A/N: A few weeks after initially writing this story, I looked back on it and cringed. I was very unhappy with it, but I didn't really know how to improve it at the time. Now, a few years later, I have some more experience writing and I think this story still has a lot of potential. Therefor, I'm going to clean up these first three chapters and take another stab at it.
Chapter 1: The Kyuubi Festival, A Celebration of Suffering
A six year old Uchiha Sasuke knelt on the ground next his only remaining friend. Blood pooled around the boy's knees and stained his white shorts as he tried desperately to do something, anything, other than just sit there in shock. Flashbacks of the Uchiha Massacre only one year ago swam in front of his eyes as he fought a losing battle against his own horror and paralysis while he watched the body of his brother in all but blood cooling just a few feet away.
A man wearing heavy plate mail armor with a red cape and holding a large spear in one hand stood a short distance away from the tragic scene, sighing as he looked away from the boys and cursing himself for his hesitation to slay the Leaf Chunin at his feet. If only he had stepped in a little sooner…
Uzumaki Naruto wouldn't be dead.
10 minutes earlier….
It was the 10th of October, the day of the annual festival which celebrated the Yondaime Hokage's sacrifice of his own life to defeat and seal away the rampaging Kyuubi no Kitsune, a demonic being of unimaginable power, into a small child thus saving the Village Hidden in the Leaves from its terrible onslaught. The sudden attack of the Kyuubi took Konohagakure completely by surprise, as the Kyuubi had long since been sealed away and contained by the Uzumaki clan of the Village Hidden in the Whirlpools, who had been long time allies of the Leaf Village. The Uzumaki clan had used their vast knowledge of fuuinjustu combined with their special bloodline, Chakra Chains, to seal the Kyuubi who had been summoned by Madara Uchiha to attack the leaf many years ago, when the leaf village was first founded, and had kept the Kyuubi in their possession ever since.
Many civilians and ninja of the Leaf were instantly killed in the surprise attack when the beast suddenly appeared right inside the village walls without warning, and immediately went on a rampage. The unprepared guards were caught flat footed and slaughtered without a chance to defend themselves. A full fourth of the shinobi population and a fifth of the civilian population of the village were slaughtered before the Yondaime was able to use an advanced variation of his legendary space-time manipulation technique to teleport himself and the demon away from the village and buy enough time to restrain the Kyuubi and seal it into his newborn son, Uzumaki Naruto, using a self sacrificing forbidden sealing technique that his wife, Uzumaki Kushina, had taught him.
The sudden massive loss of life due to the rampage of the great demon fox left a bitter taste in the mouth of many of the villagers. A sizable portion of the surviving populace grew to resent, and in some cases outright hate, the young Uzumaki who had been used to seal the demon away. The people of the village were (mostly) not stupid enough to mistake the boy for the demon itself in human form or any such nonsense (they had, after all, been on amicable terms with the previous jinkurichi of the Uzumaki clan, his mother). The anger of the populace stemmed from the pain of their losses combined with the their feelings of betrayal. Since Uzumaki Kushina had been the jinkurichi of the Kyuubi, and there was never any explanation given about how the Kyuubi had gotten free (her death and relationship with the Yondaime had been covered up as an S class village secret to protect young Naruto from enemies foreign and domestic), the prevailing assumption of the populace was that she had unleashed the demon upon them of her own free will, and then disappeared.
The demon had never been accidentally released before and the strength of the Uzumaki clan's bloodline was well known and respected, so the chance that the beast was released accidentally was not considered as realistic by most. As it turned out, this assumption was correct, however truth of how the Kyuubi came to be released was also designated as an S class secret.
With so many secrets about the truth of that terrible night being kept, it was no wonder that the populace eventually decided to settle on their own version of events... one born out of pain and rage. In this version of events, Kushina eventually snapped after the strain of the fall of Uzushiogakure and, blaming Konoha for not putting enough effort into saving her ancestral home, unleashed the Kyuubi in an effort to share her suffering. Thus, the young Naruto grew up associated with a mother who was considered by many as an unstable traitor to Konoha and with the same demon fox who had ruined many lives.
