FFXFan13 Challenge Response: Blood Warrior

Author Note- Hey, I read a challenge by FFXFan13, and I want to try his challenge. Even if I don't finish by June 9, I just won't submit it. I'll still write it though. Well, here we go.

Oh, I have nothing against any of the Konoha 12, except Sasuke and Sakura (can't express that here, though. She needs to do the surgery), but I've got to have them all killed.

Text

"Speech"

'Thought'

Flashback

"Kyuubi Talking"

"Naruto Talking to Kyuubi"

"Letter Text"

"Al Bhed Language"

Chapter 1

Naruto looked around. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This wasn't RIGHT!

It had been five years sense Sasuke had left Konoha, but now he was back. With the entire Sound Army. That's bad.

It seems that he'd killed Orochimaru after he'd stopped being useful to him. For Naruto, that wasn't too surprising. What did surprise him was that he hadn't just killed Orochimaru; he'd absorbed him using a forbidden jutsu he found in one of Orochimaru's secret scrolls. This meant that Sasuke was stronger than Orochimaru ever was.

He'd launched an attack on Konoha with all of his available force. Ironically, they'd chosen to attack at the third round of the Chunin Exams, again. Konoha was still weak from taking out half of the Akatsuki, including Kisame, Itachi, and Deidara, with the help of Tobi, who was actually Kakashi's old partner Obito in disguise. They'd had no opportunity to regain all the ninja they'd lost, including Kiba, Akamaru, Neji, Ino, and Choji, turning the Konoha 12 into the Konoha 7.

Itachi's Tsukiyomi had simply been too much for Kiba and Ino, while the Samehada had taken all of Neji's chakra, making his Juken and Byakugan both useless. Choji wasn't as lucky this time around with his three Soldier Pills he'd had to resort to against Deidara.

Sasuke's army was several thousand strong, while Konoha barely had three hundred, the majority of them inexperienced Genin. A big cause of this was Danzo and his ROOT AMBU, who'd betrayed the Leaf for power. A large majority of the AMBU were ROOT, and any that weren't, were quickly taken care of.

The Konoha 7 had been some of the best fighters in the war against sound, but it still wasn't enough. Shikamaru had been the first to fall fighting Sound Nin in front of the Gates, attempting to buy enough time for the others to find Jiraiya, who'd been in one of the nearby villages for 'Research'. By the time that Shino and Hinata had made it back with the frog Sannin, Shika had already had a fatal blow to the heart by a lightning Jutsu. He never even felt it.

Shino and Hinata, who'd been dating, never made it back into the safety of the walls. It turns out that Hinata's father had given Hinata an arranged marriage to Shino's clan, probably to create an elite tracker with both bugs and Byakugan. They'd tried to find a way around it, but to no avail. So, they settled for taking it slowly. At first, it didn't look like it would work out, but eventually, they both came around. Naruto had taken more of a brotherly figure to Hinata after she realized she couldn't have him, and her a sister figure for him.

Shino had been struck down by a sword wielder, who didn't use chakra for Shino to drain. Hinata had been distracted by the death of her comrade and didn't see the lightning bolt headed for her heart. They died right next to each other.

Jiraiya had made it to the Hokage tower and had met up with Tsunade, Kakashi, and Gai. They came up with a battle plan while Tenten and Kurenai teamed up in the village with any remaining ANBU and ninja to hold off the invading forces. Tenten fell to a wind user while Kurenai had a backlash when one of her forbidden genjustu was broken, leaving her brain-dead. She didn't survive too long after that.

Eventually, It was decided that they'd split into several groups. Group one would be Gai and Lee, who would take on most of the army head-on. The second group was Jiraiya and Tsunade, with Shizune who'd attempt to reach Sasuke and kill him. The third group was Team Kakashi, AKA Kakashi, Sakura and Naruto. It was their job to go in and take out as many of Sasuke's elite guards as they could and provide Tsunade and Jiraiya backup.

It didn't turn out so well. They'd all gotten stronger during the five years that Sasuke had been gone, but it hadn't been enough. In the end, Gai and Lee had managed to wipe out a couple thousand Nin, but had to resort to opening all eight gates each, killing them both. Anyone who would have watched them would have said that they'd looked happier than anyone had ever seen them since Neji's death. Whether this was from the fight, or the possibility that they'd be seeing Neji again was impossible to tell.

