A Single Petal

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Beta'd by NeonNavyWriter

Long ago, before the existence of shinobi, ninja clans and the Hidden Villages, the world was in a constant state of war. Thousands upon thousands of lives were lost each day from the wars. A princess from a foreign land was unable to bare the bloodshed anymore, sought a way to end the war and bring peace to the war-torn world.

In her search, she came upon the legend of a mysterious and powerful tree that was worshipped as the host of a god and legends foretold that only once every millennium the tree would grow a fruit. That fruit was said to possess all of its godly powers. However, humans had been strictly instructed to never attempt to eat the fruit.

Deeming that the only way to end the wars and bring about true peace was to eat the fruit and gain the tree's divine power. The princess, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki as she was known, sought out the divine tree and upon finding it, she ate the forbidden fruit. Upon consuming the fruit, she was blessed with unimaginable power, power that she used to end the wars and eventually went on to be called a goddess and so the legend of the Rabbit Goddess was born.

Unknown to the princess, Kaguya, the Shinju knew of her intentions and knew exactly what would happen when she did what she had planned to do. It wasn't a primordial god for nothing, but even so, it did nothing to halt the princess in her path, it didn't care whether she took its power or not.

It was, after all, but an observer of the human race, it would only watch and never would it act. But at the very last minute, just as Kaguya was about reach the top of the mighty tree and take its power for herself, the Shinju had a vision. It was a vision of the far future, and what it saw did something that the divine tree had never once experienced before in its entire existence...anger.

Far into the distant future, mankind had learned to utilize its power, bending it to their will and using it to wage more war against each other. However, that was not what made the tree angry, no what made it angry was the fact that the shinobi, as they would then be called, used its power to destroy the land it had come to cherish.

Using its power, chakra, they ripped the earth apart, destroying it until all that was left was an inhabitable desolate rock. It wouldn't stand for it! It would not allow such a thing to happen to its garden! Its domain!

The Shinju truly did not feel anything; it was merely a sentient tree that grew from the blood that soaked the earth during the era of the endless wars. From the very beginning of its very existence it had spread its power across the entire world and with its divine energy, the world flourished, the world became its home, its nursery.

However, man with their wars were continuously destroyed the beautiful garden it had created and these shinobi would destroy so much of it until nothing was left! Knowing it was already too late to try and stop the princess from stealing its fruit, the Shinju decided to act. There was only one way to save the world from mankind and that was only if IT stopped them, but without its power there was nothing it could do to stop them.

Just then an idea came to it, as long as a small portion of it remained it would always grow as more blood will be spilled on the earth, and from that blood it would reform back in the world and stop man from destroying the one thing it cared about.

Willing a small amount of its energy and to an extent its will, the God Tree allowed for a single, simple, petal to peel off from the fruit Kaguya was about to take. It was a simple petal that contained some of the essence and will of the Shinju, a petal that was easily ignored by the princess in favor of its fruit and was blown away by the winds. Travelling a great distance away from where it had come from until eventually, it settled in the middle of a large forest that would one day be known as Fire Country.

The Shinju drew its power from the blood of the deceased during the era of endless wars, and with men soon learning to harvest and control its power, as small as it would be, the earth would once again be soaked in blood. This time more blood and lives would be lost than even during the era of endless wars, for with the energy from the Shinju the humans will have the weapons and power to wage war on a scale far greater than ever before.

The Shinju would emerge a thousand years from now, its power would be far greater than before and with it, it would reclaim and protect what rightfully belonged to it...the world.

(1000 years later)

"The Hidden Leaf Village also known as Konohagakure no Sato or Konoha for short, is known as the strongest of the hidden villages. Located in the heart of fire country, this village is surrounded by trees as far as the eye can see and is also famous for producing some of the strongest ninjas in the world. Ninjas like the god of Shinobi, Senju Hashirama, the mighty Uchiha Madara, Tobirama Senju, Sakumo Hatake, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the legendary Sannin and finally the fastest man in history, Minato Namikaze. All these men hail from the leaf village and will forever be remembered throughout history as-"

"Big deal! When I become Hokage I will be stronger than all those old fossils put together!" A blond haired boy no older than eight years old declared loudly to the whole class, earning many looks of disbelief and eye rolls from his peers.

"And I'm the son of the fourth Hokage, face it dead-last your dream of becoming the Hokage is just that, a dream" a brown haired kid wearing a brown jacket with canine-like marks on his face responded back in a mocking tone, causing everyone in the classroom laugh at the blond haired boy.