Such misconceptions, combined with the pain of loss and alcohol on the anniversary of the event, inevitably lead to the current scenario playing out the sixth anniversary of the Kyuubi's attack.
'I wish I was allowed to go to the festival…' young Uzumaki Naruto thought to himself, oblivious in his youth to the demon contained inside of him, 'Every year everyone else gets to go out and have fun celebrating, and I'm always stuck here at home bored…'.
Naruto had been living in the orphanage for the first four years of his life, until the matron eventually snapped and told the Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, that though she personally bore no ill will towards the young demon container, his presence in the orphanage had kept anyone from adopting the other children in her care ever since he had come to live there. He was not a violent or troublesome child, and in fact he made friends easily. That was exactly the problem however, as no prospective parents would adopt a child that "felt comfortable around traitors", seeing it as a sign that the child would grow up with poor judgment of character. With so many orphans left over from the Kyuubi attack, people would simply go elsewhere and find a child that was not 'tainted' to adopt.
Since the Hokage could tell that she was just telling the truth as she saw it and also raised a valid point (being an old, wise, leader of a ninja village came with perks like that), he had no choice but to give in and take the boy off her hands so that the rest of the children had a fair chance for adoption.
Realizing that the problem could not be solved by simply depositing Naruto into a different orphanage, the Hokage decided to secretly leave Naruto in the care of Mikoto Uchiha until he became old enough to live on his own (the Hokage reckoned that he'd be fine at the age of 8, seeing as how he sent children of age 12 out in to the world as professional killers it seemed as reasonable an age for independence as any).
Mikoto was a very close friend of Kushina's, and was in fact was originally supposed to be the one to take care of him in the event that anything happened to his parents, but alas the Council of Fire (the Leaf's legislative body consisting of important clan heads and significantly wealthy civilian business owners) would not agree to allow the child to be adopted by the Uchihas, seeing as it as an attempt to gain influence over an important village resource. Ever since shortly after the end of the Clan Wars and the founding of hidden villages, each great nation had always controlled at least one jinchuriki in order to maintain the balance of power. Any personal feelings aside, the boy was seen as a strategic military asset which at the very least should not be just handed over to one of the dominate powers in the village. Better to not have a jinchuriki then to have one raised to be used as a political bartering chip in the future.
With all the bickering, Naruto was eventually destined for the orphanage to end the arguments. However, since Naruto was still registered as an orphan and his status could only be changed if the previous matron signed off on it; the Hokage was able to bargain with her that he would only take Naruto off her hands if she didn't "get around" to filing the paperwork for a few years.
The matron of course quickly agreed, and Naruto was sent off live with Mikoto Uchiha and her immediate family consisting of Fugaku Uchiha (the head of the clan) and the two sons, Sasuke (who was Naruto's age and whom Kushina and Mikoto had always plotted to make friends when they were pregnant) and Itachi (who was 16 but was already an ANBU and was considered the prodigy of the clan). Naruto and Sasuke ended up as inseparable friends since they mostly only had each other's company, what with Fugaku ignoring them both in favor of Itachi, Itachi always being out on missions, and Mikoto generally being busy with clan affairs when she wasn't taking care of the household and training to keep herself in shape (all Uchiha were required by clan law to keep themselves fit for combat, this was one of many things that led to most of the village to distrust the Uchiha clan as a whole).
The two grew even closer in the aftermath of the Uchiha Massacre a year later, when Itachi slaughtered the entire clan on orders from the Hokage (on the night before the Uchiha, fed up with a percieved lack of respect, had planned to start a civil war) and fled the village as a 'missing ninja' with orders to secretly continue reporting in and carrying out missions.
For whatever reason, the truth of the Uchiha Massacre managed to get out to the general public (although Itachi was still listed as a missing nin to keep up appearances for his undercover work), and the fact that Naruto had been staying with the clan head's family only exaggerated the paranoia that 'those who associate with the traitorous Uzumaki clan are bound to become traitors themselves'.
