Naruto groaned as he woke up. The last thing he remembered he had beaten Gaara after the psycho had unleashed the Ichibi and the two of them were falling to the ground. Only for Gaara's sand to form up around him and crush him. Naturally Naruto had lost consciousness after that. To be fair the blond was surprised that he was even waking up right now, as he was fairly sure that he'd died.

Opening his eyes Naruto looked around the dimly lit room. Only to come face to face with a semi-distracted Orochimaru -who was currently typing away on some form of tablet device- and one Shimura Danzo, the man who'd been trying to turn him into a mindless weapon for the best part of the blonds sixteen year long existence, who was standing there observing him silently.

"Ugh... What the fuck..?" Naruto groaned, having tried to yell and freak out only to find that he both couldn't move and couldn't yell because of the whole 'being crushed' thing.

"Be quiet Naruto-kun. All will be explained shortly." Orochimaru replied curtly, not even looking up from the strange tablet-like device in his hands.

To Naruto's surprise Orochimaru's voice, despite retaining its snake like silkiness, sounded far more trustworthy and far more serious than the blond was used to. Which was all it took to shock him into silence.

'This is so weird...' the blond thought as he sighed resignedly and stared at the grey tiled ceiling.

"You can start infusing now Tsunade." Orochimaru stated.

No sooner had he done so than Naruto felt a soothing but strangely tingly sensation wash over him...

Wait! He felt the strange feeling!

Slowly, almost tentatively, Naruto tried to move his body. Starting with his fingers and toes, moving up to his arms and legs, and finally his head.

Carefully, Naruto sat up on the stone table he was currently on. Taking stock of his situation he found that they were all in a grey tiled, dimly lit, room of some sort that -judging by the scent of stale air- was underground. The other occupants of the room seemed to be observing him, and he could swear he saw a glint of hope in their eyes.

Naruto looked down to see what condition he was in -he had been crushed after all- and froze when he caught sight of himself.

He briefly noted that he was both completely alive and completely naked, but rapidly ignored that in favour of the fact that his arms were now black and seemed to have a greyish black honeycomb pattern covering them. He noted the metal plates that took the place of his knuckles and the fact that he could apparently feel with these strange new arms that clearly were not natural.

He noticed his chest next or, more rather, the seven stud-like metal ports that were embedded in his upper chest near his collar bone. There were three on the left and three on the right -both in triangle patterns- with a single port in the centre of his chest. Over his heart.

Turning his attention to his legs, the blond noticed the two inch wide strips of the same material his arms were made of on the outside of his thighs with a three inch diameter disk directly over his hip joints.

Other than that Naruto noticed that he was significantly more toned than before as well as a good bit taller -being 6' 2'' now instead of his former 5' 4''-. It was as the blond noticed the dust particles floating in the yellow glow of the strip lights above and found himself able to count that there were exactly 2174 of them that he realised his vision was significantly enhanced as well.

"What. Just... Just what..?" Naruto mumbled incoherently to himself, simultaneously awed and shocked by the things he was seeing.

"I believe it would be best if I explained what's happening now." Came the familiar, grandfatherly, voice of Sarutobi Hiruzen.

"What's going on Ji-san?" Naruto asked in an uncharacteristically subdued tone. Earning a sigh from Hiruzen.

"Well Naruto-kun you were so badly crushed that, by all rights, you should be dead right now. It was only by the combination of your own will to survive and Kyuubi's chakra fuelling your regeneration that you lived through it." Hiruzen started, seeing that the blond was being uncharacteristically attentive.

"When we found you we realised that there was only one way to save you. And that was to dig out an old piece of Uzushiogakure technology and use it to replace the parts of you that were damaged beyond repair. This includes but is not limited to; your arms, your legs, your neck, your ribs, your spine and the vast majority of your internal organs including your eyes." Hiruzen paused to let the bond absorb this revelation. So far he was taking it surprisingly well.

"This technology is called Nano-fibre and is capable of mimicking and integrating with the human body. We used this to make you new, artificial, arms and organs as well as replacing pretty much all of the muscles in your body; as they were far too torn up to save." Hiruzen paused once more seeing that Naruto was still staring blank facedly at him, apparently digesting all this information.

