Prologue

"Shin"

-Character switch-

Line bar:Time or setting switch

"Thinking"

"Talking"

"Jutsu"

"Summon/demon talking'

-Shin-

The light of the new day began to hit his eyes hard, the droplets of fresh forest dew began to wake him up to feel dull pain everywhere over his body.

"Must have blacked out."

The wounded Uchiha had finally woken up. He looked up to see a familiar broken branch above him amongst the forest. It seems he had been knocked out after trying to jump onto a branch that broke.

If he was in top shape he might have landed right, but he had his wounds to thank for all this.

Chakra exhaustion, four broken ribs, half a concussion, severe burns down his entire right arm, internal damage that reminded him of getting hit by one of his best friends jutsus, and a twisted ankle.

Shin Uchiha was not feeling at his best.

He had been running for days threw the thick forests just to try to evade his captors, now all he could do was try to keep himself conscious.

"Don't black out!"The Uchiha tells himself, the pain of his wounds even when he wasn't moving was almost enough to send him into shock.

He was so close now, barely a mile away from the village, He figured his captors hadn't followed him this deep, if they had they would have gotten him while he was unconscious on the the ground.

"Almost there." He assures himself as he looks on through the forest towards a set of familiar mountains.

Eleven years.

Eleven years in hell and he was so close to getting back.

He pulled himself up, barely pushing himself off the ground the man jumped up to one of the tree branches making sure to land correctly and not twist his damn ankle further. He had almost lost whatever balance he had as the branch began to shake under his weight.

He had to remind himself that he hadn't a single drop of chakra to use for this. Even most genin learned the tree climbing exercise, it helped them jump to tree to tree as well without falling over or slipping.

Without chakra however, you were liable to fall off anytime thanks to gravity.

He made his first unsteady jump, barely catching himself on the next branch over he used his momentum and pulled forward making the next few jumps easier as he started a small pace toward the village.

His will wasn't broken, he had escaped after so long just because of that fact, hoping beyond hope to get back to the village and find his family and friends in Konoha. He had so many things he had to do, he had to apologize to the Hokage who was right the entire time, he had to apologize to his brother and mother for worrying them, he had to find all of his friends and have drinks with them like it was old times.

He barely remembered all their faces, but he remembered their voices like he was hearing a familiar bell.

Her voice most of all.

She told him that she didn't care about him, she told him to go away, away from her and...her child.

It hurt him to think about it, but the thought also gave him strength as well, sometimes even your worst memories of people can help you, and in the end he loved her anyways, her...and her children.

His stomach was almost eating itself out, he had no time to hunt while they were on his tail so he hadn't eaten anything for something close to a week.

"Ah, fresh dango..."Shin thought as he traveled threw the air"...oh shit!"

Shin was distracted at the thought of all that good Konoha food and slipped off another branch. As he hit what felt like seven branches on the way to the ground he still had thoughts of fresh dango in his head.

Until he hit the ground that is.

After a brief moment of groaning his pain out on his stomach his old ninja instincts kicked in and he took inventory of wounds.

"Well I'm conscious"He thought sarcastically"That's a start"

He felt the side of his head to find that it was bleeding badly, he could already begin to feel his vision blur a little as a result, he had a nice host of cuts from falling down through the branches but other than the ones on his burnt arm they didn't feel that much worse than the rest.

He pulled himself up one last time looking up to see the large gates of Konoha.

There was no way he was this close to them now, and as he watched the leaves begin to swirl through the air and the brightness the village seemed to be offering him he had a very different thought.

"I'm dead, aren't I?"Shin thought as he stepped forward.

Every painful step felt like an anchor pulling him back. He pulled through as much as he could, but in the end the strain of movement itself proved to much for him and slowly he fell face forward.

The last thing Shin saw was the leaves falling with him toward the ground.

Hello, it's nice to address the people reading this story, so lets get this started!

Ahem!

Honorable readers:

If you are reading this your are officially reading the second version of this chapter. This is my first fanfiction story and also my first dabbling into this kind of genre of writing, I hope as TLOTU keeps going on I become a better writer in this style. I will be updating chapters as i go and of course find different mistakes.

Please review.(Trust me. I need you to humble me.)

With future thanks:

Roland.