I have found myself unable to regain my inspiration for this fic and so it is hereby being transferred to this profile under the decision of making it discontinued.

Pain. There was a distinct absence of the sensation flowing through the body of Uzumaki Naruto as he lay on a cold concrete surface. It wasn't that he was perfectly fine, it was simply that the injury he had received was so clean and immense that he couldn't feel it.

Fear on the other hand was completely overwhelming him. He had been distracted by the snow white rabbit he had terrified by throwing a kunai into a bush when he was trying to impress his crush… unfortunately for him, that distraction had cost him dearly.

While the rest of the team had managed to duck, he hadn't noticed the enormous cleaver that came flying out of nowhere until it had practically bifurcated him.

So here he was, the only sounds he could hear being the screams of his teammates as they witnessed their first true exposure to the brutality of the shinobi career.

He could feel the life drain from his body as he lay, barely enough strength to move. He knew things were happening around him as his vision blurred, the scene quickly changed from green to grey as he heard people talking though he couldn't make out what was said.

Images started to rush through his head, some things he had long forgotten rushed back to him as his life flashed before him. Then he remembered something. Then he remembered words he had said many times before… he would never give up.

It was the clearest thing in his mind, no matter how hard things seemed he refused to give up so what was so different this time?

Determination flooded his body as he reached forward, his hand ready to grasp anything within reach in the stubborn thought that it might be able to help him survive.

Suddenly he felt a soft and warm surface, it pulsated before struggling when he grasped it, his resolve to live overcoming his condition.

Bringing it into view, the blond was shocked to see that the rabbit that had put him in this position was now firmly within his grasp and in a callous and selfish move… he bit down.

Immediately he felt resistance as it's flexible flesh moulded to his teeth's form, the more it resisted, the harder he bit, until at last, he tasted a bitter liquid on his tongue. He tried to pull back but despite the effort he placed behind the action, he simply couldn't move enough to tear anything from the animal… so he settled to just suck on it… he would suck it dry and hope it would keep him alive long enough for Kakashi-sensei to treat his wound.

He sucked on the helpless animal as images started to flow through the front of his mind, images of a cage, of a young girl and a large man with a cleaver, images of the girl treating him kindly while the man simply didn't care… then he saw a kunai, flying past his head before witnessing… Himself?

He was young, only twelve years old, his spiky blond hair stuck out in every direction as he wore a large orange jumpsuit with blue patches, while a blue headband held a metal place with a stylized leaf pattern etched onto it… then he saw a familiar cleaver slicing straight through him, his blood spraying over his team as he collapsed in a heap.

He then noticed a thick mist roll in as the large man that owned the cleaver stood atop the ocean and used a strange hand seal… then he felt pain. Someone had grabbed his skin. That was when he realised what he was seeing.

He wasn't seeing his own memories, he was seeing the memories of the very rabbit he was draining dry.

Confusion racked his brain as the now thoroughly dead pet stopped giving him the liquid that allowed it to live. It wasn't confusion that the rabbit had run out of blood or that it was dead, his confusion was caused by the vitality that he felt flowing through his veins.

Just moments ago he was certain he had been dying and now… now he was finally able to stand and with that came a realisation, his wound was no longer there.

Suddenly he got a strange tingling sensation up his spine, he didn't know why but he received an urge to duck… so duck he did.

Immediately he was grateful that he had listened to his intuition as a large cleaver passed where his neck was once located, before disappearing back into the mist.

Fear gripped Naruto as his mind raced over what would happen if he received another injury like he had before… what he didn't know however was that the owner of the cleaver was even more terrified than him.

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Momochi Zabuza wasn't easily scared, he was considered a demon among his colleagues before he turned traitor, however when you have essentially gutted a person and they get back up it isn't a normal situation.

He had never known of anyone able to regenerate to such an immense degree, the child's top and bottom halves had only been held together by about two inches at the most, he should've died there and then but no only had he gotten back up, he had also dodged his last strike.

Of course, he still had his mist keeping him hidden from his enemies, meaning that the advantage was still his and he would keep his advantage until the bridge builder was dead.

