Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Prologue

Sasuke waits for Naruto at their designated meeting spot. The former rogue nin had agreed to join Naruto in visiting Naruto's mother's village before returning to Konoha. He had travelled for two years after the Fourth Shinobi World War, searching for the meaning of his post-Itachi life. Unable to find it, he had decided to return to his birthplace and former home of his clan. Though slightly aggravated at the implications of returning to a village that had brought him so much pain, he found himself more annoyed at his former teammate's tardiness, as he was only now starting to sense Naruto's chakra when he should've been able to over an hour ago.

"Dobe," he mutters once he knows Naruto is within earshot. "You're late."

"Ah, don't worry about it, Teme. If I can wait two years for you, you can wait an hour for me." Naruto gives Sasuke a smug look, unflinching under a hard glare that would leave most others running for the hills.

The Uchiha finally relents, breaking his angry stare as he pushes himself off the tree he had been leaning on. He starts to walk away at a brisk pace, knowing the blond will follow him. "We're a half an hour outside of Uzushiogakure. If we head out at a decent speed now, we'll reach your mother's village by noon." Naruto rolls his eyes at his friend's deceptively cold tone, catching up to Sasuke.

They arrive in the deserted village with the sun at its highest point in the sky, its rays shining down over the wreckage. Sasuke knows that the Uzumaki clan had been wiped out decades ago, but the debris and torn-apart buildings hold a chilling resemblance to the Uchiha district in Konoha—no one had bothered to repair the empty homes after Pein had leveled the village—rubbing him the wrong way. However, he doesn't let it show.

Naruto had stopped outside of the gate of the village, half of it blown away by whatever had struck the place, leaving splintered wood and craters in its wake. He looks up at a sign above the gates, the remaining writing on it unreadable. After a few more seconds, he slowly strides through the entryway. The young men walk around the village streets aimlessly, few things drawing their attention as it's mostly rubble anyway.

Naruto begins to wonder once again what it must've been like to have your clan annihilated, but this time from a different perspective. He had always tried to understand how Sasuke felt about the death of his clan, but had surprisingly never considered the extermination of his own clan as he had never felt that he was a part of it. He and Karin are the only survivors of the clan, but both of them feel disconnected to it, which was part of the reason he had decided to see the village for himself. Once again, Naruto recalls his conversation with Karin when she had been in Konoha a year and a half ago.

Karin huffed at Naruto, feeling offended by his question, though not sure why. "Listen," she'd started, "I know that technically we're family and blah blah blah, but I don't care. I didn't come here to catch up with you or go on a road trip with you."

Naruto sighed, a part of him having expected being brushed off by Karin. "Don't you have any interest in seeing where our parents grew up?"

She rolled her eyes from behind her glasses. "No. The only reason they survived is because they left. Don't waste your time on something so pointless—going there won't bring them back." She'd said this with a tinge of bitterness, and so Naruto had decided not to push her further.

Breaking out of his thoughts, Naruto finds himself at the edge of the village. Sasuke is looking at him expectantly, clearly waiting to see what he wants to do next. His eyes scan the area, landing on a small, surprisingly untouched building several yards away. The boys start towards it, examining the building as they go.

The building is circular and appears to have two stories. At its front, there are double-doors with visible hinges, meaning that they open outwards, indicating that the building likely held sensitive information. This surprises neither of the young shinobi, as the village produced its own shinobi.

Sasuke tells Naruto to stop when they get within ten feet of the structure, sensing latent chakra built into it. Experimentally, he presses his hand against one of the doors and is simultaneously met with a force that throws him backward twenty feet. Though surprised, the seasoned shinobi lands on his feet, observing the surge of suddenly active chakra in the door with his sharingan. Naruto shouts at Sasuke from his place by the building, asking if he's okay. Sasuke ignores him as he strides back to the structure.

"The building has chakra built into it. From what I've assessed, there appear to be no flaws, so I assume that there is a seal somewhere on the structure that the Uzumaki clan placed. There's nothing I can do about it without any other resources. Let's move on," Sasuke states.

"Wait, wait!" Naruto shouts, suddenly excited after digesting the information that Sasuke gave him, though he had sensed the chakra himself. "If the Uzumakis placed the seal, then maybe I can break it." His eyes hold a hopeful glint, feeling connected to village for the first time since their arrival. His companion stares back with no emotion in his eyes, his disbelief evident. Ignoring him, Naruto takes the few necessary steps to reach the doors of the building, closing his eyes and placing his hands on the wood, trying to find the seal before he's blown away. Seemingly unsuccessful, he awaits the surge of chakra that hit Sasuke, but nothing comes. He opens his eyes and jumps, shouting, "Yes, I did it! Come on, Teme, let's go inside." With that, he rips the door open and happily saunters inside.

Surprised, the Uchiha blinks in confusion as he knows that Naruto didn't deactivate any seals. Regardless, he quickly steps inside the building before the door closes, skeptical of his ability to open it despite the younger ninja's success. Ending up in a large hallway, he follows Naruto's footprints on the dusty floor to a room with high ceilings that clearly took up half of the structure. In the center of the room stands a large cylinder, dust covering its glass. Naruto stands nearby, cringing at an unfortunate skeleton with its bony hand atop a concrete stub protruding from the ground. Naruto turns to look at Sasuke as the door clicks shut. "What the hell happened here?" Sasuke shrugs in response, the room reminding him of Orochimaru's lab. An uneasy feeling sprouts in his chest when he notices another chakra source within the large cylinder. The source is different from the one within the building's structure, which was latent and unspecific. This one feels frozen, yet alive.

Naruto, taking Sasuke's contemplative silence as an indicator that Sasuke is also wondering about the strange chakra source within the cylindrical object, walks around, finding another skeleton in a similar position. Continuing next to the circular edge of the room, he stumbles upon yet another small stump, this one without a skeleton leaning on it. He blows the dust off the top of it, finding the symbol of wind-type chakra engraved there. Curious, he brushes his hand over it, and the large glass cylinder begins to shake.

"Naruto!" Sasuke shouts from across the room, alarmed by the sudden movement of the inanimate object. Jogging over to him, Naruto guiltily confesses that this may be his fault. Sasuke gives him a wide-eyed glare, pissed that he may have to fight the source of the chakra within the cylinder that was no longer frozen, but still very much alive.

Both expecting the worst, Naruto and Sasuke are surprised when a young woman pushes herself out of the top of the cylinder, soaking wet and gasping for air. She drops to the floor at the bottom of the giant glass container, stumbling a bit. Both boys notice that her chakra levels have decreased greatly from when she was frozen.

The girl presses one hand to the wall of her former prison and the other to her chest, short, wet red hair sticking to her face and neck in clumps. If she notices either of her unwitting rescuers, she doesn't show it.