Jiraiya and Tsunade didn't have too much luck, either. The Nin that Gai and Lee failed to take out were mostly high-jonin level ninja, and they'd fallen back to their camp where Sasuke and his elite guards were. Jiraiya and Tsunade fell into an over elaborate and yet still successful trap, but not before managing to take out almost everyone left. Only Sasuke and two of his most powerful guards were still alive by the time that Team Kakashi made it to the camp.

I think this would be the time to pause and tell you a little information I neglected to mention beforehand. Over the five years, all eleven of them had gotten stronger, but the biggest change had been to Naruto.

When Sasuke escaped, he'd blamed himself. Hard. His guilt had prompted him to throw himself into training, desperate for power. Not for revenge, though. No, he'd desired power to help keep those precious to him safe. He still considered Sasuke his first and best friend. Eventually, his desire and training had one very strange effect. He had something along the lines of bi-polar disorder or MPD.

When a time didn't call for seriousness, he'd be a lot like a mellower version of his old self. He wasn't quite as loud, but he still goofed off or performed pranks. When he got into battle, however, his personality made a complete 180, becoming cold and calculating in an instant. At first, he'd shock people with the change, but after they determined it didn't have any negative mental effects, they grew accustomed to it.

He'd also started thinking things through before charging in blindly. He was actually very intelligent, not that anyone in Konoha would ever know it. It was mostly because all the instructors at the academy tried to fail him, so he discovered it was easier to act like an idiot than to actually show his intelligence. Eventually, he forgot that he'd even been smart, and the mask of idiocy took over completely. However, a near-death experience had broken the mask he never even realized he was wearing.

He'd learned a lot of stuff over the five years as well. Originally, he'd taken a two year trip with Jiraiya to train, but when that was over, he left on his own to find and master anything he could. One day, he turned to Kyuubi for help.

Flashback

Naruto sat at the base of a great tree and entered a meditative state. He needed to talk to his 'tenant' about learning some new things.

When he entered his mindscape, he was slightly shocked at what he saw. He managed to school his features quickly. Instead of a really, really big fox inside the cage, there was an, in his opinion, attractive woman, about twenty two years old. She was wearing a red and gold flowing dress that moderately covered her large… assets. She had long red hair that went down to her waist with two little fox ears poking out of the top. Her eyes were also red, and the nine tails behind her were red with a black tip. She looked up at him and swore.

"Oh, shit." Her voice, while loud, was definitely feminine, not the deep voice she'd been using before when she talked to him in his head.

"WHOA! YOU'RE A GIRL?!" Naruto nearly screamed. Kyuubi… didn't look to happy.

""Stupid mortal! Of course I'm a girl. Doesn't this body prove it enough?"" To prove her point, she spun around once, looking very sarcastic as she finished. Naruto looked sheepish.

"Right, sorry. It's just that, well…. I thought that…" Kyuubi cut him off.

"That I'm male. I know. I personally blame you stupid humans in your belief that anything powerful has to be male." Naruto couldn't help but nod at that. "True, but that wasn't it." Kyuubi shot him a 'wtf' look. Seeing this, Naruto explained. "It was the voice, actually." Kyuubi sweatdropped. Defeated, she just decided to move on. "What did you want, anyways?"" Naruto answered with one word.

"Training."

Kyuubi stared at him, locked eyes for a good two minutes. Naruto never flinched, never looked away. After all that, she broke eye contact and shrugged. "Sure. We start with the Blood Jutsu tomorrow." Naruto was about to leave, when something registered.

"Blood? I thought you were the demon of fire." Naruto said, scratching his head. Kyuubi sighed. ""Again, blame your human assumptions that you know everything and are always right. Just because I am red, they say that I'm the demon of fire, completely false. I control Blood and Blood Techniques."" Naruto nodded. He started to walk towards the door… yes, there was a door out… when he stopped and turned around.

"Hey, why are you helping me?" He asked. Kyuubi looked at him for a second, before looking away. ""Because if you die, I die. That, and… well, that isn't important now, just be grateful."" He nodded and turned around. ""Oh, and leave that door open on your way out!"" She called out after him.