Due to this stigma, Sasuke became just as unadoptable as Naruto, and so the Hokage had little choice but to let them both live together in their own apartment at only five years old. The Sandaime knew that it would be unwise to leave the children unguarded until they had some formal shinobi training to defend themselves (the academy started at age 6 and students graduated at age 12), and so he assigned a revolving guard of two ANBU at a time to keep watch over the children's apartment at night, just in case any misguided patriots got the idea in their heads to "nip the treasonous threat in the bud".
The Hokage underestimated the craftiness of those misguided fools however, and due to the nature of a revolving guard, eventually the time came when the apartment was guarded by two ANBU who were both sympathetic to the "patriotic cause" as it was called by its supporters. These shifts lasted for three weeks each, and the fact that the two sympathetic ANBU's shift happened to overlap the day of the sixth annual Kyuubi festival proved to be too much of a temptation to let slip by.
As Naruto laid there on his back in his apartment, bored out of his mind, his patience was sorely being tested by the *whiiiip* *snick* *whiiip* *snick* sounds of a yo-yo coming down just inches from his face, and retreating into the hand of the raven haired Uchiha Sasuke, who was laying on his back on his bunk just a few feet higher than the young blonde and idly playing with the yo-yo as he too desperately thought of some way to alleviate his boredom on a night that would have surely been great fun if only they had been allowed to go outside by the Hokage.
With half-lidded eyes, the blond jinkurichi turned his head slightly in the direction of his roommate and the closest thing he had to a brother and said, "I swear to god Sasuke, if you hit me with that thing I'm going to strangle you with it… Don't you have anything better to do then play chicken with my face with your little toy?"
Sasuke yanked the yo-yo back into his hand with a louder snap than normal and sat up, and responded with theatrical anger, "Don't you dare diss the yo-yo, what has she ever done to you other than try to get as close as she can, but never quite making it. Doesn't the fact that she keeps coming back no matter how often she fails inspire you at all?"
This speech was given with intense seriousness and a great deal of dramatic hand motions, as if to convey just how inspiring a metaphor the yo-yo's simple actions were for life. It was a blue yo-yo, with the signature vaguely pokeball looking symbol of the Uchiha clan emblazoned on both sides, and it was one of Sasuke's most prized possessions.
He received a blank stare for his efforts, and a casual response, "We've had this discussion before, and you know that I was more interested in a solution to this boredom than another monolog about the merits of a yo-yo. It's not like we can just prank the ANBU guards and make our escape to the festival is it?"
The suggestion was intended as an offhand remark about the futility of such an endeavor, but as soon as it left the blonde's mouth and he saw the gleam in his friend's eyes, he knew what they would be doing that night.
"…..is it?" he repeated, just to make sure he was correct in assuming where this was going. He needn't have bothered.
Just outside the building, the two ANBU who were assigned as guards were paying careful attention to the developments inside and were elated to realize that this was exactly the opportunity they were looking for. They could not allow any harm to befall the two treacherous spawn while on duty if it was within their ability to prevent it or else the Hokage would have their heads literally.
However, if they allowed themselves to fall prey to the machinations of the two legendary pranksters of the village, they would most likely be given demerits but nothing serious would occur to them other than a stern warning to be more vigilant. Even if they were to receive a harsher punishment, it couldn't be all that bad and would be well worth it for 'The Cause'.
One of the ANBU quickly vanished via Shunshin to go and arrange for a fellow "patriot" to stop by and kidnap the two children while the ANBU were "incapacitated" by the pranks that were being planned. If the children somehow survived or if another leaf ninja happened to stumble upon the situation and save them, the brats would confess that they had planned the break out of their own free will and the ANBU who were supposed to be guarding them would be given lenience.
The ANBU appeared back at his post just in time for his partner (who had allowed himself to be detected so as to make it easier for the children to succeed) to fall through a hole in the roof of the building that hadn't been there before and land in a vat of tar.
When the other ANBU went over and looked down into the hole to see what happened to his partner, the edges around the hole suddenly collapsed and sent him tumbling into the vat as well.