Once again, he swung, his aim to kill the child that could survive mortal wounds.

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Naruto didn't know why but he suddenly had the urge to guard from his left with a kunai, something that he thought would be best after what happened the last time he trusted his instinct.

Placing a kunai to guard himself, he was shocked when the massive blade hit his guard, knocking him to the side a few feet. However the strike shocked him more than he thought it would… not because it happened but because of how easily he blocked it.

Despite being moved several feet to the side, his arms barely felt the impact, it felt less like getting smacked by a sledgehammer and more like getting tapped with a pencil… which he was certain shouldn't be the case given that he knew it moved him.

His guard was also completely uncompromised… though he quickly realised that the same couldn't be said for his kunai, which currently had the edge of a three foot wide blade embedded halfway into it.

Once again the blade retreated and once again the boy received the urge to guard, however his curiosity got the better of him as he moved his hand to the area he felt the sword would appear from.

Much to his surprise his feeling was once again right, however this time he didn't block the blade… instead he succeeded in catching it.

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Fear was making itself know through Zabuza's head as he tried pulling his sword back after his second blocked strike only to find that it wouldn't budge. He knew from the sound of cracking metal that the last strike had been blocked by the child, he didn't know how, just that it was, but this time it simply stopped, no sound of cracking metal, slicing flesh… nothing.

It was the single most confusing moment of his life… until his blade was suddenly jerked with enough force to break his grip on it. The next thing he knew he was dodging a wide swing as he realised something he hadn't before… the boy was a monster.

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Hatake Kakashi was quite an experienced man. He realised as soon as his blond student had pulled the white rabbit out of the bush that it was an ambush and proceeded to order his students to duck while dragging their client to the ground with him.

Unfortunately one of them was too distracted by the rabbit and right before the entire teams eyes he was struck down in what was one of the worst ways possible.

Kakashi knew that Naruto wouldn't survive an injury like that, however as it stood he was too busy making sure the rest of his team and the client were safe… which meant he couldn't go and put the blond out of his misery.

A sudden clang of steel on steel caught his ears from a direction similar to where the blond had been struck down, causing the Jōnin to question if something had happened.

He began to question if he should go and see what was happening, however it could have easily been a trap to make him leave his group unprotected and make the bridge builder an easy target, so he decided against it.

Then he heard the sound of pierced flesh and with it a grunt of pain… one recognisable as the swordsman they were facing off against.

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Zabuza couldn't believe it, he had dodged a second swing when he was caught off guard by a kunai directed at him, it's sound hidden by the sound of the sword that was swung by the blond.

The problem however was where the knife landed… several feet behind him. despite it only hitting his shoulder it had proven to have enough force behind it to pierce straight through him, including the hoop on the end of the handle.

The pain was immense. Had it only pierced him it would've been easy to ignore, however the fact that it had pushed all the way through him caused the pain to change completely and he soon found his concentration on his technique disappear.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto could feel it, his initial idea to use the sound of the sword to cover the sound of a flying kunai had worked perfectly as the sound of slicing flesh he heard along with the swordsman's grunt had told him.

Immediately he noticed the mist becoming thinner as the older ninja's concentration had been destroyed by the successful attack. He knew that once the mist was gone he would gain the advantage since he would be able to see his enemy once again. However confusion racked his brain as the mist began to thin out and he felt something he hadn't felt before.

Looking at his hands terror began to flow through his mind as he saw his skin beginning to sear in the small amount of sunlight that was filtering through the vapour. Steam rose from his flesh as it quickly tanned in the minor levels of light, his biggest problem however was not that he was burning but the fact that he didn't know why he was.

Unaware of the reason behind his sudden roasting he could do nothing more than stare in terror before his world erupted in pain.

XXX XXX XXX

Kakashi couldn't believe his eyes as the mist cleared slowly. Standing just a few feet from Zabuza was someone he was certain he was going to have to bury once the fight was over.