Flashback Kai

Naruto did leave the door open as he left, giving Kyuubi a way to communicate with him. True to her word, she started teaching him Blood Techniques the next day. They'd started out small, with the most basic being just a two seal jutsu, both used in every blood technique as the first and last signs, to replenish lost blood. Eventually, he'd used it so many times; his body just produced an excess amount of blood on its own, without him doing the technique.

Kyuubi wasn't so bad, after you got to know her, as Naruto found. It turns out that the only reason she even attacked the village was because she was ordered by Orochimaru, who had managed to tear her out of the Demon Realms. She didn't have any choice but to comply.

She'd blamed herself for Naruto's hard life, which she watched in real time through his eyes. Eventually, she came to look at him a lot like the son she never had and always wanted, but she had a reputation to keep up, so she decided to not tell Naruto any of this until he either asked or figured it out for himself.

Eventually, he matured up to more powerful techniques. He was nowhere near as good as Kyuubi, who was the absolute master, but he could hold his own with most others. His three year solo journey was great for learning taijutsu and kenjutsu as well.

For a while, he settled on just traveling around and finding people to train him. Eventually, he learned the basics of about twelve different styles; including the strong fist Lee was so partial to using. He eventually combined the best aspects of all of them into one fighting style, the shadow fist. While by no means an ultimate style, it was better than most.

As for his kenjutsu, he'd learned a little of whatever style he could come across. One huge discovery was in the land of Lightning. He was in a tiny little village, barely even worth mentioning, when he stumbled upon a cave just on the outskirts. In the cave was a gold-mine.

Not literally. It was a gold-mine of scrolls. He read the first one, which he committed to memory.

To whoever finds this cache of scrolls

Hello. You have just discovered one of the greatest treasures of swordsmanship in the Elemental Countries. In these scrolls are the 'Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu' sword style as well as instructions on how to create your own techniques.

Now, dear reader, take my next words to heart. The Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu style is a killing art. If you are not going to use this style to kill, leave this cave now and tell nobody of its location. If you are going to use these scrolls for evil, I say this too you. Whatever your plan is, it will not work.

The Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu is a style used for mass slayings for protection only. Only someone with the drive to protect others can master this style. Katana or Sakubatou, it doesn't matter the results will be the same. There is no way to avoid killing with this style. To you who use this to protect others, I only have one piece of advice to give you.

Good Luck, for if you need this style, whatever you're facing must be tough.

Kenshin Himura.

He'd taken all the scrolls and sealed them in a master seal scroll, which contained everything from spare weapons to clothes to food that he'd collect. Unfortunately, he was nowhere near fast enough to master the style, so he settled for memorizing them, in hopes he'd have a chance to increase his speed.

He'd finally broken his ramen addiction, thank god. However, he'd replaced it with something that was, in his opinion, much better and cheaper, too. Pocky.

He'd originally tried some when they'd taken out Itachi. He'd run out of ramen and was wining to Sakura about stopping and getting some. Eventually, they'd stopped this by telling him to find something else to eat. Only problem was that the only thing they had was the stash of Pocky they'd taken from Itachi. So he'd tried that.

Well, to make a long story really short, he'd loved it. A lot. So, he'd taken the entire Pocky stash (nobody else wanted it), and sealed it in a scroll. Then, he used his extra money, which was all his mission payments and allowance from the Hokage (he'd never had anything to spend it on but cheep ramen) and bought as much pocky as he could. Which was a lot. He figured he had enough to last two or three people supplied with all the pocky they wanted for their entire lives.

Finally, he'd worked with Kyuubi to be able to use more than three tails without entering a blood-rage mode, destroying everything. So far, he'd managed to be able to reach six tails without entering the blood rage. Any farther than that and he was uncontrollable.

Anyway, team Kakashi entered the camping grounds to come upon a massacre. Tsunade and Jiraiya had just been killed by Sasuke and his two guards, all that was left. Now, the war was down to three on three. Kakashi, Mangekyou Sharingan blazing, Sakura, with her chakra-scalpels and chakra-enhanced punches, and Naruto in the two-tailed form charged Sasuke and his two most elite guards, switching enemies every so often.

At first, things were going well. Kakashi had gone up against one of the guards while Sakura tried to cut the tendons of the other, leaving Naruto to fight Sasuke. They fought for about an hour, before someone made a mistake. Unfortunately, it was Kakashi.