As soon as the first ANBU fell, the two children quickly sneaked out of a secret door they had carved in their wall as an escape route (when they were bored one day…) and headed down the alleyway adjacent to the apartment, hoping to get to the festival quickly and lose the ANBU in the crowd. Unfortunately for them, they didn't make it very far before they both, in rapid sequence, felt a pain in the back of their heads and fell unconscious.
The off duty Chunin dropped his two small living packages unceremoniously on the ground next to a tree in a training area far from the festival that appeared to be empty. The children hit the ground hard, and both began to stir from their unconsciousness.
Noticing that the blond jinchuriki appeared to be waking faster than the Uchiha, the Chunin professionally grabbed him and quickly stuck a kunai in the child's heart, provoking the child to immediately open his eyes and gurgle blood while feebling reaching up to grab his attacker through bleary eyes.
It was far too late for the boy however, even as he reached up he felt his strength fading, the edges of his vision darkening, and felt his hand drop to his side, no longer responsive to his mental commands. As last of the light left his eyes, he noticed a flash of something quickly passing by, then… nothing.
As the two ill fated youth were preparing the prank that would unbeknownst to them go horribly right, there was another who was not enjoying the festival. A moderately tall figure sat in a meditative position in a clearing near one of the many training fields in Konohagakure, wearing what appeared to be full plated armor similar to that worn by the samurai of the land of Iron, with his eyes closed and a large broad tipped spear floating silently and steadily a few inches behind him. The wistful look on his face would have given away the nature of his meditation to anyone who knew him very well.
'It's so quiet here... this is supposed to be a celebration of life, however when I try and attune myself to the feelings of happiness in the village… there are surprisingly few for such a large festival.' The lone figure contemplated, wondering why things must be this way, 'Why do people find it so hard to let go of the past and look towards the future…could it be that they… don't want to be happy…?'
'What's this now' he thought to himself, one eyebrow rising slowly as he recognized a few fresh thoughts of joy flickering into his empathetic search, 'this is odd, though at first these two people seem happy, upon closer inspection they have a malicious edge to them… I should keep any eye on… " he stopped again, noticing two more lights of joy popping up, these ones more pure, which a hint of mischievousness.
He kept a silent vigil for a short time, noticing as one of the maliciously happy people quickly left and reappeared, bringing a third malicious person, only this one wasn't happy, the best he could get from him was a stale sort of amusement, perhaps ironic amusement. A few minutes later there was a sudden flurry of activity culminating with the two pure lights winking out and the amused one heading swiftly in this direction.
'This is not good… I better stay hidden and check this out, I may have to intervene if my suspicions prove correct…' the man thought to himself as he moved to a nearby training area and concealed himself behind some rocks, 'based on the direction of movement and speed, this should be where he stops...'
A few minutes later, a man appeared in the field, carrying two young boys who were unconscious. Noticing the careless way the children were dropped, the armored spear wielder pulled his weapon from where it had been hovering before, readying it to strike even though he was hidden the full length of the training field away.
'Definitely a kidnapper' he thought to himself, 'the kids are stirring, but he looks like hell put them back to sleep, I'll wait till then so that the kids don't have to witnes- OH MY GOD!'
During the short time that he had hesitated to allow the kidnapper to presumably knock the child back out, the man had instead professionally and without hesitation or remorse stabbed the child in the heart with a kunai in such a way that it was clear that the child would die within seconds.
Having seen more than enough, the armored man leveled his spear horizontally at the child murderer and with a speed and grace that appeared inhuman slid across the training ground and ran his spear clear through were the other man's heart would be, killing him instantly.
The movement was so fast that even a Kage would have completely missed it if they hadn't been paying close attention.
As if just catching up to the sudden movement, a harsh breeze passed over the field in the direction of the mans charge, churning up dust and fluttering his red cape which had until then lain motionless.
Looking down he noticed that at some point during the commotion the black haired kid had woken up. The child stared with eyes wide and in shock for a few seconds, before snapping out of it and desperately shaking the obviously dead blonde like it would wake him up somehow.
