Author Notes: I came up with another quasi evil/dark Naruto fanfic. I do promise a happy ending though. This one will be longer, multiple chapters. Paradox loves his reviewers. Here's the prologue.

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Naruto: It was dark and storming when they came after the group, the Sound Ninja, Orochimaru's last remaining followers. The blond had already been severely hurt, Guren being the one to blame. The crystal user lay dead, a kunai having broken the lining of her chest. Her lungs collapsed in the middle of their fight, and she died before she could finish Naruto off. "Hah…hah…hah," the boy panted. Sasuke had already gone along with Kakashi, and Sakura had to heal his injuries, so Naruto was left to fend for himself as he pulled the crystal shards from his arm. Each one burned like mad, and Naruto was barely conscious with the amount of blood he had lost.

"You idiot," Kyuubi spoke to him darkly from within his infernal cage. "If you had just used some of my powers, you wouldn't have been so uselessly hurt. What I wouldn't give to get out of you and kill you myself. Unfortunately, this seal means if you die, I die. I'll heal you, but I wish you would quit being so stubborn." Red chakra began swirling around Naruto, and his cuts slowly closed up, but the blond felt sick to his stomach. "What in blazes?" Kyuubi exclaimed as his chakra was forcefully sucked from within the cage to without, into Naruto's body.

"Haaah, Kyuubi," Naruto just barely spoke as he went on all fours, his knees and hands barely holding him up while he felt like he'd puke. Is this because, of what Orochimaru did to me? Naruto thought to himself. The snake-man had done something right before the blond finished him in his enormous white serpent form. Orochimaru sprouted a black snake, and it was too fast for Naruto to avoid. Its fangs sank into his seal, and its master spoke something about a curse. Naruto removed the snake and stepped on its head to kill it, and the fang marks closed up. No problem, right?

Kyuubi could feel his own chakra draining from him, his body weakening within the cage. "Why?" he asked before collapsing on his side.

"Naruto!" Sakura screamed when she saw him. Ethereal red-orange flames surrounded his body and ate away at the plant life around him, leaving barren, dry earth beneath him. Kakashi stood next to her in shock. Sasuke could feel the chakra even though he was in a tent resting. His heart was being crushed with fear. Naruto twitched in pain as his body began growing a red, furry tail. In his silent scream, his fangs grew as well. He cried as he sat there, unable to do anything. Naruto's eyes permanently went red, his fingernails no longer human, but razor sharp claws. All that was left human was his mind and physical stature. When Kyuubi's chakra finished transforming him, it entirely rejected itself from his body, sending out a wave which blew the forest apart. Kakashi got Sakura underground to protect her, and it was just in time. There was an eerie silence until Naruto could breathe and cry. His two comrades came up from their hole to see devastation everywhere. "Naruto?" she asked in terror.

The boy turned to her in fear, but his eyes spoke of other, more dangerous emotions. He didn't know his limitations, and his torn clothes didn't help Kakashi or the pink-haired girl to see him for who he was. Naruto thought he was merely walking over to them in pain, but the physical speed put Kakashi on alert. When a hand reached out, Sakura's eyes went wide, and Kakashi punched the boy hard into what remained of a fallen tree. When Naruto surprisingly doubled over, his mouth got close enough to Kakashi's arm that the tip of his fang sliced him open down to about the middle of his hand.

"Agh, damn it," the white-haired Jounin exclaimed as he held his arm. "Sakura." The pink haired girl was frightened out of her mind. She looked at Naruto with his eyes barely halfway open, the demonic red showing at her like a death threat that truly didn't exist. Sakura wanted to help Naruto, but his appearance kept her at bay. Even when he had gone to four tails in the Kyuubi's Cloak with most of his flesh missing, it just wasn't as frightening. The new tail wasn't made of chakra, he had just leveled forty square miles of forest, and his movements, those scared her the worst. "Sakura!" Kakashi exclaimed again. He summoned a shadow clone, and they flew off, the true Kakashi looking over his shoulder the whole way.

S-Sa,kura, Naruto thought to himself as he lay painfully on his side. He lost consciousness just as he saw the three blurry forms leaving quickly. Why? A tear left his eye as he collapsed entirely, even Kyuubi unconscious. There wasn't a drop of chakra in either of them. Orochimaru's curse, would it kill him?

"No, we have to go help Naruto!" Sakura cried as she struggled in Kakashi's clone's grasp. "We have to go back."

"If you go back there, you will die Sakura," Kakashi told her as he wrapped his arm up in gauze. "It's over. Naruto's gone…not dead, but gone. The Fourth's seal has been weakened too much. He's already physically changed. The next step is the Kyuubi breaking free and leaving a corpse behind. You don't want to be there when that happens. Sasuke, can you walk?"

"Yes, but," the raven answered before being quickly cut off.

"No buts, we're leaving, now!" Kakashi ordered. Sakura had to be knocked out for the Jounin to get her back to the village. "I'm sorry Sakura. We tried, and we failed." The Hokage was beside herself in worry, sadness, and anger. Why? Why had it happened? And why didn't Kakashi bring Naruto back? Surely she, Minato's friend, and the Third's student, could have done something. Tsunade realized though that looking for him would be impossible. When Naruto ran away, it was impossible for him to be found. Her only hope was that he would return to the Leaf Village on his own. All efforts to find him failed. ANBU could not track him. He had somehow vanished entirely, as though he had never been in that forest.

"Damn everything," Tsunade wept in her office. "Stupid Kakashi, stupid ANBU, STUPID NARUTO!" The last words were accompanied by a smashed desk as she banged her fist down upon it. "Come back Naruto, please." She sniffled and cried. Saké couldn't even help her. What made it worse though, was the village's response.

"Good riddance!"

"Maybe he'll die."

"Took long enough."

"Hey, I heard they finally killed him, left him for the wolves."

All of it was too painful to listen to. Naruto's friends took it hard though. Kiba and Sasuke especially wanted to keep looking for him, but every time they got a hint of a lead, the investigation ended in disappointment.

"Why? Why did he attack me?" Naruto asked sorrowfully as he sat in a cold, damp cave. Kyuubi had regained consciousness, and his chakra began restoring itself at last. Naruto wrapped himself in his tail, a terrible compensation for a warm blanket, but at least it was soft. "What did I do? Why?" he cried.

"They were fools Naruto," Kyuubi spoke, slightly comforting his jinchuuriki. "The village has hated you for years. I guess your sensei and friends finally followed suit. I'm sorry about what happened. That man, Orochimaru did this to you. Don't blame your friends, but don't go back Naruto. You'll only be heartbroken. Leave them as they left you. Kill the emotion in your heart." Naruto didn't want what he said to be true, but he eventually accepted it.

"If they won't even try to understand, what do I owe them?" Naruto asked into the air as his tears stopped. "I don't need them anyway. Some friends." He still wished for comfort, shelter from the cold his torn clothing let through. If only he knew his friends were trying to find him. If only…he had been found. Naruto was eventually found though, just not by someone he ever thought could end up being helpful to him.

"Do my eyes deceive me?" Itachi asked calmly as he stood in the mouth of the cave. "Naruto Uzumaki?" Naruto's eyes opened and saw the Sharingan. No…his mind thought in terror.

Author Notes: Prologues are meant to be short. Live with it.