"Is not!" The blond haired child shouted back

"Is too-" before the two could continue with their argument, their sensei stopped them.

"Settle down class" the teacher said out loud, a tick mark appeared on his forehead. "Naruto please leave the class" the sensei, Mizuki, said with an annoyed look on his face.

"But sensei-" Naruto tried to defend himself.

"Meet me after school for your detention" he continued

"But-"

"I can make it a double detention if you want"

Naruto wisely kept his mouth shut after that and stood up to leave the class. On his way out, a certain dark haired boy placed his foot in front of Naruto making him trip over and fall to the ground, face first. The entire class laughed again at his plight, Naruto quickly stood up and saw Sasuke giving him a challenging smirk.

"What are you going to do...dobe" Sasuke mouthed out. Naruto gritted his teeth, his hands balled into fists and he was pressing them so hard that his knuckles had turned white. Anger was clearly visible on his face, his mind was already racing through the many possibilities he could attack and beat the arrogant prick in front of him into a bloody pulp.

"Uzumaki!" Mizuki's angry shout brought Naruto out of his vengeful thoughts.

Naruto grumbled something under his breath and stomped out of the classroom. Banging the door rather loudly as he exited the classroom.

"Ok then now that that's out of the way, let's all please turn to page 72 on the History of the Elemental Nations" The entire class, expect a few, groaned.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto angrily stomped his feet to the ground as he made his way towards his apartment.
'It's not fair!' He shouted in his mind, all he had done was tell his dream and now he had been kicked out of the class, again. He had only failed the graduation exam once, the previous year, and already people were calling him a dead last.

So what if he couldn't do a simple clone jutsu and a simple substitution, he was going to be Hokage one day and Hokages didn't use stupid weak E-ranked jutsu! He was going to prove them wrong, all of them!

'Stupid mutt, stupid teme, will see who will be laughing when I paint your entire houses orange!' Naruto plotted in his mind, 'or put itching powder in your underwear' a sinister grin made its way across his whiskered face as more and more pranking ideas came to him, each one more humiliating that the last.

Let it be known to all that no one messed with Uzumaki Naruto and got away with it, prank wise that is.

Half way to his house Naruto decided against going there and decided to go his favorite spot in the village instead. Some of his greatest pranking ideas had come at him on that spot.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After making the rather long, -for him-, trip to the monument, Naruto sat on top of his favorite place on the monument, the Fourth Hokage's stone head. He didn't know why but whenever he was feeling down he would always come to atop the Fourth Hokage's stone head, for some reason he always felt drawn to it. That and it was the best place to get a full view of the village below.

Before he realized it, several hours passed by with him sitting there, his mind lost in wonder and his feet dangling dangerously on the edge. It wasn't until his stomach grumbled, signalling for him to eat something unless he wanted to starve, the had to move from his position, which he did.

"Man am I hungry" Naruto groaned out to no one but himself.

Oh well, it was nothing a good bowl ramen couldn't fix, several bowls to be exact.

He stood up from the spot he had been seated on for more than an hour now and was about to go to Ichiraku for some well needed ramen when he remembered that he didn't have any money left on him. He had spent the last of his saved money on some 'supplies' for a special occasion like the one he had in mind.

The look on his soon to be victims would be worth it, his young mind reasoned.

Now, normally in a ramen-dire situation like this Naruto had a backup, namely the old man. And by the 'old man' he actually meant the Hokage. However, after Iruka-sensei had had shown the old man his not-so-staller results and even worse, his less than angelic attitude towards the academy instructors. The pranks were just the icing on the cake… Well, let's just say the old man wasn't so forthcoming with his treats.

Damn snitch. He would be getting his own dosage of the 'Uzumaki special' soon enough.

His second and last option was the ramen shop owners themselves. He knew that the old man at the ramen stand would give him food for free and would allow him to pay him later, but he already owed him money as it was and he hated abusing the old man's kindness.

His stomach grumbled again, louder than the first time.

"Yeah, yeah I know you're hungry already" As if responding to him, his stomach roared again making him sigh in defeat. The Hokage it was. He'd just have to bare through the gruesome speech again.

With his destination set, Naruto made to walk back to the village below but stopped mid-step when he both heard and felt something coming from the many foliage of trees behind the monument.