"What're you thinking Naruto?" Hiruzen asked tentatively.

"I... I'm not sure?" the blond replied uncertainly.

"What aren't you sure about Naruto?" Hiruzen probed.

"Everything? Nothing? I don't know... Errm, why Danzo and Orochimaru are here I guess. And why they were even involved." Naruto replied, having difficulty getting his thoughts in order.

"Well Naruto-kun, the reason I'm here is because sensei asked me to perform the operation that saved your life. Obviously Tsunade-chan helped but it was I who integrated the Nano-fibre with your nervous system and made sure you were in full working order." Orochimaru cut in "I also took the liberty of installing a chip in your head that will act as a second brain and give you perfect memory. It will take time, however, for the chip to integrate fully with your brain; so you will probably experience some slowness of mind and body for a week or two as a result." the snake sannin added semi-seriously.

"O~k... That answers why you were involved. But not why you're here." the blond stated curiously, surprised that he would even pick up on something like that.

"That, Naruto, is because Orochimaru-kun and Tsunade-chan were both on deep cover missions for the village." Hiruzen stated somewhat seriously.

"What do you mean by 'deep cover'?"

"Their mission was twofold. Firstly I needed them out of the village. This was because having two out of three sannin in the village made konoha a target for other villages. This was because having the two of them, along with all of our other shinobi and the kyuubi, in the village would encourage our enemies to group together and try to take us down." Hiruzen explained.

"But, having them outside the village for whatever reason made us look less threatening." Hiruzen stated "The second reason only applies to Orochimaru-kun. His mission was to root out traitors to konoha by giving them somewhere to go, someone to trust, and then stabbing them in the back." the aged kage explained.

"So... When Mizuki-teme tricked me into stealing the Kinjutsu scroll..?" Naruto trailed off questioningly.

"Yes. Orochimaru had given him an 'impossible task' so that he would be ousted... Unfortunately Mizuki decided that he could frame you for the whole thing and get away with it, which threw a wrench in our plans... Though you handled it well enough. And I was going to tell you about kyuubi when you became a genin anyway." Hiruzen explained with a slight smile on his wrinkled face.

"Oh..." came Naruto's intelligent reply "But... Why did you team up with Suna and attack konoha?" Naruto probed curiously.

"That, Naruto-kun, was to root out Sunagakure's treacherous kage and punish them for it with the casualties suffered during the invasion. You didn't really think that I thought I could take on Konoha with just Oto and Suna's forces did you?" Orochimaru explained with a smirk, though this one didn't look as creepy as the last one Naruto had seen from the man.

"Ok... Actually, while we're on the subject, what the hell is Otogakure anyway?" the blond pushed.

This time, however, it was Danzo that spoke up.

"Otogakure no sato is what became of Ne (Root) after they were disbanded. Orochimaru has been reintegrating them back into normal shinobi life since root's dissolution."

"So... Basically konoha has far more military might than we let on, it's just hidden so as not to make us a target."Naruto stated.

"Exactly." Hiruzen replied with a smile.

XXXXX_(One week later: Naruto's apartment)_XXXXX

It had taken Naruto a day and a half to get used to his new body's strength and for his mind to integrate properly with the 'second brain'. It had then taken him the rest of the week to relearn the muscle memory for his taijutsu. He also had to relearn the surface clinging and water walking exercises to get his chakra control back up to what it was. Which honestly wasn't saying much, though he did find it much easier to control his chakra now for some reason.

He was still living in his crappy little apartment, though he really didn't care about that part as it was good enough for now. He was a little annoyed that the civilian populous had been celebrating his presumed death all week long, but it wasn't really anything new so he just ignored it for the most part. Though it did annoy him how his so called friends had also assumed that he was dead... Honestly, did they have no faith in him at all.

He'd also been learning the functions of several of his augmentations. One of which took the form of sunglasses, the lenses of which emerged from the sides of his head and had a Heads up display on them containing various pieces of information, like his chakra level, the condition of his body, and the condition of his various augmentations.

Naruto was snapped from his thoughts by the sound of fighting and yelling coming from the village square. Being a naturally curious individual he decided to check it out.

