A century ago the Valley of The End was forged in the clash between Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju. Their power had carved a great scar in the earth, their fight reshaping the lands with their destructive power, forming the great Valley Of The End. The great waterfall was flanked by statues of the two titans of the shinobi world, built to honor the sheer skill and power these two men once possessed.

Now, over a century later, another battle, between two young boys was being fought there. Less destructive, but no less intense for the two combatants.

On one side of the valley stood Sasuke Uchiha. Gone was the image of the proud, handsome young boy that girls had swooned over, his appearance changed and distorted by the curse mark that he drew ever more power from. His once fair skin now replaced with an ashen grey color while his once onyx eyes were now black with crimson irises. The most unusual aspect of his eyes though was the three tomoe present in each eye, a clear sign of the sharingan, the legendary dojutsu of the Uchiha clan while a black, a four pointed star adorned the center of his face, between his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. His lips, (much to the internal amusement of his enemy) had turned a metallic powder blue in color, making it look as though he were wearing lipstick. He had also grown claw-like nails and his spiky hair, which was styled to point upright at the back almost like the tail of a fowl, grew to waist-length, still retaining its shape and style, turning a metallic powder blue in color (again, something that inwardly amused his opponent, he guessed that hairdo couldn't gen much more stupid even with Sasuke's mutation). From his back sprouted two giant webbed hands, a cruel mockery of wings. He wore his usual clothing that consisted of the traditional Uchiha clothing: a navy blue, short-sleeved shirt with a high collar and the Uchiha crest on the back, even though both items were ripped and torn apart by the sheer intensity of the battle.

In spite of the fierce fight he was in, his face remained impassive with only the barest hints of a smirk gracing his lips.

The blond child standing opposite of him snarled. On his head was short, blond hair that stood up all over like the spines of a sea urchin, and a blue headband with a metal plate attached to it that had the Hidden Leaf Village symbol of a spiral arrow engraved into it. He wore a tracksuit that consisted of orange pants and an orange shirt that had blue near the shoulders and was white at the neck, on the back of the shirt was a red spiral symbol, He had some bandages on his thigh and a carrying case for a kunai knives. He also wore a small pouch on his belt for basic ninja supplies.

This was none other than Naruto Uzumaki, "Demon Brat" of the Hidden Leaf Village. Despite the bright orange clothing that he wore, the major attention grabbing point was the bubbling cloak of glowing red energy that covered his form in the outline of an animal, complete with ears and a tail.

He sported what looked like claws on both his hands and feet. His lips had blackened and his canines had also lengthened and sharpened until they had turned into fangs while the pencil-thin whisker-like markings on his face had grown more pronounced, widening and darkening, until they resembled abysmal scars. His eyes had been the greatest change as, not only had his eye shape become more vulpine and had gained black eye rings around them like an animal, his once soulful blue eyes themselves had changed; becoming blood red with an animalistic, vertical black slit for the pupil.

These, combined with his mouth being pulled into a vicious snarl as he beheld his opponent, the boy looked more like a vicious animal than a shinobi.

He looked like a vengeful devil, the thing he most despised.

For his entire short life the boy had been called a demon for holding the power of the strongest Biju that almost destroyed the village he called home at bay within himself. He was in fact the greatest hero the Hidden leaf Village, Konoha, ever had, but was ostracized and hated for what was beyond his control, something that someone else had done to him back when he was a newborn and had no say in.

However the last year or so, he had been proving that he was in fact not the demon the people of his own homeland called him by saving them from the Ichibi no tanuki, Shukaku.

Naruto thought of the path they had taken to get to this point. Of becoming shinobi of their village, Konohagakure. Of the Land of Waves, of the Chuunin exams and the invasion which led to the death of the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. Of Orochimaru and of the decision his best friend took to leave and the promise he made to Sakura.

He made his decision.

The single tail that sprouted behind his back was suddenly joined as a second one, and moments after, a third bubbled up next to it. And with the new tails his power increased, his aura now boiled the waters on which he was standing and created great, steaming tidal waves, the energy so great it repelled the liquid around him.

"You're returning with me to the village, Sasuke!" He shouted with his warped and demonic voice. "Even if I have to break every bone in your body to do so! Even if I have to give into the Kyuubi's foul power!"

The skin started to peel off Naruto's body, showing the swirling dark red, nearly black, layer of chakra energy underneath. The skin burnt up like lit scarps of paper as soon as it left his body and the energy formed a purple dome around him, like an eggshell or a chrysalis, meanwhile Sasuke was trying not to collapse underneath the sheer killer instinct and corrosive properties of the Biju's chakra and it was only because of his cursed seal that he was even managing to remain standing.