Despite his immense relief at the fact the blond was still alive, he couldn't help but wonder how it had happened. From what he had seen the boy had essentially been bisected, even with the small thread of flesh keeping his torso with his waist there was no way he should've survived the wound… let alone survive AND fight, which judging by the fact the boy had the Kiri nin's weapon was the case.

Just as the silver haired man was about to make his move to strike down the swordsman, something happened that he couldn't explain… his student that he had seen take the mortal injury, spontaneously combusted. That is to say, once second he was standing with a legendary sword in his hand and the next he had dropped it as fire engulfed his form.

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Zabuza couldn't help but stare in confusion. One second the blond had been his greatest threat to date and then he was on fire. Those two events simply had no relation in the Kiri nin's mind and he simply couldn't bring himself to understand why the blond had suddenly decided to combust in front of him.

Shaking his head he decided it didn't really matter and picked up his sword that the blond had dropped and in one fluid movement, moved to take the blonds head.

Or he would have if a single kunai didn't block his blades path. Attached to the kunai was the person he had initially pegged as the biggest threat… one he had forgotten courtesy of the strange child.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto couldn't help but thrash around as the fire consumed his body, he had no idea why he had caught on fire and wondered if it was some strange technique in Zabuza's arsenal, but then he remembered, Zabuza was from Kirigakure no sato, so a Katon jutsu like this wouldn't really fit his profile.

Suddenly he thought he heard something in the back of his mind, he wasn't quite sure because of the noise occurring in the front of his mind at the time so he tried to quiet the front down so he could hopefully hear whatever was being said in the back of his mind.

"G... … … ..e light," suddenly crept into his mind, causing him to wonder what it was saying.

"Sorry, I can't quite hear you, can you speak up a little bit?" he asked wondering if there was any point in doing so.

"GET OUT OF THE LIGHT!" that time his definitely heard it.

Deciding he didn't have anything else to try he opened his eyes as much as he could manage and in desperation, threw himself towards the closest forest… in hindsight that didn't seem like the smartest thing to do, but this time, hindsight would be wrong.

As soon as he entered the shadows cast by the trees, the fire that had consumed him died down until he was left with nothing more than scorched flesh… which made him thankful he collapsed face first… even if he would have to mourn his jumpsuit.

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Out of every being watching the situation there was only one that had any idea of what was happening. The main problem however was that it was currently locked up behind a cage and trying to figure out the easiest way to communicate with the child.

It had been lucky before when the boy had decided to listen to whatever he thought he had heard… knowing his level of intelligence he probably thought it was his subconscious or something equally stupid.

Calmly thinking it had decided that the current turn of events could work in its favour if the blond was willing to listen to it… they could both benefit from an alliance, something it wouldn't have considered if the boy was still human.

XXX XXX XXX

Outside of Kakashi, Zabuza, Naruto and the two unseen observers, there were three other people. All three of them had no experience in dealing with the sort of situation they were in and when they had witnessed the whiskered child get cleaved in half, their first instinct was to run… something that they did until they were stopped by the silver haired Jōnin. They had however succeeded in putting enough distance so that they couldn't see their comrades corpse.

None of them realised when the mist had cleared, the sheer level of shock they were in had completely destroyed their mental processes and rendered them all nothing more than terrified children (though one of them was technically an old man), the only other action except stand in a stupor that they made was to eject their lunch through the same area they had used to put it in their stomach in the first place.

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Kakashi and Zabuza however both stopped for a second when reality suddenly decided that it didn't want the blond to be on fire anymore and put him out at the edge of the forest surrounding them… then they started to fight each other some more.

XXX XXX XXX

Now that he was no longer on fire, Naruto couldn't help but groan in pain as his flesh let him know it had been in better shape… well nearly all the time.

"Can you hear me?" came a call that the child recognised as the voice that told him to get out of the light.

"Yeah, I think so," he responded, wondering why it sounded so different to his regular thoughts.

"I'll take that as a simple yes then… now, are you willing to listen to what I tell you?" the voice asked, it's tone was deep and powerful, causing the blond to wonder where it got the power from.

"I guess so… I mean you saved me before didn't you?"