XXXXX_XXXXX

Rounding the corner Naruto had to choke back a laugh when he was greeted with the sight of an angry, crying, Hinata unleashing her righteous fury upon the poor dumb civilians that had dared to celebrate his 'death'. The fact that the shinobi present to keep the revellers from getting out of hand were doing absolutely nothing to stop the raging Hyuuga was not lost on the blond. Apparently they didn't like it when the civilians celebrated the death of one of their own, Demon vessel or not.

Deciding that he should intervene before someone got killed Naruto made himself known.

"What in the actual fuck is going on here?!" the blond called semi-jovially, a smirk on his face and his right eyebrow raised.

Everyone -Hinata included- froze.

"Naruto-kun!" yelled the blue haired glomp-missile that was Hinata as she tackled him to the ground with a flying hug that a certain, green spandex wearing, Jounin would probably have prefaced with the word 'Dynamic'.

"Yo." Naruto replied casually from his place on the ground beneath a sobbing Hinata.

"Naruto-kun... I thought you were dead?!" she hiccupped between sobs.

"Well that's the first I'm hearing of it... and I think I'd know if I were dead." the blond chuckled, trying his best to reassure her whilst awkwardly stroking her hair... He really wasn't used to this kind of thing, but he was Uzumaki Naruto, and Uzumaki Naruto doesn't back down from a challenge. No matter how ridiculous or weird.

Meanwhile the crowd of civilians (read: sheep) was freaking out about the 'demon' being alive again... apparently none of them had the common sense to conclude that he hadn't died to begin with.

Several tear filled moments passed before Hinata began to hear the various muffled gasps from the idiots that she had been justifiably wailing on moments ago. Slowly regaining her composure she could make out the worried mutterings of several shinobi about the condition of the blond currently lying in the dirt. Slowly lifting her head and drying her tears her gaze settled properly on the blond for the first time, a small stream of blood leaking from her nostrils as she observed her place upon his bare chest.

She then noticed the studs, slowly running a hand over his chest in quiet disbelief, she traced the inserts seeing them buried deep into the flesh. She turned her gaze higher towards Narutos face, sporting a blush so red a tomato would be envious.

Yet her eyes showed a storm of worry and a hint of curiosity. "What happened..." she began to question before her eyes were slowly drawn to the sight of his arm which had been softly stroking her head while she cried. "Naruto-kun your arms!" she exclaimed worriedly. Before hugging tightly to his chest, breaking into a fresh stream of tears over the pain she thought that the blond must be suffering through.

Sighing resignedly, and wishing that he'd worn his long sleeved jacket and gloves, Naruto rose from the ground; helping the tearful Hyuuga up as gently as he could. Naruto could hear the gasps and winces of those around him -though the latter was mostly from the gathered shinobi-.

Before them was a boy with golden blond hair, intelligent blue eyes and three whisker-like marks on each of his cheeks... But that was where the similarities between the old and the new ended.

The blond was wearing a short sleeved black hooded jacket with red lining and white fur on the hems, beneath which he was shirtless, revealing his well toned chest and abs as well as the seven metal studs on his chest. His arms were a strange pitch black material with a dark grey honeycomb pattern and dull metal plates for knuckles; they were very clearly prosthetic.

On his lower half he wore dark blue jeans, and combat boots that had steel plating on the toe and heel. The blond also had a brown leather belt with a konoha leaf for the buckle that had a pair of strange holsters hanging off it on the outside of his hips, that were strapped to his thighs as well. Attached to the belt at his left hip and looping up to his right shoulder was an orange bandoleer/ harness that had roughly ten kunai on it as well as a couple of storage scrolls.

All in all the blond looked more badass and 'hardcore' than ever before, which lead to some of the civilians taking an instinctive step back from him. Naruto couldn't help but smirk at that.

"Naruto-kun..."

The sound of Hinata's concerned voice reminded him of her presence. Not knowing how to handle things due to his lack of experience in such matters the blond followed his gut; placing a synthetic hand on top of her head gently pulling the crying kunoichi closer.

"I'm fine Hinata-chan. And as for what happened to me... Only Hokage-Jiji can tell you that." the blond spoke softly, a small genuine smile on his face.