One of the powers of the dōjutsu kekkei genkai of his family, the Uchiha Clan, was that the Sharingan was being able to see chakra flow. The Sharingan itself gave color to chakra, allowing the wielder to differentiate them. It could even see chakra through solid surfaces...and what that near x-ray-like vision was showing him as he could practically see what his former friend was becoming under the shell of energy made him wince. This...this was bad...! Things weren't supposed to go this way!

All Sasuke had wanted was to follow the advice of the one he hated most in the world for butchering his family like pigs at slaughter and murder the person he had the strongest bond with in cold blood all for the sake of enhancing his ocular abilities! What was so wrong about that enough to warrant something like having to fight something like this?!

The change...he had to stop it! Rushing forward, Sasuke began to form the hand seals for his most devastating move that was designed to pierce, which—unfortunately—was a close-range technique. As the chidori formed, the once brilliant blue-white lightning that enveloped his fist turned a disgusting black and white mix, but just as he got within arm's reach of his target, a beam of red energy shot upward and with it the orb violently exploded in fractured black disks of energy, white on the insides that dissipated into the air, leaving nothing behind.

Sasuke was slammed into the canyon wall behind him so hard by the orb bursting and directing all of its pure pressurized force outward, that if his new wings hadn't cushioned his impact by taking the brunt of it (which STILL hurt like a bitch!), his spine would have shattered like sugar-woven glass.

Groaning, he pried himself out of the stone around him and looked at what kind of entity the metamorphosis had to display to the world.

What he locked his eyes on, he almost mistook at first.

Were the once orange-clad boy was, stood a fox-like creature made from a chaotic red chakra even more vile and evil than the previous cloak. The nearly-black energy covering his body entirely in a tighter, more intense shroud that more sleekly took the form of a fox around a human body. The outline of fox bones had grown over the back of his torso, arms, legs, and head like some sort of armor. Six swirling tails weaved behind him lazily, like in a trance. His eyes had turned ghastly, glowing, pure white whilst his mouth transformed into a cruel, glasglow, jack-o-lantern maw, rigged with knife-like teeth the inside of that glowing white as well.

This was no longer the worthless, moronic orphan Sasuke had come to associate with what came to his mind when he thought of Naruto. This was something else. A being that clearly only had one purpose to exist: to destroy whatever stood in the path that required its presence in the first place.

Shit.

And judging from what his eyes showed him of how tightly woven together that energy was, distance combat was utterly useless. Not even an annoyance to the thing Naruto had become.

Grimacing, Sasuke formed another chidori. Wishing he could still use his wings for an extra speed boost, or even as a shield between him and attack, or simply to fly up and escape from danger. As they were now, they would only weigh him down as useless sacks of broken bone, muscle, and skin attached to his body.

Naruto—or the thing that had been Naruto—raised his right arm and formed his favored close range move, the Rasengan. The jutsu, which normally would have been blue, now swirled with black and purple energy. Humming with an omnipresent aura.

Sasuke tensed his muscles and the next moment sprang forward, the chidori leaving a trace of destruction behind him as he dragged the Chidori through the ground. Sure the drag slowed him a little, but he was sure he was still meant to win this fight.

Naruto sprang forward as well, propelling himself forward with his new-found power.

With a booming ripping and tearing noise, they clashed Chidori with Rasengan, trying to strike at the core of the other and simultaneously engaging the opposite jutsu. But the moment they got in proximity to collide, the attacks formed a titanic sphere of rejecting energy that centered around the two and carved out a deep bowl in the ground as air was forced away from the sphere, the lake below thrashing with waves.

It wasn't bright and flashing. It was dull in a black color, but thick and opaque, almost as if it were solid.

Suddenly, the energy that pulsed outwards was pulled in, the sphere growing smaller and smaller until glowing white cracks appeared on it and, like the one that had covered Naruto during his transformation earlier, the orb violently exploded in fractured black disks of energy, white on the insides that dissipated into the air, leaving nothing behind, finally vanishing, leaving no trace of the two young ninja.

This was the scene one Kakashi Hatake arrived to see. An empty valley, signs of a brutal fight and no trace of his two students.

Rias Gremory was a rather pretty young thirteen year old. With her fair skin, blue-green eyes and waist length, crimson red hair with loose bangs that framed her pretty face, she cut quite a nice image. Coupled with the fact that she was already developing quite sizable assets, it was clear she would be a knock out beauty in a few years.