"No, please no! Not again, I don't have anyone else, please…" it was barely audible but the man heard the breathless whispers of the small child.
Upset that his hesitation to spill blood in front of a child led to this horrible outcome, the man was unable to look into the child's face as he said, "He's gone kid, he's probably not coming back from the dead. Not many do…"
The child's first reaction when the man began to speak was to deny it, even though he himself had seen enough dead bodies to know that his last friend was gone, but when his brain processed the rest of the statement his head whipped around and locked onto the man so fast it should have given any normal person whiplash.
The black haired youth's mind was firing at top gear and he fixed the spear wielding man with a serious look that was completely out of place on a child so young, "You say that as though it's possible for him to come back from the dead at all."
His response was a sigh, and a short shake of the head, "Just a slip of the tongue kid, nothing to concern yourself wi-" but he never got to finish what he was saying because he was interrupted by the surviving child. A child who had gone from numb with shock to incredibly, almost unreasonable calm.
"Don't give me that. Just don't. I'm grateful that you showed up when you did, but right now all I care about is my friend. My dead friend, and any slim chance that he might not remain that way."
It was easy to see that his slip of the tongue had caused to child's state of mind to harden like ice, a cold outlook focused on one goal which was every bit as fragile as it was calming. If the boy didn't hear the answers he wanted, he could easily snap even harder then if he had just been left to deal with the death of his friend alone. Now the man had to run damage control because of his big mouth. He had been through a lot of battles though, and seen a lot of grieving people, and so he kept his own cool and prepared to let the child down easily.
"Listen here kid," he began, ignoring the boy's almost dead looking eyes and the desperation hidden within them, "I do know of a few ways that someone could come back from the dead, yes, but there's no one within 100 miles of here that I know of who could do it to someone else, and even if they were here it would cost them their own life to do so." He explained, "And she is saving that resurrection technique for a very specific person so there's no use asking her because she gets that kind of request all the time. If you're friend is going to come back to life he has to do it on his own."
Although the man gave out a lot of information (for a small child to understand anyway) there was only one piece that truly stuck in Sasuke's head.
"Bring himself back to life?" he asked, partly confused at the notion and mostly skeptical, "stop screwing around, if that was possible a lot of people would have done it!"
"It's an ancient art whose use has long since declined, requiring a connection to a mostly forgotten god, a sacrifice of mana, and an incredible will to live from the person in question." The man lectured, "The skill I'm talking about is one I'm actually quite good at, and I have brought myself back from the dead more times than I care to count. If you want me to, I can use one of my techniques to give your dead friend some of my mana and a temporary connection to my God, and then your friend might be able to bring himself back if he wants to and has a strong enough will."
"...do it." Sasuke demanded, his bearing somehow becoming even more frigid, "The Hokage always remarks about the Will of Fire. It's time to see if there's any truth to that..." he trailed off at the end, having mostly burned out his energy and strength already just from holding himself together.
The man could tell that the psychological damage the boy would suffer if this failed would only increase every second that his hopes continued to raise. This was the choice he had made though, it would only make things worse to turn back now. The black haired kid might go off and try to become a necromancer or something if he didn't at least try to bring his friend back.
"Alright, well despite this being incredibly unlikely to work on a small child who hasn't had much to live for yet, I in fact have a friend I met this exact way a while back (what a story that was) so this isn't exactly a hopeless gesture, only a mostly hopeless one!" The man pumped his fist and smiled, trying to look inspiring, but his saying that the situation was mostly hopeless completely ruined the effect.
The man sighed at the deadpan stare he got for his 'charismatic speech', and dropped to one knee next to the bloody blond. He then put one hand on each side of the fallen child's heart and intoned softly, but firmly under his breath…
"…Wish…"
The man briefly glowed white, and then twin balls of light, red and blue, slowly drifted up from him in a spiral pattern before at some predetermined distance they swiftly changed direction and slammed into the blonde directly between the man's hands. The child glowed white for a second before the wound closed up quickly, leaving only the blood, ripped clothes, and an unbreathing little boy as evidence that any damage had been done at all.