If the blond were anyone else he probably would've been embarrassed to say something like that with so many witnesses present. Knowing that doing so would make him look 'soft' in the eyes of his fellow shinobi and the villagers... But he was not anyone else. He was fuck-mothering Uzumaki Naruto god damn it, and he saw nothing wrong with comforting his friend. He could care less about the opinions of those ignorant bakas.

"A-are you sure..?" came the bluenettes' response, though her voice was far firmer than before she still sounded concerned.

"I'm sure Hinata-chan." the augmented blond reassured.

"Well ok then, if you're sure." Hinata acquiesced, though her eyes still held concern for the blonds' wellbeing.

"So... Why were you pounding everyone into the ground?" Naruto asked teasingly, making Hinata blush. Both because of the teasing and because she realised how close she was to him.

"T-they were c-celebrating your d-death." she replied, her stutter returning due to her embarrassment.

"Really?" Naruto asked eyeing the civilians, who were becoming increasingly nervous, with narrowed eyes; before softening his gaze and looking back to Hinata.

"Well, arigato for standing up for me Hinata-chan." he smiled. Earning a renewed blush from the self-conscious Hyuuga.

"I-it was n-nothing Naruto-kun." she replied, content to enjoy embracing her crush all the while not giving a single fuck that they had an audience.

"You wouldn't know where the others are, would you?" the blond inquired.

"W-we were going to get some barbecue when I spotted them celebrating and broke away from the others." Hinata answered, a great deal of venom creeping into her normally gentle voice when she said 'them'.

"Shall we go find them then?" Naruto asked with a grin that put a smile on the young Hyuuga's face.

"Hai." she said, already beginning to lead the way.

XXXXX_(Akimichi Barbecue restaurant: Five minutes later)_XXXXX

The rookie nine, team Gai and their respective senseis were gathered around a large table eating in a somewhat subdued silence; as for what must've been the hundredth time that week they had managed to get onto the topic of Uzumaki Naruto, and once again either Kiba or Asuma had said something insensitive about the blond and plunged them into a solemn silence.

You see, all except the Jounin, Shikamaru, Choji and Shino had bought into the civilians rumours about the blonds death at the hand of Gaara, and although none of them would admit it openly, they all missed the loud blond.

"I miss the blond-baka."

Well, almost none of them... Ino, being her usual vocal self, was unafraid to voice her opinion on the matter... Even if it wasn't as ground breaking as she would've liked.

"Yes. Naruto-kun was a most youthful individual." stated a slightly subdued Rock Lee.

"Alright, we get it, everyone misses Naruto. But moping around isn't gonna bring him back." came the statement of a slightly annoyed and depressed Inuzuka Kiba. Don't get him wrong, it wasn't that he didn't care about the blond, he just wished that everyone would shut up about him so they could get on with life instead of moping around.

Unfortunately Sakura and Ino didn't understand and bashed him over the head together for 'disrespecting' their fallen comrade.

It was this sight that greeted Naruto and Hinata as they walked into the restaurant.

'Why is every woman I know being so violent today..?' Naruto thought to himself with a sweat-drop.

"I knew it. How troublesome..." Shikamaru trailed off when he spotted the pair walking towards them, drawing everyone's attention to them in the process. You could almost hear their jaws hitting the floor.

A look of mixed disbelief and relief spread across Sakura's face as she found herself walking towards him, though she didn't remember having stood up. Everyone else waited for the inevitable thud of Sakura's fist hitting Naruto's head... Only for their jaws to drop a second time as the pinkette hugged her blond teammate.

Sakura then looked up at the curious face of her teammate. There were no words spoken between the two, they had known each other long enough and been in more than enough life and death situations together to know the various looks they would give one another. The look on Sakura's face was one he knew well and it's message was quite clear despite the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.

"Explain."

Naruto gestured in the direction of the table with his head as Sakura separated from him and walked with her peers to the table. Once they'd sat down -Naruto was now sitting between Sakura and Hinata- the rest of the group took the time to properly observe Naruto. They saw the prosthetic arms and the metal studs that obviously went deep into his chest; causing most of his peers to wince and the Jounin to grow more solemn.