She was also a devil.

More specifically, she was a devil of one of the Thirty-Four remaining pillar families, the noble Gremory clan and the younger sister of the Crimson Satan, one of the four great Satans who govern the Underworld, Sirzechs Lucifer. As such, she had high expectations set for her as she was the heiress as well as being merely a high class devil.

At the moment she was taking a small vacation from her family and the endless tasks she had to deal with working day to day. She loved her family, she really, truly did, with all that she was. But sometimes she just wanted to get away from it all and relax with no one to bother her, temporarily put her role and obligations (such as her...UGH!...arranged marriage to that arrogant, aggressive, playboy with a holier-than-thou personality, Riser Phenex, who saw only her family name rather than her a person and viewed her merely as a means to an end to increase his own prestige in the social hierarchy of the underworld. She LOATHED that!). Oh, she understand her position and responsibilities that came with it full well, but it did her good to just take a step back and do something to feel like she could be ordinary, if even for a moment.

It was why she had come out to this clearing after all. It was rather bland, all things considered. Bordered by a small forest and filled with long grass and only a single tree in the center for shade.

Of course, she wouldn't be able to remain here long. When her brother realized she wasn't in her usual spots, he would probably have a panic attack wondering where his sweet "Ria-tan" had disappeared off to and send out all the Gremory family's servants and his peerage to find her as well as call in favors from the other great Satans—again.

Still, she would enjoy the peace while it lasted.

As she lay there, her thoughts wandered to her peerage. All the members of her peerage had suffered greatly and they all literally fell into her lap. The first was her best friend, Akeno Himejima. Akeno had been a young girl she had saved from being killed by her family, (a thought that caused Rias' mouth to crinkle in distaste) and reincarnated as her queen. She had grown very close to the black haired girl and enjoyed spending time with her and although her developing sadistic side was a little scary, she still was her best friend.

The second addition to her peerage was her young rook, Koneko Toujo. Koneko had been scheduled for execution on the crimes of her sister as well as racial hate for her being a youkai, more specifically a Nekoshou, a type of cat yokai. The little white haired girl was unfortunately traumatized and had closed off her emotions to everyone. It had taken a long time to get her comfortable to show even the reminisce amounts of emotion she currently showed to the family.

Her final addition was a recent one. A young blonde boy she had found nearly dead on the frozen ground in Northern Europe and had reincarnated as her knight. He was currently a little standoffish — okay, very standoffish — at the moment and had refused to tell them more than the bare basics of the so-called "Holy Sword Project."

As she continued to think on this, her thoughts turned to what she would use her last pieces on. She currently had a rook, a knight, eight pawns, a bishop and a rare mutated bishop piece left to use. She was unsure on what she wanted to do with the remaining pieces. She wanted to use them, obviously, and give herself a large group of friends like her brother Sirzechs had, but she was unsure which method to use.

She couldn't just randomly pick people, and it wasn't like they would fall from the sky.

Her internal monologue was cut off rather suddenly when she sensed a pulse of energy coming from almost directly above her. Looking up, she saw what looked like an orange comet speeding towards the ground before a loud crash indicated contact with the ground just on the edge of the clearing.

She ran towards the clearing, inclined on finding out what happened.

What she found, however, was not pleasant to see.

A young boy lay in the crater with the remains of his orange clothing still loosely attached to him. His eyes were closed but tremendous amounts of blood was flowing from underneath his eyelashes. All his skin seemed to have burned away, exposing his raw flesh to the cold outside air. Clutched in his right hand, the boy held a still warm. still pulsing, bloody heart, seemingly ripped from another person's rib cage. In his other hand, just as disturbingly, he held two eyes, torn from their sockets and covered in blood.

Sliding down the side of the impact crater to stop next to the young man, Rias checked his pulse and found it growing weaker by the minute. If something wasn't done, the boy would soon die!

There was only one thing she could do to save his life.

Taking out her Evil Piece set, Rias reached out with the energy of the king piece within her body to the young man.

"I, Rias Gremory, resurrect you, that you may serve me for all eternity." she said as a glowing arcane array appeared underneath him and red chess pieces entered his body one after the other. The sheer number surprising her.

Rias hated turning this boy without his connect, even if it was necessary.

It was a selfish act.

But she was a devil, and devils were regarded as selfish creatures...