"All right then, here we go…" the man said softly to himself as he closed his eyes and clasped his hands together in prayer.
'…God, please help us sinful children of the Elemental Nations...'
"Now all we can do is wait," the man spoke up after a short while, still on one knee and in a prayer position, "I'd say that if he hasn't come back to us in another five minutes or so, he's not coming back at all. My prayer was answered, but unless he somehow pledges himself to Ultima while dead and unaware of her existence he will need my continued prayer in order for his soul to find his way back to his body. This skill is called Dragon Heart, by the way, and is the very first skill that young children your age must learn and use at least once before an examination board before they can be accepted for training by my order so this should work theoretically if your friend has a strong enough will. It's up to him now..." The man trailed off, seemingly content to wait out the boys potential self resurrection in silence. Sasuke, worn out from the entire ordeal, was silent as well.
The pain was fading, the colors were fading, the memories of why he should be struggling were fading… who was he, why did it matter anymore. He didn't know what he was holding on to or why or how he was doing it. All he knew was that if he let go, something very pleasant would happen. Every moment the sensation of pleasure would tingle on the edge of his existence, goading him into letting go. But why did it matter? He didn't know, all he knew was that for whatever reason, even if he had nothing else and no reason to do so, and even if he could have all the pleasure that exists, he would never let go of whatever it is he had a hold of right now.
It become more difficult over time, like whatever it is he was holding was pushing him away and it was all he could do to keep his grip and hold his ground, but the extra difficulty only made Naruto that much more determined. Time itself was meaningless here, it could have been seconds, hours, or days for all he knew. Only the increasing difficulty of holding on marked that time was passing at all.
Suddenly, he felt something. This was important to note, because he had at that point long since stopped feeling anything at all besides "the push", and the idea that letting go would lead to pleasant things. If Naruto had anything resembling coherent thought left at that point, he might have theorized that the reason he could feel this new thing was because it was also a push, only in was in the opposite direction making it more of a pull. "The pull" made it easier to hold onto his "precious thing", and so Naruto decided that "the pull" must be good.
The strangest thing though, was that along with "the pull", came pain. When he wanted more of "the pull" to make holding on easier, it suddenly was there, but there was more pain. When he wanted less of "the pull", it eased up and there was less pain. Normally, the decision of what to do when confronted with something that's painful, and something that's pleasant was obvious. And to Naruto, it was still obvious.
He pulled HARD.
Sasuke sat there for what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes, hoping against hope that this wasn't some cruel trick by the mysterious man nearby and that there was a genuine chance for Naruto to come back to life.
He tried playing with his yo-yo to pass the time but his fingers shook too hard to get the timing right and in his frustration he shut his eyes and through his prized possession at random to relieve some tension. He noticed a bright flash of white light through his eye lids and when he opened his eyes he was shocked and elated to find that Naruto was sitting up with the yo-yo caught in one hand and seemed to be smirking and saying something but all Sasuke cared was that he was ALIVE!
Whatever witty comment the blonde was trying to make was forgotten in his shock as the last Uchiha pounced on him and held him in the tightest hug he could manage.
"Hmmmm… so, Dragon's Heart with the Will of Fire eh?" the astonished spear wielding muttered to himself, standing off to the side of the clearing and already forgotten by the happily reunited boys, "yes, they'll do nicely…"
Whatever plans the mysterious man had for the children would have to wait, as just then the Sandaime Hokage arrived flanked by four ANBU (none of which were covered in tar).
Sarutobi Hiruzen took in the scene at a glance, everything from the blood on the happy children, to the dead leaf Chunin, to the strange armored man.
Taking a draw from his pipe to calm his nerves and keeping his face impassive (another benefit of leading a ninja village for decades was a strong poker face), he turned to the armored lance wielding man who was muttering to himself prior to his arrival and blew out the smoke before making his demand.
"…Explain. Now."