow by his own darkness forever.

Pain has been all that he knew. He had grown accustomed to it at some point, at least to a certain degree. But this was too much. The young boy could no longer handle it. He was suffering and the only he could do was survive. He had no where to run and the only person he knew that would lift a finger to help him was out of reach. He wanted so much to talk to the old man Hokage, to be able to hug his grandfather figure, but such things were nothing more than wishful dreams. He wished that someone could or would come to save him.

Suddenly he felt a presence, or rather many presences, ones that did not seem natural or even physical to him. As he lay on the ground he felt a tug coming from his mindscape. Thinking it was the natural disaster of a certain fur ball inside his head trying to capturehis attention. Oh yes, he knew of the Kyuubi no Yoko. He had known about the fox for about a month now, having heard of it from a man that he only recently found out is named Danzou. The only problem with his theory with the fox trying to contact him was that it hasn't tried to do so yet.

Abruptly he was forcefully thrown into his mindscape. Trying to collect his bearings, Naruto looked around the dark and gloomy sewer, he did not miss the seven different shadows that were approaching him.

-

A week later Naruto was sitting in front of the Hokage, having just escaped his kidnappers earlier that day. He had just got telling the 'Professor' everything that has been going on. With every word, the longest living Hokage got more and more enraged, unconsciously leaking killing intent that would freak out a jounin, causing little Naruto to be a tid bit nervous (there's a reason why Naruo is more resistant, but it won't be revealed until later). "Naruto-kun, I promise you I'll make Danzou pay for what he's done. And I will also make everyone else associated with this atrocious act to realize that none of this will be tolerated."

"I don't care either way, Hokage-jiji. I only came today to explain the reason for my recent absence. I've given up on finding justice in this village."

Sarutobi tried to say something to that but found the words stuck in his throat as the young child left his office.