The following day, Rias was looking around the small-relatively speaking anyway-room that she had called for her peerage to meet in. Seeing everyone was settled, or at least as settled as they could be, Rias cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice everyone. Yesterday I was taking a stroll through the nearby forest when I suddenly heard an impact not too far away. A human boy around our age was lying in the crater. His injuries were severe and he was on death's doorstep so I decided to resurrect him as my newest piece-his body took all eight pawns and a mutated bishop piece to save him. After I resurrect him, my brother appeared and carried him to the hospital since he was still severely injured. He was clutching a heart and a set of eyes in his hands, which was a bit disgusting." She said, "When we arrived in the hospital and started healing him the doctors found out that his eyes were missing and thus implanted the eyes he was clutching to in him so he wouldn't be blind forever, I just received the message that he was starting to wake up and wanted you to be the first people he would meet."

Scanning her eyes over the conscious members of her peerage, she quickly gauged their reactions. Akeno, for her part, merely looked as interested. Kiba had merely looked bored, although there was a small curiosity present. Koneko on the other hand showed no kind of reaction.

"Alright let's go." Rias announced enthusiastically after which the rest followed her towards the medical wing of the Gremory family's household.

The first thing that Naruto noticed when he woke up was he was NOT in the hospital. How did he know this? The bed was actually comfortable, for starters. Secondly he wasn't wrapped up in bandages and there was no smell of antiseptic or medicine. So, where was he then?

He opened his eyes but had to close them immediately again due to the bright light inside the room.

Slowly opening his eyes again to let them adjust to the light (why was his vision so much sharper?), he saw that he was in want seemed to be a bedroom converted into hospital room, it still held the comfort of a bedroom but people were able to receive medical treatment here.

He was glad for that.

He very much hated that building. Not for the people, nor for what happened within here, but because how utterly dead it made you feel when you were inside it. Actually, he felt that way in every hospital. White walls, white floors, white clothes it was all so eerily dead! The least they could do was add some color to it so it didn't feel like you're quarantined from the rest of the world. And then there were the needles. And don't get him started on the smell! It's either that of sickness or sterilization. Ugh!

As far as he was concerned, the word "hospital" stood for "Horrible Obnoxiously Smelling Place Insistently Trapping All Locals."

"Where am I?" He asked to no one in particular.

"In the Gremory estate." A voice came from his right.

"Aaaargh! What the hell!?" Naruto shouted whilst clutching his chest somehow leaping four feet in the air while still in a sitting position, then turned to look at where the light voice was coming from, noting a group of four people, all of them his age, that stood there, looking at him. "Where did you come from?!"

"Ara Ara, He is a lively one isn't he, Rias-chan?" Akeno asked Rias after watching the startled reaction of the boy in the bed.

Naruto looked at them.

The one who had spoken just now and described him as being lively was a young woman with a buxom figure and very long black hair and violet eyes. Her hair was tied in a long ponytail, reaching all the way down to her legs with two strands sticking out from the top and sloping backwards, with an orange ribbon keeping it in place, she was dressed a traditional miko attire, consisting of a white haori with red accents, a red hakama, and a pair of zōri with white tabi.

The next was a petite girl with white hair and hazel eyes, and a look of apathetic boredom on her face. Her hair in front had two long bangs going past her shoulders and several loose bangs hanging over her forehead, while the back had a short bob cut. She wore a black cat-shaped hair clip on both sides of her hair and her attire consisted of a short white kimono. What was really shocking however, was that she had a pair of white cat ears and a pair of matching white tails, and her eye pupils were cat-like vertical slits.

The only guy in the group he was looking at was a pretty-boy of a young man with short blonde hair, grey eyes and a mole under his left eye. He was dressed in a black blazer with white accents over a white, long-sleeved dress shirt with a black ribbon on the collar, matching black pants, and brown dress shoes.

However, the one that caught his attention most of all was young woman with light skin, blue-green eyes and a buxom figure. Her most distinctive feature was easily her long, crimson red hair that reached down to her thighs, with a single hair strand, an ahoge, sticking out from the top. Her hair also had loose bangs covering her forehead and side bangs framing her face. She wore an outfit which consisted of a floor-length, loosely-fitted gown, with long, tight sleeves and a narrow belt. Over it was worn a sleeveless surcoat and she had on some brown leather shoes. Oddly, she seemed to find the outfit a bit bothersome. Having know the likes of Sakura and Ino back home, and how fussy they were with fashion, he'd unfortunately learned to tell when an outfit didn't seem a girl's style or taste.

Long story short, in Naruto's mind, he'd been infected by those two. A guy shouldn't know so much about fashion, especially a girl's sense of fashion.