His attention had slipped for just a moment, but it was all the time Sasuke needed. He lunged forward, Orochimaru's Kusanagipoised to pierce Kakashi's heart. Kakashi managed to twist at the last moment, taking the hit on the shoulder. He knew it was pointless, though. The blade was poisoned, and he knew it. He turned and performed a suicide move, the Time-Dimension Barrier Jutsu.

The Time-Dimension Barrier Jutsu was a forbidden suicide move the only the most Elite of the Elite AMBU Members were taught. It cast its target into an alternate dimension. However, there are two drawbacks that make this Jutsu almost never used.

First is that it only worked for about five or ten minutes at best. This gives both parties a chance to rest and come up with a strategy, not just the caster's side.

The other problem is that as soon as the victims of the jutsu returned, the caster would die. There was no way around it, so most shinobi never used the Jutsu, as the risk outweighed the rewards for most. Now, however, Kakashi said it was needed.

He slumped to the ground, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he called Sakura and Naruto over. Neither of them was in great shape. Naruto had been forced into his five-tail state over the course of the battle, but a cheap shot put a senbon in his left eye. It was bleeding heavily, and would probably never work again, as he was using too much of Kyuubi's chakra for the regeneration to work.

Sakura wasn't quite so bad. Her left leg was bleeding heavily, as was her right arm, and her hair was thick with blood. She had several cuts and bruises all over her body. They all did. Kakashi turned to look at Naruto.

"Naruto, we don't have much time. Sasuke and his guards will be back at any moment. I know I wasn't always the best sensei, but I want to make it up to you. I want you to accept my last gift, my Sharingan." Naruto gasped as pink started to run down his face, the sweat and tears mixing with the blood from his destroyed left eye.

Naruto was about to tell him not to talk crazy, that he'd get better and then he could go back and train him to make it all up to him, but stopped. He couldn't bring himself to try and fool either him or Sakura. He also couldn't bring himself to try and resist his teacher's last wish. Not trusting his voice, he just nodded.

Kakashi then turned to Sakura "You don't have much time, but it doesn't have to be perfect, as I'll die in a few minutes anyway and Naruto has an insane healing rate. Just be sure to get it done. You need to start, now." He then laid back and crossed his hands on his stomach, his Sharingan eye opened.

Naruto copied the position next to him, with his destroyed eye open. Sakura kneeled down between the two and pulled out anesthesia when Kakashi grabbed her wrist.

"There's no time. Do it without." He said. Silently, Sakura nodded and went about the sloppy surgery to remove Kakashi's eye and transplant it into Naruto.

It took the entire ten minutes that Kakashi's jutsu lasted for, but at the end, Naruto opened both of his eyes, only to be staring out of one normal eye and one Sharingan eye. He looked over to see Sakura was crying heavily while doing her best to maintain her composure. Kakashi was laying there, right eye socket bare, unmoving. Naruto noticed the lack of the rise and fall of his chest, and realized he was dead. He hadn't survived the surgery.

Even though the drain was minimal, using his new Sharingan was disorienting, as he got a super-slowed down speed with one eye while the other was normal. As a tribute to his now deceased sensei, he pulled down his hitiate to cover his left eye. He would be the first to admit, it felt strange to only see with one eye, but he could manage. He rolled over slightly, and groaned.

"Naruto, you're awake!" He'd passed out because his extremely high pain tolerance level had been reached. She knelt down by him and checked his forehead with the back of her hand.

"I was worried, because I didn't know if it wo—" She suddenly stopped speaking, her eyes wide, staring up past him, mouth slightly open. Suddenly, she coughed slightly, and thick, ruby-red blood started running down her mouth like a small waterfall. She collapsed on his chest, as Sasuke stood over her, the blood-stained Kusanagiheld in front of him. He'd stabbed Sakura in the back through the heart. He looked around to see that his two elite guards were dead.

Sasuke smirked, and suddenly Naruto saw red. He started tapping into Kyuubi's chakra, totally ignoring her yelling.

""NARUTO STOP! IF YOU GO ANY FARTHER THAN EIGHT TAILS, YOU COULD DIE!"" She yelled, for indeed, Naruto had tapped into seven tails and started relentlessly assaulting Sasuke, who was immediately on the defensive, even with his level two curse seal.