In their experience the loss of even one limb was enough to end a shinobi's career, but the loss of two... it just didn't bear thinking about. Though the fact that the blond didn't seem down about it was either a testament to his mental fortitude or meant that he didn't know his career was over.

"If you have a question, ask it." Naruto stated with a smirk, placing his elbows on the table and leaning in with his arms folded; shooting a look at Lee out of the corner of his eye.

"It is a testament to your youthfulness that you survived Naruto-kun. But, if you don't mind telling us, I would still like to know how." Lee asked semi-loudly. Apparently the seriousness of the situation was not completely lost on Gai's mini-me. Everyone else leaned in, also wanting to know what happened.

"Well, as you may or may not know, I was nearly crushed to death by Gaara's sand. Though I have a sneaking suspicion that it was just the Ichibi being a sore loser after I brought it down... Anyway. From what Hokage-Jiji told me the reason I survived, is that I simply refused to die. I was just too stubborn to let death take me."Naruto replied, seeing the incredulous looks on the faces of his peers.

As well as the anime tears streaming down Lee and Gai's faces as they shouted to each other about his youthfulness and saying something about the blond becoming Lee's 'eternal rival' or something... Naruto wasn't really paying them any mind.

"Or at least, that's why I didn't die immediately. The reason I'm still here is because of the intense surgery I underwent, that basically replaced most of my bones and pretty much all of my internal organs with prosthetics and transplants respectively." Naruto half lied, scratching the back of his head out of habit.

Everyone just sat in silence for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. Everyone's first instinct was to try and make Naruto feel better... but he seemed to be just fine. The gathered Jounin -namely Asuma, Kurenai and Gai- were internally debating whether or not to ask the blond about his shinobi career and what he was going to do once he was forced to retire.

Suddenly an ANBU appeared next to their table.

"Uzumaki Naruto, Hokage-sama has requested your presence in his office." the ANBU stated bluntly.

"Alright then. I guess I'll see you guys later." Naruto replied as he got up and stood next to the ANBU, who put a hand on the blonds' shoulder. The pair vanished in a puff of smoke before anyone could say a word.

"Troublesome..." Shikamaru muttered to himself, and for once, everyone agreed with him.

XXXXX_(Hokage's Office)_XXXXX

Hiruzen smiled as the ANBU and blond appeared in his office. The ANBU stepped back from Naruto and vanished in another puff of smoke, leaving the two alone in Hiruzen's office.

"Yo Ji-san." Naruto greeted with a grin.

"Hello Naruto-kun, it's good to see your new arms are working well for you." Hiruzen commented.

"Yea... Though it still feels weird not seeing normal arms when I look down." Naruto said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

"I should think it would." the old man smiled, subtly gesturing for his ANBU guards to leave them.

Once the ANBU were gone the aged Kage activated the secrecy seals lining the walls of his office to prevent them from being spied on, and fixed the blond with a serious look.

"I'll cut to the chase Naruto. I have to remove you from active duty in order to maintain the illusion of you being recently crippled."

Naruto dropped his sheepish look like burning dog shit, his expression becoming more serious and decidedly neutral.

"I assume there's a 'but' coming." the blond sated.

"Indeed." Hiruzen suppressed a smirk at the boys change in attitude, he was definitely the right choice. "As you will no longer be an openly active combat unit, I was hoping you would be willing to put your creative streak to use by heading up the newly reactivated Research & Development Division."

"What would being the head of this Division entail?" Naruto inquired, his interest visibly piqued.

"Well, first and foremost your job would be to develop new technologies, equipment and weapons for konoha. You would need to give me monthly progress reports as well as using your knowledge to help the village should the need arise." Hiruzen stated as he packed and lit his pipe, pausing to take a puff of tobacco.

"Other than that you would have no other responsibilities or obligations, though I will be leaving it up to you pick and choose which, if any, shinobi you would like have in the division. Though they would have to be approved by myself of course."

"Ok then. Just one more question." the blond stated with a smirk.

"What is it?" the old Kage asked, though he had a sneaking suspicion what the question was.

Naruto's smirk turned into a full blown grin.

"When do I start?"