I do not own Naruto Shippuden or any of the characters.

Legends of the Lost

Naruto walked to the top of the Hokage Monument and knelt. He had just recently recovered from stopping Sora's rampage and the village was still struggling to get rid of the bodies and get the power restored. The lightning strike, as they found out, was a jutsu of Kazuma's that had been intended to kill a living target but had been to weak. It had, however, been powerful enough to knock out entire power grids for days or longer, as it had with Konoha. Naruto had several clones helping the cleanup while he watched them work.

"We need to talk," Kurama suddenly stated. "I found something you should hear. It's a memory from my first host so I barely recall it but you should still hear it."

Naruto closed his eyes and entered his mindscape standing in front of the cage.

"What's up?" Naruto questioned.

"Not much," Kurama growled. "Just wasting away inside of a brat who can't even fight a girl."

"How many were you stuck in?" Naruto smirked.

Kurama growled and drew back from the cage, curling into a ball.

"What was it you remembered?" Naruto sighed.

"A legend in the Uzumaki clan," Kurama growled opening one eye. "I can't remember it well but it says something about two swords and a demon blood child struggling to save his brother."

"That's all you remember?" Naruto questioned raising an eyebrow. "Alright, I'll ask Tsunade about it."

He returned to the real world and walked down to Tsunade's office, knocking before entering, for once.

"Hello Naruto," Tsunade sighed. "I have no missions for you."

"That's not why I'm here," Naruto assured her. "I wanted to ask you about a legend that my...tenant mentioned. Something about two swords and a demon blood child?"

Tsunade froze, her pen less than an inch from her paper. Naruto noticed the color drain from her face and her eyes flicked up at him then back down and she set her pen down.

"I've never heard of it," Tsunade lied. "I'm sorry, I'm very busy."

Naruto nodded and left, closing the door behind him. The moment Naruto was gone, Tsunade stomped her foot once and pulled out a bottle of Sake.

"Yes Lady Hokage?" An ANBU asked appearing in front of her.

"Get Shizune for me please," Tsunade ordered.

A moment later, Shizune walked in and sighed.

"Lady Tsunade, it's barely noon," Shizune complained.

"He asked about the legend," Tsunade stated simply.

Shizune's eyes widened and her face also paled.

"He...oh," Shizune said, voice pinched. "What do I do?"

"There's no getting around it," Tsunade sighed. "I'm sending him to Uzushiogakure. It's already begun."

Shizune nodded and left. She knew her job and knew what she needed to do now. She also knew that both her and Tsunade, and likely a lot of others, would soon be very drunk.

Naruto walked through the streets and soon found himself at third training ground. Tenten was target practicing against one of the posts, Choji and Shino were sparring off to one side, Shikamaru was lounging under the trees, and Hinata was talking to Neji near the Memorial Stone. Naruto smirked and sent a clone to sneak over behind Tenten. When she was about to throw a kunai, he bumped his hands into her shoulders startling her and making her kunai hit just outside the target.

"You jerk!" Tenten accused, but still smirked.

Naruto himself walked toward Hinata and Neji but stopped when a cloud of insects rose in front of him. They formed kanji and he read it quickly.

"Don't interrupt. Come fight with me and Choji."

When he sighed, the bugs shot toward him. He dove backward and created a dozen clones then they all scattered as Choji crashed down where they had been. Insects swarmed all of the Narutos and they all exploded. Then, Naruto exploded out of the ground and kicked Shino at Choji. Choji caught Shino and threw him into the water and charged at Naruto. Naruto leapt into the air and drove his fist into Choji's face and sent him flying into the water next to Shino.

Just as he stood, Neji left and Hinata glanced at Naruto then walked over to Tenten, who was watching the fight.

"Shall we?" Shino questioned.

"Lets," Choji nodded rolling into a ball and speeding at Naruto.

"I learned a couple tricks from Sora," Naruto spoke up as Choji neared while extending his right hand. "I think you'll like them. Beast Wave Gale Palm!"

A demonic hand made out of wind formed around his arm and shot forward expanding and launching Choji back into Shino. Both crashed down in the water and Choji had to pull Shino out, due to the stoic being unconscious.

"Impressive," Choji smirked. "Let me put him on land and we'll continue."

"No," Kakashi said landing beside Naruto. "Naruto, Lady Tsunade has told me to give you a mission. You're to take a small team to Uzushiogakure. Technically there's no captain but with the team being what it is, I think we can both guess who it will be."

"Who is it?" Naruto questioned.

"Sakura, Shikamaru, and Hinata," Kakashi replied. "And Naruto, just so you're aware, Uzushiogakure is rumored to be haunted by the spirits of the Uzumaki that were killed there."

"It's the Uzumaki clan's village?" Naruto questioned.

"It is," Kakashi nodded. "Your specific mission is to investigate the disappearance of an ANBU there but I doubt that it will make a difference."

Naruto nodded and Kakashi left. Naruto walked over and knelt beside Shikamaru.

"Get up," Naruto commanded. "We're going to Uzushiogakure."

Shikamaru looked at him then sighed and stood.

"What a drag," Shikamaru groaned. "Who are we taking."

"Hinata and Sakura," Naruto stated. "Go find Sakura."

Shikamaru nodded and left and Naruto walked over to Hinata and Tenten.

"Did you hear Kakashi?" Naruto questioned.

"Some," Hinata replied. "We're going to Uzushiogakure, right?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "We need to find a missing ANBU and there's something I need to find personally there."

Hinata nodded just as Shikamaru and Sakura arrived.