Suddenly, Naruto pulled into even more chakra in his rage and entered the Eighth Tail. Kyuubi was starting to panic. ""THIS IS BAD! STOP, NARUTO-KUN! YOUR BODY CAN'T HANDLE THIS MUCH DEMON CHAKRA!"" She called. He ignored her and started going crazy, slashing at Sasuke with his claws while dodging the Kusanagi with minimal effort. He had Sasuke beat, but his rage pushed him even farther, as he went for the Ninth and final Tail.

Kyuubi was starting to freak. His chakra pathways weren't meant to handle this much demon energy. It was literally destroying them, which would kill him if he kept it up for too much longer. ""Dammit, Naruto. I didn't want to have to do this, but I don't want to die yet!"" She started using her nine tails to scratch hundreds of runes into the ground while she simultaneously started running through lightning fast seals and muttering under her breath. She didn't have much chakra, but she didn't really need it for this technique.

Naruto didn't remember much of what happened next. He thought he heard Kyuubi yell something along the lines of ""D.mo..c .rt.: H..f De.o. Tr.ns..rm..i.n J.ts."" and felt a little twinge, what happened next was all a blur. When he came to, Sasuke was dead, and the hard truth finally sunk in.

The war was over. Sasuke was dead. But the price was high. Too high. Everyone else was dead, as well. He looked around to see that Kakashi and Sakura were still lying off to the side of the field, and his headband was still over his left eye. He still had his teacher's Sharingan. Then, something else hit him.

He had his teacher's Sharingan. He just killed Sasuke Uchiha, the one kid that, through all he'd done, was still considered his best and first friend. He quickly ran over to a nearby puddle of water and yanked his head-band up. His eye was blood red, with a black Shuriken-like design in it. He'd gotten the Mangekyou Sharingan, the thing Sasuke had been trying to achieve for years, and he would trade it and all his skill, just to go back and try to get it right.

Suddenly, he noticed something else. He had blood-red fox ears with black tips. He turned around and saw nine blood red fox tails with black tips. If he hadn't been so exhausted, both emotionally and physically, he would have been screaming.

Instead, he just settled for dejectedly asking "Kyuu-chan, what happened?" Naruto said out loud, knowing that there was nobody around to hear him.

The Kyuubi spoke softly. ""You overloaded your chakra systems. You'd have died if I hadn't done what I did. I used a demonic jutsu to save your life the only way I knew how. I had to use the 'Demonic Arts: Half Demon Transformation Jutsu'. You're now officially a hanyou."" She sounded just as upset as Naruto felt, his emotions influenced hers.

Naruto sighed. He'd have freaked about this earlier in his life, now, he just didn't care. He'd accepted that becoming a hanyou was a very distinct possibility after he learned about the Kyuubi, and now it was reality.

""I'm sorry, Kit. It's over. There's nothing either of us can do.""

"Kyuu-chan, what do you do, when there's nothing left and you have no reason to stay?" Naruto asked out of the blue.

Kyuubi kept talking in the same quiet, soft tone. ""You start over, Kit. Go somewhere you have a chance to start again and move on."" She said. Naruto sighed.

"How? Where could I go? Everyone knows about me, whether as the 'Hero of the Mist', or the 'Savior of the Hidden Spring Village', or the son of Namikaze Minato. There isn't any place I could go to start over."

Kyuubi chewed her bottom lip. ""Doesn't the Mangekyou Sharingan have an inter-dimensional warp ability?"" Kyuubi asked. Naruto nodded, still exhausted. ""Use that. Leave this dimension. There isn't anything left here for you anyway."" Naruto nodded.

"Doesn't using the Mangekyou leave the user blind, or something?" He asked. Kyuubi paused for a moment.

"Normally, it does. However, I think that I can stop that from happening. After all, not everyone has your insane healing rate compared with my rate of healing."

"Right, Ok, then as long as I won't go blind, I'll get right on that…Just as soon as I wake up." He then fell asleep before Kyuubi had a chance to respond to that.

He slept for three days, totally exhausted from his fight. When he woke up, he broke down and cried, cried for everything he lost, everything he regretted, and everyone that gave his life for him. He stayed like that for ten hours, before he ran out of tears to shed. After that, he stood up dejectedly and made his way back to Konoha.