A small part of him, the hungry bit, warned him against going into the spooky-looking woods and to continue with his food-rewarding destination instead. That bit was crushed as soon as it appeared.

By virtue, Naruto was a very curious and for the most part, ignorant child. So true to his nature, he immediately changed direction and made for the foliage of trees, his hunger all but forgotten in favor of whatever it was that had garnered his attention.

The walk past the trees didn't take all that much time seeing as he had taken to tree hopping to avoid walking. For once he was actually glad he had paid attention in class, tree hopping was really useful! When he made it past the trees, Naruto was greeted with a sight that made him gasp in awe.

In front of him was by far the most beautiful sight his eyes had ever seen, there in front of him was a small clearing with a crystal clear, beautiful sparkling small lake. Around the lake were the greenest fresh looking grass he had ever seen. There were flowers everywhere. Flowers of every color, shape and size. More flowers than he had ever seen in his life.

The clearing was buzzing with the sounds of birds chipping, frogs croaking and he could see so many butterflies he didn't even think existed. It looked like something out of the story books the old man used to read to him when he was younger.

"Wow, this place is amazing!" Naruto declared loudly with barely contained glee. In doing so however, he unintentionally scared away the many creatures that littered the area.

Not at concerned with his actions, Naruto approached the beautiful lake and stood at the edge. Looking at the water below him, he could see several fish swimming inside the clear water.

"I've never seen anything this beautiful" he praised for the second time again. Unfortunately for the young ninja in training, he got so caught up in what he was seeing that failed to notice that the edge he was standing on was slowly crumbling until-

"Ahhhh!" Naruto let out a startled scream when the edge he was standing on crumbled under his weight throwing him into the cool water below. "H- help!" He shouting as the water dragged him down. He didn't know how to swim!

Panic immediately set in and Naruto was now thrashing around the water, trying by all means to stay afloat. After a few minutes of thrashing and panicking it dawned on him that something was very wrong. He wasn't sinking.

He blinked once, then twice as his mind finally caught up with the new situation presented to him. After a few awkward seconds he finally got the sense to look down and see what was keeping him afloat.

"Hehehe" Naruto chuckled childishly, rubbing the back of his now wet hair in embarrassment. He hadn't been in any danger after all as the water he was in wasn't all that deep and only went up to his chest. He was suddenly glad that he had been here at the small lake alone, if anyone had witnessed his little scene just now…

'I'd never be able to show my face in class again'

As Naruto turned around to exit the now murky water, something in the corner of his eye drew his attention back to the water. Not too far off from where he was, he could make out what appeared to be a glowing round object. Curiosity getting the better of him again, Naruto moved as close to the glowing object as he could without completely submerging his head under the water.

Fortunately for him, that was enough distance for his rather small hands to reach it. As soon as he had a good hold of the object, he pulled it as hard as he could. Surprisingly the object didn't take all that much effort to pull and so Naruto was soon rewarded with the glowing thing in his hands.

Glowy thing in hand, Naruto made his way back to the edge of the lake and pushed himself out of the water and laid on the ground for a few seconds to regain some of his lost breath. After regaining said breath, Naruto stood up and looked at the thing he had dragged with him from the water.

"What kind of weird fruit is this?" He questioned, looking at the fruit in his hand.

It was a weird (for him) fruit/flower with glowing silver petals and a purple round fruit inside it. The overall shape of the flower was almost the size of his head and the fruit inside of it being the size of both his fist balled together. The fruit was oval in shape with black rings going around the whole fruit, on the black rings were comma-like markings, nine in total.

'Maybe I should ask the old man about it, he is the Hokage he should know what it is' He gave a small nod to himself and started walking back to the village when not even a few steps into his journey, his stomach grumbled again. Naruto's face scrunched up at the unpleasant feeling his stomach was now giving him, it was actually starting to hurt.

Looking down at the fruit in his hands, he pondered on what he should do. It wouldn't hurt to take a small bite of the fruit would it? He brought the fruit closer to his face and took a small whiff, it didn't smell all that bad and with how hungry he was it actually smelled good.

Throwing caution to the wind, Naruto removed the fruit from the rest of the flower and brought it to his mouth. He was REALLY hungry and there was a delicious -if not weird- fruit in his hands. Besides as the Hokage, the old man would probably know about a fruit that grew underwater, so there was really no need for him to show the fruit he had found to the old man, he mostly likely knew about it already. Naruto reasoned.

