Ten years ago, the Kyuubi had rampaged almost on top of Konoha.

That wasn't unique; the Kyuubi had rampaged before.

Before it could level the city, it had been sealed into a newborn, creating a jinchuriki.

Again, the Kyuubi had been sealed twice before, so that wasn't all that strange.

As the Kyuubi fought and killed, its potent chakra reenergized an ancient construct buried deep within the earth.

That had happened several times before; even powerful human chakra would wake the golem from its slumber. Just as the other times, it simply lay with infinite patience, waiting for orders until the burst of power had faded and it slumber could begin again.

In fact, the only strange thing to happen was a certain blonde trouble-maker accidentally discovering her.

XXX

Shit, shit, shiiiittt! The rather unimaginative thought was definitely not uninspired. Putting laxatives in coffee was funny, but doing it to a group of highly trained (and occasionally psychotic) assassins was a bad idea.

Naruto, having done just that, was now sprinting through the narrowest alleys he could find, trying to avoid his extremely upset victims.

Finally, he stumbled into an open area near the walls. He had gotten turned around a bit, but the gate was just a block down.

Naruto had run for this gate in particular because it was almost certain to be abandoned. It was basically an emergency exit for when a ninja had to leave the city without going all the way to the main gate.

Sure, it might seem like a risk to have an unguarded door, but between the traps and solid steel gate, it would actually be easier to go through the walls than trying to break down the door.

Easy to leave, not so easy to get back in. For Naruto, that was perfect though. Most of the ninja chasing him had duties today, so they probably wouldn't want to have to run around half the city to get back in.

Barreling through the gate, he slammed the door behind him before doubling over to catch his breath. Sure, he had great stamina for a kid his age, but running a good two miles at a dead sprint was a bit much!

Finally catching his breath, he stood up and started strolling along the fence separating the training ground next to him from the walls.

Maybe it was a bad idea to prank Chunin Naruto mused, but after that one bastard had pushed him and spilled his ramen, there had to be justice! Still, it would probably be better to limit his next prank to the one who had actually done something instead of targeting the largest group of Chunin he could find with the guy in it.

So wrapped up in his thoughts, Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the voice of one of the Chunin.

"Find that little brat! He can't be far!"

Panicking, Naruto scrambled away from the voices. He only had a half a minute at most before they would find him, and with them being angry enough to follow him, he didn't want to know what they were going to do if they did.

Naruto almost cried for joy when salvation appeared in the form of bad maintenance. A small hole had been torn in the fence. While it wasn't big enough for a normal person, a really small ten year old could just squeeze through.

"Where did he go?" the Chunin that seemingly lead the group demanded.

"Dunno," one of the others grunted, "maybe he climbed the fence?"

The Chunin paled at the thought of what the Hokage would do if the fox brat got killed in the training grounds from them chasing him.

After all, there was a reason it was called the Forest of Death.

"Hurry and find him!" he yelled.

Naruto took off running into the forest. He might not know exactly where he was, but he could see a tower in the distance occasionally. Hopefully, whoever was in the place wasn't one of the people he had pissed off with one of his pranks.

XXX

Naruto gasped as he burst into the clearing with the tower. The forest hadn't been hard to get through, but it was dang scary anyway. He was pretty sure he had seen shadows larger than he was in there!

What he wasn't aware of, was that training ground forty-four had long been popular with elite Jonin. Thus, any animal not capable of at least sensing chakra had been eliminated from the gene pool.

Why did this matter? Because they only cared about the amount of chakra, not the age of the human that had it. Combined with the traces of Kyuubi chakra he emitted, Naruto was something like a forest fire: really bright and utterly terrifying to those poor animals.

Naruto, blissfully unaware of this, ran over to the tower door. He hadn't seen anyone since he came into the forest, but he had heard running several times. (Those poor tigers…)

Trying the door, he was delighted to find that it was unlocked. That actually made a lot of sense, after all, none of the animals had thumbs, so a doorknob was actually fairly good security.

Naruto wandered through the abandoned tower, looking for anyplace to hide. He figured he could disappear for an hour or two then sneak back into the village. After all, how long could they stay mad?

He nearly cheered when he found a door with a yellow KEEP OUT sign on it. Since it didn't have the Hokage's seal on it, it was just a maintenance sign. Perfect!

Popping the door open, he hit the light switch. Nothing jumped out at him, so he walked down the stairs, carefully closing the door behind him. Now, no one but a trained tracker would be able to tell where he was hiding.

Naruto sat on the top step. His plan was working perfectly! It was also boring as all get out though. Shrugging, he decided to explore his temporary hideout.

He followed the stairs until they opened up into a large empty room. At first glance Naruto was disappointed. There wasn't anything in the room, not even any furniture! It was just a concrete box! Then he looked at the ground.

Huh, I wonder what caused that?

'That' was a series of cracks spreading from a single point in the dull gray floor. It had been caused by a particularly enthusiastic training session between Tsunade and Jiraiya years ago.

Naruto wandered over to see if he could tell what kind of weapon or tag had been used to crack such durable concrete. Just as he touched the edge of the cracks, he found out why the room had never been repaired.

It had been over top of a sinkhole.

Naruto only had a second to panic as the ground gave way beneath his feet. Before he could actually do anything, impact made the world go black.

XXX

The construct sat up as something crashed into her sanctuary. Instead of being dirt like she had expected, it seemed to be an unconscious human child.

It was possible the child was dead, but- no it groaned and rolled over.

She contemplated the situation as she grabbed her weapon. It seemed that she had something to do after all this time. The question was what.

XXX

Naruto groaned as something poked him in the side. "Five more minutes Jiji."

The poking continued, becoming more insistent until he groaned and sat up, holding his head. "What happened?" he asked.

His eyes snapped open when a sweet, yet oddly toneless voice answered, "You fell through the ceiling."

Naruto jumped to his feet, looking for the person talking to him. A blonde girl was staring at him with emotionless yellow eyes. Still, it wasn't her eyes he was looking at.

First she had on a heavy-looking blue armored dress. She was short for a grownup, but she didn't seem to notice the weight of the armor.

The second thing was what really had his attention though. The oversized spear she had pointed at his chest held his total and undivided focus. "I am Ashlotte, and this temple is my resting place," she said, "I have long waited for a priest to come, but I will kill any intruders."

"So," Ashlotte asked, dragging his attention from the spear pointed rather demonstratively at his chest, "are you a priest or an intruder?"

Naruto gulped as he looked into her flat citrine eyes. What the heck did I fall into?