Wow. It's been a while since I've uploaded anything. This is an experiment really. A plot bunny that wouldn't leave me alone. It's a Modern AU. Sort of. IT's hard to explain but I'll try to let the story explain itself. Most characters will be the same as they should be but some OOCness is possible and is to be expected. I've twisted things. Different back stories. I haven't decided whether I'll diverge or not. I kind of want to tell the canon story in a non-canon way. We'll see. Bear with me. I'm accepting of ideas. I'll take them into consideration at least.

"Mr. Uzumaki."

A pair of blue eyes snapped up to gaze at the man speaking. Presiding over the trail, the elderly man was wearing white robes and a large, strange hat that had the character for 'Fire' printed in red ink on it.

"You are fourteen years of age, correct?" The age man asked in an amiable tone of voice.

The blonde nodded in response, "Yes, sir." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The jumpsuit he had been provided with was too big for him and the courtroom was hot. Though, that could just be the heated glares that were being thrown his way from the other side of aisle. His opposition.

The old man in the front of the room looked down at his stack of papers, examining them carefully. He soon returned his measured gaze back onto the boy, "Mr. Uzumaki, you are being charged with two counts of murder in the third degree, victims being Ken Takayama and Yuzu Shen, along with the one count of assaulting an officer. These are serious charges, Mr. Uzumaki." His wrinkled hands took the papers, lifting them and tapping them back into order against Judge's bench.

The boys eyes darted around the room again as he pulled at the collar on his neck. The action caused the cuffs about his wrists to jingle. The sound snapped him back in time just a week ago.

"Oi! Uzumaki! Where do you think you're going so soon?"

The blond froze in his tracks, cursing under his breath. He didn't want to deal with this shit today. Not after detention and having to put up with being screamed at by a teacher. His feet kept moving, worn sneakers thudding quickly against the cracked sidewalk. Couldn't they leave it alone?

"Hey! Don't ignore us, Uzumaki! Hey. I'm talking to you, bastard!"

A hand latched onto his shoulder and he was forcefully turned around. The red hood of his sweater fell down off his head, releasing the spiky blond locks that fell about his ears. He looked up to greet the two unfortunately familiar faces.

He mumbled quietly, "Ken. Yuzu. What do you want? I don't have any money today..." The bastards had bled him dry this month. The delinquents. They were the worst type of people. Both were pushing at least six foot three inches, a full head taller than Naruto himself. It went without saying that they were older than him.

"What do we want? Ha!" The brown haired Ken laughed, pushing the runt again, "We don't want anything, shitstain. We just need to give you your daily dose of Hell. You know the drill."

Another shove sent the first year stumbling backwards into the grass, though he managed to keep from falling. He was starting to get jittery. Were they planning to beat him again? His hands curled into fists. He was so sick of these guys.

The other goon took notice of the blond's hands and grinned like an asshole, "Oooooh, is Narutard planning to fight back today? You that's gonna work out for you? Been watching some action movies lately or something?" He cracked his own knuckles, throwing his head from side to side to get his neck to pop sickeningly.

Naruto took a step back, bringing up his hands, "Just leave me the hell alone, alright? What the hell did I ever do to you guys anyway?!"

Ken just chuckled again and stepped onto the grass towards the kid, "Oh, nothing really. To be honest, you just make a nice punching bag." He lunged forward, causing the blond to flinch and scramble back some more. Yuzu laughed loudly and Ken straightened up, "Bitch. No one cares about you, Uzumaki. You make a nice punching bag and no one cares because you're trash. Apparently your parents think so, too. What? With those clothes?"

Naruto's hands tightened again, blue eyes narrowing. He could take a lot of abuse. He was used to it. But...that always managed to dig under his skin. He wanted to kick the living shit out of these two. It was an impossibility, but hey, better to go down swinging right? His demeanor change and he just scoffed, "Gonna keep slinging insults or are you actually going to throw a punch or two? My time is wasting away faster than your GPA."

Ken raised a twitching eyebrow, looking over at his friend. A shrug was Naruto's only warning before the brute rushed at him, his shoes stomping across the ground. Blue eyes widened as Ken planted his foot and wound back, ready to break a face.