Looking at the last girl however, Naruto had to fight down a blush that would've made his face rival the girl's hair. After all, he didn't know why, but he had a MAJOR weakness for redheaded women. Sadly, there weren't any in Konohagakure, the closest to that being the pinketts of the Haruno family.

"Okay...who are you people, and where's Baa-chan?" He asked, uneasy. Couldn't be too careful. Still...while he didn't know who they were, it was obvious that these people had found and helped him, so he saw no reason to be hostile.

"Well, I'm Rias Gremory and these are Akeno Himejima, Yuuto Kiba and Koneko Toujou." the redhead said as she stepped forward and gesturing to each person in turn as she introduced them to him. "As for your grandmother...you were by yourself when you were found and brought here."

"Name doesn't ring a bell." Naruto replied, he didn't know any shinobi clan by the name of "Gremory", and he wasn't back in Konoha, that was obvious. So where was he? Then his eyes widened in shock. Wait! Where was Sasuke?! He was about throw off the sheets and burst out of the room, but he wrestled the impulse down and turned to Rias, if these people had helped him, maybe they could point him in the right direction to get back home.

"Say..." Naruto said, trying to be calm, "can you please send me to the Hidden Leaf village as fast as possible? I have to report that I failed to bring back the teme, and that he ran of to Orochimaru."

Rias tilted her head in confusion, then shook it negatively. "I'm sorry...I don't know of any leaf village, the only thing I can tell you is that I found you half-dead in a crater with a heart and two eyes in your hands."

Naruto went pale at that and it took a moment for it to sink in. What did she mean she didn't know about Konohagakure?! Being in a different place he could get...but never even hearing of it before?! Where was he?! If not in the boundaries of the Elemental Lands, then where? And he'd been half-dead in in a crater?! Damn fox and it's power! But worst of all was that last bit of news about what had been found in his hands.

"Wh-Whu...Whuu...Wait!? WHAT?! Heart and eyes?!" Naruto wondered as he realized what had happened, horrified. 'I...I killed him?! I killed my best friend!...Even though he betrayed the leaf and tried to kill me, he was still my friend!' he thought. Oh...he was SO dead when he got home! If the Elders and Council that were formed for the sake of having authority in the event that there wasn't an active Hokage didn't kill him, the people of the village that worshiped Sasuke for his clan name, or even worse, Sasuke's fangirls, would!

It was a relief when the redhead's voice brought him out of his thoughts.

"Also, like I said, when I found you, you were almost dead so I had to use my Evil Pieces to resurrect you into a devil to save you, after that we transplanted the eyes you held in your hand since your own were clawed out." Rias said.

Naruto's blood turned into iced-over tundra at that. He looked at Rias in absolute horror.

"Wait, you resurrected me...as a demon?!" PLEASE let him have heard THAT wrong! As if things couldn't get any worse!

"Yes...well...devil actually, but generally the idea's the same." she replied whilst she and her peerage revealed their black, bat-like wings behind themselves, "I reincarnated you as my new servant, although I'd rather call it a family."

"A Devil..." He repeated faintly. Fixated on that one point. 'So I finally became what the villagers said I always was, a demon...Why did she turn me into one? I'd rather have stayed dead than become the thing that I worked so hard for to prove that I'm not!'

"Is there any way to reverse the process?" He asked desperately.

"No, I'm sorry," Rias said, not knowing what kind of impact her next words would have on Naruto, she was trying to be delicate with this, even though it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to bring up, and that the only way to say it was to be blunt, no telling how her new pawn/mutate bishop would come to terms with his new situation, after all. "But there's nothing wrong with being a devil like us."

At her words, Naruto felt something in him snap.

"You...Do you know how long I have been called a demon without being one?! Do you know how long I have tried to prove those people wrong?! Do you know that you turned me into the thing that I despised my entire life?!" he raved hysterically. "YOU TOOK AWAY MY HUMANITY! YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DIE!"

Rias took a half-step back, surprised. "No, I'm sure you're jus-"

She was interrupted when Naruto lunged for a knife that laid on the cupboard next to him. He grabbed the blade and in a quick motion, brought it towards his throat, however just before he could end his life, Kiba knocked him out and took the knife from his fellow male blond.

"...I think he might need some time to adjust being a devil..." Akeno said awkwardly, attempting to reassure Rias.

Rias was in shock, however. None of her pieces until now had tried to kill themselves upon hearing that they had become a devil. Sure, they opposed the idea for a while, but none had tried to take their own life.

She just hoped he would come to accept it.