"Alright," Naruto sighed. "Shikamaru, you're in charge, for the most part. I don't know where it is so, I hope one of you does."

"I got a map," Shikamaru replied. "It's old though. Come on. This way."

They left, leaving Shino, Choji, and Tenten behind. After they had left the village, Naruto told the others everything he knew from Kakashi and asked them about the legend Kurama had told him about but none of them knew anything, unlike Tsunade.

After about three days of traveling, they finally stopped on a cliff overlooking their target. Uzushiogakure was a ruin about a quarter the size of Konoha with broken columns with both Uzumaki clan symbols and Konoha symbols. the remains of the walls were covered with broken and faded seals. There were broken statues and monuments every here and there but everything was too destroyed to tell what was what. That in itself was extremely bad because there seemed to be enough debris to build a large village but Uzushiogakure had only been about a hundred buildings at most, according to Kurama.

"We'll camp here and move into the village tomorrow," Shikamaru sighed. "Finding an ANBU in all of that will be a drag."

Naruto nodded absentmindedly and crouched.

"Come," a spectral voice in Naruto's head rasped. "Come to me. Come fulfill your destiny."

Naruto snapped back to reality when Hinata knelt beside him and held out a bowl of soup.

"A-are you okay?" Hinata questioned worriedly. "Y-you've been over here for a couple hours."

"Really?" Naruto blinked in surprise. "It felt like seconds for me. Thanks."

He ate some and smiled.

"Did you make this?" Naruto questioned.

"Y-Y-Yes," Hinata replied. "D-d-do you like it?"

"It's delicious," Naruto replied smiling.

He stood and turned around to see that they had set up a tent for everyone but him, since he had his own tent, and had started a camp fire and set logs around it as seats. He realized for the first time that it was already dark.

"Finally decided to join us huh?" Shikamaru questioned as Naruto sat across from him.

"Sorry," Naruto replied as his clones set up his tent. "Did I miss anything important?"

"No," Sakura answered. "Well, I'm heading to bed."

Shikamaru went to bed a couple minutes later and left Naruto and Hinata alone. Naruto got some more soup leaving enough for Hinata to have another bowl if she wanted it. She took it after a couple minutes and when they finished, Naruto had a couple clones wash the dishes then pack them away and released their jutsus.

"What do you think we'll find in there?" Naruto asked after being silent for a while.

"I-I think that we'll find a lot of ruins and that's about it," Hinata replied. "I doubt we'll find the ANBU's body. Even more so the ANBU alive."

Naruto nodded and then sighed.

"I hope I find the legend written somewhere," Naruto stated. "When I asked Tsunade about it, she got pale and just stopped. It was like she was afraid of something."

"That's...weird," Hinata agreed. "Maybe you don't want to see it."

Naruto nodded just as a freezing cold wind blew and the fire went out, sending a cloud of smoke into the sky and leaving them in the dark. Naruto felt Hinata's hand instinctively close around his and squeeze. He didn't even think about it because Shikamaru and Sakura both suddenly scrambled out of their tents and looked around.

"What's going on?" Shikamaru questioned.

"Not a clue," Naruto replied. "The wind put the fire out then vanished."

"Right," Shikamaru blinked in surprise then turned around and froze. "Didn't I just open this?"

Naruto looked over and saw that the tent flaps were all closed.

"Um...yes," Naruto answered. "Yes you did."

Shikamaru opened it and leapt back as something with flaky grey skin, long, messy, snow white hair, glowing red eyes, and a huge mouth with razor sharp teeth leapt at him. It had claws, a butcher's knife, and a robe matching its hair. Naruto threw a kunai at it and the kunai went straight through but the thing turned into smoke and blew past Shikamaru and into the trees.

"What the hell was that?" Naruto questioned.

"I don't know," Sakura replied. "But I'm done sleeping for tonight."

Naruto nodded in agreement and Shikamaru and Sakura walked over, Shikamaru extremely shaken and silent. Naruto relit the fire and they sat silently while they waited for morning. Hinata eventually let go of Naruto's hand, blushing a bit at holding it but Naruto was busy trying not to panic at having attacked a ghost.

Finally, the sun began to peek over the horizon and they all began to move toward Uzushiogakure, leaving the tents behind by unspoken consent. After a couple hours, they reached the ruins and Naruto sent clones to search the village for ANBU, the legend, or anything else.

"What is...come on," Naruto said running toward the last location of one clone and letting the rest disappear.

When they got there, they saw half a stone with the bottom half of a carving and an engraving below it. Sakura and Shikamaru found the rest of the stone and began to try to move it over. Naruto read and reread the engraving and blinked in surprise. Hinata looked over his shoulder and her eyes widened.

The engraving read, "Two swords, unrivaled by any, rise and fall. The spawn of evil, a great hunt will undertake. His demon blood the way will light to Evil's Blade and Evil's Bane to rise again. A home to see and a home to raze. A hero rises from the ruins of his home and the blood of those he loves. A monster rises from his pain. An army under his wing. Demon blood and devil spawn by the millions. A world to save, a battle to win, a monster to destroy. And his greatest weapon, a twin shall fell or a world will burn."

"What does that mean?" Hinata wondered out loud.

"Nothing good," Naruto replied as Shikamaru and Sakura lifted the top of the monument into place.

The picture was of a pair of swords forming an 'X' with a demonic humanoid form behind them. To the right of the form was a fox and to the left was a dragon with several heads. Naruto recognized both creatures and had a guess at the identity of the humanoid. Below the swords, was a serpent. Naruto suspected who that was as well.

"Come on," Naruto sighed. "Let's go find the ANBU."

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