The world slowed for Naruto and his ears were filled with the roar of rushing blood. The fist was coming towards him with all the nastiness and ill content that was resting in his own heart.

But it was slow. Or at least it felt that way. He moved out of the way, pivoting quickly on his right foot. Ken's face lit up with surprise as he whiffed past his target and Naruto pulled back his own arm before driving home his knuckles into the older boy's cheek. Four front teeth slammed down on a fleshy lip, and Naruto found himself grinning when garnet crystals erupted from the torn skin.

Ken stumbled off balance, clutching the left side of his face. His lip was bleeding and his eyes were burning with angry, "You're a dead man, Shitstain!" He immediately threw himself back at Naruto, intent on inflicting as much pain as possible.

The result was the same this time with Naruto's fist impacting the right corner of his mouth which caused a spray of blood to paint the grass red.

Stumbling back again, Ken growled and dug into his pocket before pulling something out violently. Yuzu's eyes widened as a blade flipped out of his friends fist but Ken was already rushing towards Naruto, rage in his eyes.

The knife awoke something primal in himself. It scared the life out of him. Then he heard this voice in the back of his head telling him to fight, to survive. Instead of being scared, he was angry then. Righteously angry. He just...he just wanted to...

"Mr. Uzumaki!"

The teen started violently and focused back onto the man who sat above him, "Y-yes?"

"Did you hear what I said?"

"No, sir. Sorry..."

The man sighed and took off his hat, revealing fully for the first time his aged face, "I said that, due to the severity of your crimes, you will be tried as an adult to the full extent of the law. How do you plead?"

Naruto turned to the attorney that had been appointed to him, only to find the man fiddling with his tie. A knot formed in pit of his stomach. He had no chance. He knew how these things worked. You had to have money to get off in these cases. Money to buy a lawyer who cared. One that could convince people that he was innocent. As he looked around the courtroom, Naruto took note of the two sobbing mothers and stoic looking fathers.

The state prosecutor had made him out to be a gangbanger. A parentless delinquent who was mad at the world. Naruto was a dangerous liability. He needed to be put away.

His eyes squeezed shut and his fists clenched. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he stood up.

"I...plead guilty, Lord Hokage..."

The leader of the city, the grand judge, and executioner slammed the gavel against the bench, "Then you are guilty, Mr. Uzumaki. I sentence you to fifteen years in Konoha Correctional and Detainment Facility. This case is closed." Hiruzen stood and eyed the boy with something akin to pity.

The knot grew tighter in his abdomen. He was going to be sick. He was going to prison. He was fourteen and going to prison. His classmates had talked about what happened in the prisons.

The cities had found a way to prophetize and dispose of the undesirables in society all at the same time. They called them Freedom Battles, rather ironically since no one ever walked away with their freedom. They pitted prisoners against the inmates of other villages and televised it.

Naruto was a dead man. His eyes were glazed over as the officers pulled him away. 'I should have let the bastard get me with that knife...I'm so dead...'

The following day found Naruto shackled and sitting as the lone passenger on a prison bus. His chains jangled as the bus turned onto a worn dirt road.

From what he could tell, they were some ways out of the city limits. When he pivoted his head around to look outside he was amazing. He had never been outside Konoha. Not even once. Now that he had gotten the chance, he could see why it had its name. The road they were on seemed to be cutting through as immense forest that stretched on for miles and miles without end.

The butt end of a rifle entered his line of vision as a helmeted guard prodded him rather harshly in the forehead, "Don't get any ideas kid. Not like I'd expect anyone like you to try to escape. But even if you did, there's no where to go." He could almost hear the grin behind the mask as the guard scanned the forest as it flew past, "The facility is practically inescapable anyway. But if you did manage to get out, there's nothing but forest for you. You will never get out."

Naruto knew it was a mistake as soon as he opened his mouth, but he responded, "Just follow the road right?"

The guard was silent for a moment before he just shook his head, "That reminds me. Sorry kid."

"Sorry for wha-"

His world went black in a flash of pain as the stock of the rifle cracked into his temple.

"Poor bastard."