He pulled a stick of pocky out of his weapon pouch as the destroyed gates of Konoha came into view. Normally, it would cheer him up to a point where it would take someone mentioning Sasuke to get him all depressed again. Now, it didn't help.

He spent the next five days giving all his team-mates a respectful burial in the Konoha Royal Graveyard, next to the Shodaime, Nidaime, Sandaime, and the Yondaime, his father. Each had their own plot, each had a different flower to represent them, and each had a headstone with their names, as well as the inscription 'True Hero in the Battle for Konoha'. It seemed the least he could do, even though none of them were really 'friends', more like acquaintances.

After all was said and done, he started to prepare. He had no idea where the Warp Portal would drop him, so he went and gathered anything in the village he thought he might need. That had included scrolls. While he'd debated with himself over weather taking the scrolls would be dishonoring the memory of his team-mates, he decided that he should keep them out of the hands of his enemies, and resolved to track down all the scrolls he could, if only to bring them with him but never use any of them.

His first stop was the Hyuuga Manor. It had been completely leveled in the invasion as several of the Byakugan wielders had attempted to hold off the invading Sound Forces. He paid his respects before locating the entrance to the basement and entering. The seals on the door to the steel vault had deactivated, showing the extinction of the Hyuuga line.

Inside, he saw a sight that made him wonder, just for a minute, how stupid the Hyuuga actually were. Inside was about fifty scrolls or so, but only two or three were for the Gentle Fist. He realized, sadly, that the Hyuuga had become arrogant believing that their bloodline had made them invincible, and had neglected to teach their clan anything other than the Gentle Fist and the two special moves that went with it, the Heavenly Spin and the 8 Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms.

The Hyuuga had, at one time, also specialized in Ninjutsu that were based around flowers, like the 'Flower Style: Cherry Blossom Dance', which caused razor sharp cherry blossoms to inflict several minor and major wounds on its target. He sighed and wondered. 'If the Hyuuga had continued using these jutsu, would we have stood a better chance?' Well, there was no changing the past now.

Next was the Uchiha Manor. Unsurprisingly, it was still standing. Apparently Sasuke had been planning to return to the cache of scrolls he needed to find to learn the clan skills. He had a hard time finding it. In fact, it took three days of dismantling the entire house before he found the entrance. He needed to use the Sharingan in, of all places, the Greenhouse, to open the way to the treasured pass… wait, wrong movie. (AN- Fairly vague reference to National Treasure, Number Cipher on the back of the Dec starts with something along the lines of 'The Way to see the treasured path becomes clear as the timed shadow crosses the house of Pass and Stow', or something like that.)

Inside was a ton of scrolls, probably of all the jutsu they'd copied. Naruto, while being a hanyou, still had a sense of honor. He shifted through all the scrolls until he found the three on the Sharingan, before roasting the rest of the scrolls, as well as the entire compound, with a 'Fire Dragon Jutsu' which he reinforced with a 'GREAT TEMPEST JUTSU' to fan the flames. It was nothing but ash when he left it.

He went to each of the major clan compounds in turn and found their vaults. All were unsealed, signifying the death of all of the blood-lines. Even though he'd be unable to use most of the scrolls, he felt like he needed to take them.

His final stop was the ruins of the Hokage Tower. The entire thing had collapsed in on itself. He spent three days both removing rubble and learning to move things with his tails before he finally found the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing. It contained all the forbidden and secret jutsu of the village, and he wasn't going to just leave it there. He'd also found some other scrolls that detailed the human body, anatomy, nerve clusters, and even a chakra circulation map or two. He'd taken that as well, before walking to the center of the village.

He turned and looked, one last time, at the village he loved, the village he would have given his life for, and the village that hated him throughout his entire life. All the burned or destroyed building. The rain started pouring down, as if weeping for both him and all that had died. Tears streamed down his face from his one visible eye, again, disguised by the rain.

Then without warning, he lifted up his headband to reveal the Mangekyou Sharingan and had a black portal appear under him, sucking him away from his home, never to see it again.

END Chapter

My friend, when she read this, had only one thing to say. Emo. Ah, well. More to come later, I guess.