"Good, and to answer your question, yes I did, now look around and tell me if you see anything with blood," the strange voice told him calmly causing his eyes to dart around the area searching for anything alive… unfortunately he couldn't pick out anything within the forest except a small bird that zipped around faster than he could possibly catch it.

"Well there's a bird," he told the voice earning a sigh of frustration off the deep voice.

"Well then, I guess you're just going to have to wait for your sensei to kill that swordsman before you can heal yourself."

"Huh? what do you mean by that? How can I heal myself?" the whiskered boy asked in confusion as he kept looking around.

"You can heal yourself by drinking blood," suddenly Naruto began to question the voice in his head, wondering if he wasn't simply going insane and hallucinating the entire situation so far, it made more sense than what appeared to be happening.

"Riiiight... And why should I believe that drinking blood will help?" he asked with sarcasm clear in his voice at the beginning.

"Believe what you want, but you can't deny you at least believe that you healed after draining that rabbit dry," the voice at the back of his mind told him and despite his inability to believe what it told him, he couldn't help but agree.

Suddenly his back erupted in pain causing him to look upwards and see a sight he didn't think he would… his sensei standing over him with what looked to be a first aid kit.

"I wonder… does that kit have blood replenishment pills?" the voice asked suddenly, causing the blond to wonder why it asked, "they aren't as good as genuine blood but they should work to a certain extent."

"Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto started upon hearing the voices statement.

"It's alright Naruto, Zabuza is dead," he stated calmly, as he sat down next to the boy and opened the kit, ready to tend to the boys injuries.

"Do you have blood pills?" he asked anyway, causing the Jōnin to look at him in confusion, "I think I lost a bit too much blood, my head feels light."

"Alright, I'll get one out for you," the man told him calmly, his hitae-ate now covering one of his eyes once again, before he pulled out a small red pill which he calmly put in the blonds mouth.

"It looks like I was wrong about the pill," the voice told him calmly after analysing the components of the pill.

"What do you mean by that?" Naruto asked it without hesitation.

"the pill works by encouraging your body to produce more blood than normal, which your body no longer does full stop," the voice stated seriously, resulting in confusion washing over the child's mind at the statement.

"What do you mean my body doesn't make more blood anymore?" it was a simple question and one that very few people ever get to ask.

"I'll explain later, for now, just let it be," Naruto may not have liked the statement but there wasn't really anything he could do concerning it and if it would tell him later, then he just hoped he wouldn't have to wait too long for answers.

Kakashi couldn't help but wonder why the blond had spontaneously combusted, he knew Zabuza didn't have a technique like that and he was certain the blond didn't know any form of suicide jutsu that he could've gotten wrong to achieve those results.

In the end he simply decided that he would be better off not thinking about it and just tend to the boy's burns, which were already showing signs of healing, he wasn't surprised, the boy was supposed to have a high regenerative rate anyway.

In the end, all his mind could come up with for the boy surviving Zabuza's attack was the Kyūbi deciding to preserve his life and using it's chakra to heal him, he would've thought he would feel the malicious aura but he wasn't a sensor type so he wouldn't question it.

Once he had finished dealing with the boys injuries he proceeded to look around for the blonds backpack and then remembered… it was on him when he caught fire.

So here the child was, lying at the edge of a forest with the only form of clothing in his possession being the metal plate of his hitae-ate. Fortunately the squad leader hadn't trusted the children to be sensible and had packed some spare clothes for a situation he could imagine, involving Naruto, Sasuke's clothes and one word… prank.

He never thought it would be Naruto that would be wearing these clothes.

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Silence reigned as the group headed along the road to Nami no Kuni, Haruno Sakura was unusually quiet as she tried to figure out how her blond teammate was still alive… and why he insisted on wearing a hooded cloak with one of Kakashi-sensei's masks… and gloves that covered his fingers as well. It didn't make sense to her (or any of her teammates) as to why he would want to wear so much clothing in weather that was as nice as it currently was.

They had only been on the road for a couple of hours when they finally arrived at their destination, a small Inn situated on stilts at the shore of the ocean, it was the home of the man they had been paid to escort, the bridge builder named Tazuna.