The awakening he got was just as rude as the way he was put to sleep. His eyes snapped open when he impacted the hard packed dirt, mouth filling with red dust as he shouted and sputtered. When his azure eyes raised, the image of black boots filled his vision, along with the growling of a deep voice. "Get on your feet, you little shit." Naruto quivered. Keeping his eyes low, he wandered to his feet, and then shouted when he was slammed to the ground again, catching his face against a sharp rock. The guard didn't care that he was bleeding. "I said - "Get up"!"

Naruto shakily got to his feet, and then wished he hadn't. The compound was concrete, with bars on the windows, courtyard surrounded by security fences and miles of barbed wire. Guards were crawling all over the place, stationed in towers, marching the perimeter; all with rifles in their hands, ready to be fired. If they were all wound as tight as his new tormentor...

"MOVE!"

He immediately started walking before he could be shoved again, his feet carrying him through the threshold of a fenced in tunnel. Dark and damp it was, as he moved quickly through it, eyes darting about, his system flooding with adrenaline. He quickly realized why the fence was there. The tunnel to the main complex cut through the prison yard and all around him Naruto could see his fellow inmates. They wore bright orange jumpsuits, and more than a few of them were rippling with muscle, their noses crooked. Naruto gulped, looking down at his own thin arms and scrawny legs. How was he supposed to beat someone like that?

'I stand out like a sore thumb...so dead...'

He turned to look and almost immediately regretted the action. They were already pointing, some of them at least, and laughing. His ears picked up the chortling clear as day even the boots of his guard stomping around. The blond dropped his eyes to his shoes figuring it would be safer to not make any eye contact.

Who was he kidding? Did he hear someone say 'Fresh meat'? Now that was just cliché.

However, the panic inducing experience ended as soon as the guards forced him through the interlocking doors at the other end of the tunnel. The giant steel barriers sealed shut behind him and silence filled his ears.

He found himself shoved down a hallway lit by bright ceiling light. He managed to catch the sign. Inmate Registration. That made sense he supposed. The whole feel of the prison seemed utilitarian; military. There was no color in the place, he noted as his boots thudded against the slate tile underfoot which matched the seamless grey walls. It would suck all sense of colour from him.

The hallway went on for about a hundred feet before he was pushed through a set of doors. The room behind, thankfully, was less intimidating than the tunnel. The side of the room opposite him consisted of a group of four secretaries protected by what looked like plexiglass.

As he approached the desk his guard the directed him to, the woman behind the glass stated into a microphone, in a bored tone of voice, "Information please?"

"Inmate name, Naruto Uzumaki," The guard replied, now looking off a tablet, "Age, fourteen. Height, 178 cm. Weight, 80 kilograms. Eye color is blue and hair is blond. No surviving relatives." He return the tablet to a pocket on his pant leg and reached out to grab what looked like a sticker from the woman.

Naruto blinked when the man held it out to him, "What's that?" The tan colored material was about the size of his palm and seemed to be changing colors ever so slightly. There was a symbol on the thing that he immediately recognized as Konoha's symbol. The Leaf.

The guard sighed in exasperation, "This is your tag, Kid. Made with State of the Art, sophisticated biotech that you probably wouldn't understand." He paused for a moment at Naruto's dead stare and reluctantly concluded, "It has biometric beacons. Tracks blood pressure, heart rate, hormone levels, etc...it also serves as a GPS locator." The guard's lip pulled back from his teeth in a wicked sneer. "Where do you want it, kid?"

Naruto gulped, and started thinking of places that might not be super awkward. Any joint would be strange, any frequent muscles would be strange... The guard was grinning maniacally, and it was making the teenager uncomfortable. "My ribs...I guess...I dunno..." his only other option was over his bicep, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to be boasting about where he came from in this place.

The guard, with startling accuracy, unzipped Naruto's jumpsuit, slapped the sticker between his third and fourth ribs, and then zipped the jumpsuit up again. The walls were already starting to have an effect on Naruto's eyes, as his traffic-pylon orange jumpsuit had faded to a mottled brown. "Sit still kid."

"Wh-"

Naruto jumped as a needle was plunged into the crease of his elbow, a small vial of blood filling up quickly. The guard removed it, and turned away again, leaving the teen clutching to his arm. "OW!"

"Suck it up, lily-white."

Naruto started. "Lily-white?"

"Yeah, kid. Same colour as the place where the sun don't shine."

His discomfort skyrocketed.

The guard stuck the vial of blood into a machine, and waited impatiently, tapping the toe of his boot against the grey floor. The clunky old machine whirred and spun, and started to beep gently. Naruto stood, still cuffed, in the center of the room and waited patiently, looking around at the room. The secretaries were a giggly bunch, the youngest of whom couldn't have been much older than he was. Her eyes were big and brown, her hair curly. He gave her a small smile. She averted her eyes. 'Right...' He thought to himself, grumbling, 'I'm a fucking murderer...first girl to show me attention and I'm a convict.'

The machine gave an ear-splitting shriek and started to light up, a siren wailing through the halls. Steel walls began to slam down along anything breakable, including the glass the secretaries hid behind. The curly-headed girl who had smiled at him vanished, her brown eyes scared.

The guard threw him to the ground and started shouting for backup. Another needle, this time in the back of his neck. Naruto's vision went fuzzy, and his limbs went dead. There were people all around him, rushing madly. He went past rows of steel doors, before being thrown into a small dark room. A voice told him to be patient.

The door closed. His cell was black as pitch for hours...

Then he was blinded as electric bright fluorescents lit up the room. It was padded. The door opened and he crawled away from it quickly, still trying rub his eyes into seeing again.

"Get up, kid."

It sounded like the same guard from earlier as he was hoisted to his feet and pulled forward by the armpit. Whatever he had stuck him with earlier must've worn off because he could walk independently now.

'What the hell is going on?!'

His vision started to return and he quickly noticed that the grey walls had turned into white ones. The guard dragging him along turned towards him and grinned, the look unsettling since Naruto could only see his mouth.

"Looks like I misjudged you, kid." The guard said as they turned down a hallway labeled Lab Operations, "You might not be a lily-white after all."

Stumbling slightly over his own feet, the cuffed teen almost hit himself in the face, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

The guard pulled him through a set of doors that had to be opened with a code and swipe of what looked like a clearance card. That wasn't good. What did 'Lab Operations mean?

It meant nothing good, as Naruto soon discovered. It looked like something out of the countless Sc-Fi movies he'd watch. There were control panels and levers all around. Test tubes and beakers. However, the thing that really made him nervous was the contraption in the center of the room. It was sleek and silver, and clear tubes snaked around it, leading away to God-knows-where. Shaped like a coffin, the machine was big enough to hold a person and suddenly Naruto felt as if he knew what the operation was going to be.

There was a woman in a white lab coat standing next the machine staring at a large tablet in her hand. The look on her face was somewhere between excitement and exhilaration. She looked pleased.

The guard coughed loudly and pushed Naruto forward, "Here he is Doc."

The woman's gaze snapped away from her tablet so fast the Naruto jumped a lit. She had yellow irises, a trait that he had never seen before. She also had strange hair, blonde like his own but styled so that two long locks on either side of her head flowed down and braided in front of her chest.

A bright smile spread on her face and the teen thought to himself. 'She looks like a viper...'

"Mr. Uzumaki?" The woman asked animatedly.

He nodded reluctantly, "Yes..."

She stepped forward and took him by the chin, turning his head from side to side, examining him carefully before stepping back and writing something on her tablet, "Mine is Medusa Gorgon. But most people just call my Doc. Or Dr. Medusa."

Naruto craned his neck and tried to see what she had been writing, but the serpentine lady tucked the pad close to her chest. He huffed out a breath and looked around with a raised eyebrow, "So. What am I doing here. Shouldn't I be in a cell right now?"

Medusa just shook her head and beckoned him over to the machine, "Naruto, is it? Naruto. This is not a normal prison." She began to tap onto one of the many control panels, bringing the board to life. "You know what we do here. Its been going on since before you were born. Its a business as much as a solution to the problem of undesirable persons."

He nodded in affirmation as Mr. Guard unlocked his cuffs and shackles.

The lid to the machine opened and he swallowed noisily. He was not a fan of needles. And there were quite a lot of them in there. Big ones.

"Well, people can already watch regular fights. Boxing. Wrestling. Mixed Martial Arts." Medusa continued and the mechanical sound of something powering up continued, "We need something new. And that something came with the discovery of our species' true potential. Hidden deep within our base genetic code. We were once so much more, Naruto. Capable of so much more. But we've brought it back."

Naruto looked up from the machine, interest now despite himself, "Brought what back?" He had never heard of this. Not even a whisper. He just thought the things that happened on those events were staged. TV magic and all that jazz.

She grinned, almost maniacally, "It's hard to explain. Its an energy. But it's so much more than that. What we know is what we've found out during the program's history and ancient texts." The woman nodded at the guard and he began to strip the boy down to his underwear and made him lay down on the padded bottom of the machine.

His heart started to race again. He was barely keeping up with what she was saying. Energy? Ancient texts? Lost in genetic code? His blue eyes widened as his limbs were strapped down tightly.

Staring up at the ceiling lights, the teen started to hyperventilate. He was scared. What else was he supposed to do. Then he saw the doctor smiling down at him.

"What are you going to do to me?"

She reached down and ruffled his hair, "I'm going to give you a purpose."

"Is it going to hurt?"

The lid of the machine began to close, and Doc pulled back her hands, still smiling her wicked little smile. Just before the lid closed, sealing him in, she murmured, "Yes..."

Through a small pane of plexiglass in the side of his prison, Naruto watched as Doc sat down on a rolling desk chair and picked up her tablet. She began to type something out on it, frantically. Her eyes were excited, her lips moist. She looked up at him, and watched.

Naruto coiled. She was tense. Waiting for something...

A jab of something white hot into his body made him flinch away, into another white hot jab that made him shriek with pain. The cycle of jab and flinch, jab and flinch repeated itself until the teen was crying in pain, filled with needles as long as his forearm, as thick as a kilt pin. He felt tears slip off his cheeks, and his hands searched for something, anything, to grip onto. He wanted to hold something. Squeeze something. A bear. A bunny. One of those small toys he saw young children running around with.

Then, the needles began to pump battery acid into his system. Burning at his muscles, the needles turned into tiny screws, winding deeper and deeper, through bone and ligament, securing themselves into his flesh. Doc was watching, her eyes narrowed, shivering. A smile decorated her lips. She probably couldn't hear him screaming through the machine whirs and clunks, through his tears, through the way his body began to ripple and warp.

Then he felt it. It started small, winding and coiling under his naval. It did nothing to stop the pain, and he continued to scream but the feeling kept getting stronger. It kept coiling. And coiling. And coiling. The ticking on the bomb getting loud in the back of his mind.

When it exploded, he screamed. His vision bled orange and he heard the short circuiting of electronic, alarms blaring warnings of overloads. However, for a brief second, he knew what she was talking about. The energy. It was there. Coursing through his body in a in a fiery maelstrom. He felt...alive.

But it could only last so long. His brain could only process so much. The orange fade to black and he slipped away into blissful nothingness.

"Easy does it, Naruto..." The hands on his back were cool, unhooking him from the machine. It was Doc. But she sounded very concerned for him now, gentle and scared. "Take it easy..."

His head was spinning, and his eyes were foggy. He could hear the smile in Doc's voice. "M-my head..."

"Yeah, I know..." Her hands were gentle, rubbing his back. "You need to rest now..."

"R-rest?"

She made a small affirmative noise. "Let's go back to your cell, Naruto..."

He stumbled with her down a corridor of cells, hidden behind steel doors. Things were being rattled behind them. He knew enough that he wasn't going back to the padded room. This one had a bed, a small desk, a partition which concealed a bathroom behind it. Doc lowered him to the bed, and tucked him in. His face looked wrong in the semi-reflective door. Something was on his face. She left, closing the door behind her.

In the moment before the lights flickered out, in the moment before he toppled back into sleep, he saw his face warped, but reflected in the steel door. He frowned as his eyes closed.

The teen had whiskers...