With that self-assurance in mind, Naruto wasted no time in devouring the fruit.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hiruzen Sarutobi glared at the mountain of paperwork in front of him with such an intense gaze that it would burn, he was actually hoping it would. After hours upon hours of signing documents and reading through countless mission reports, his hands, back and eyes were starting to ache.

He sighed tiredly as he thought about how much more work was still left for him to complete and to make matters worse, it was still barely past noon. This was the part of being Hokage that even after years of doing, he detested more than anything, paperwork.

He rubbed his temples to try and relive some of the tension he felt and took out a key that was in one of the pockets of his robes, he then used the said key to open one of the many drawers on his desk. Inside the drawer was a very important book, his most prized possession. A book that only a selected few had had the opportunity of getting before the full edition was even released... Icha Icha Paradise, Harem edition (signed by Jiraiya himself).

A perverted giggle escaped the old Kage's mouth as he grabbed the book. His student, while admittedly a shameless pervert, was a very good writer of a very wonderful series of books. And the fact that he was once the teacher of said student, meant that he would get a copy of the new books before they were released, was a very wonderful added bonus.

He took hold of his prized possession and was about to indulge himself in the wonderful book when-

BOOOOOOM!

A loud explosion sounded from atop the Hokage's monument, the explosion was so strong and loud that it boomed throughout the entire village, breaking several windows -including the ones in his office- in the process.

As loud and startling as the explosion was, it did not hold a candle to what came after. Chakra. That was the only thing that came to his mind. Following the explosion, a monstrous chakra output suddenly appeared, blanketing the village and all its occupants in a wave of power never once felt before.

In all his life, which to be fair was quite the achievement for a ninja, he had never felt anything like it before. Pure energy, so much of it that it actually froze him dead in his seat and brought a sense of dread unlike that which he had ever felt before, not even when he was facing the mighty Kyuubi!

The chakra, if he could call it that, was so great that dare he say it, it rivaled that of the Kyuubi on a such a scale that it was mind boggling. A bead of sweat rolled down his wrinkled face as he felt the chakra increase with each passing second. Reeling in his resolve and entering what many would call his 'Kage' mode, the Third Hokage stood up from his seat and removed his robes, leaving behind his old armor to be seen.

"Summoning Jutsu!" An array of seals appeared on the ground where his hand was and was soon followed by a white explosion of smoke.

When the smoke cleared it showed behind it a monkey comparable in size to Hiruzen, it had long unkempt white hair that reached into its back and wore wore a black suit with mesh armor underneath. It was his summon, the monkey king Enma.

"Saru?...W-What in Kami's name is that!?" Enma gasped, clearly startled by the massive, oppressive chakra saturating the air.

"I don't know old friend, but hopefully we will find out soon enough" Enma gave a hesitant nod at this and the pair jumped through the broken window and headed straight for the Hokage monument where the chakra output was coming from.

On the way, Hiruzen was not all surprised to find nearly all of the ninja currently in the village -chunin and above- waiting for him at the bottom of the monument, even all the clan heads and his old teammates were there, Danzo included. He gave an approval nod to all of them and beckoned for them all to follow him.

'May Kami have mercy on all of us' was his last thought as they rushed into what many thought would be their end.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When the ninja got to the top of the monument they were not all that surprised to find the whole area in ruins, all that remained of the once large beautiful trees, grass and flowers was now a large smoking crater without any visible signs of life in it.

Hiruzen, ahead of everyone, walked further into the crater holding his now transformed staff in his hand tightly. On the outside he appeared to be very calm and collected, analyzing the situation before him with a calculative gaze, but on the inside however, it was an entirely different story.

Never had been this startled in all his sixty-years of being a ninja, he was not afraid of facing whatever it was that was responsible for the chakra out let, no what he was afraid of was that he knew he was long past his prime and was now about to face an opponent with enough chakra to make the mighty Kyuubi feel like an untrained civilian in comparison.

His hold on his staff tightened even more, if they failed to stop whatever monstrosity that had come to his village...

"Calm down Sarutobi, fear will only lead to our downfall" Enma, his staff, said. Trying to calm his old partner and longtime friend down. He knew just exactly what was going on in his mind, and to an extent the same was going through his.

"I know Enma, perhaps this is a sign" Hiruzen said cryptically, looking ahead of him with slightly narrowed eyes.

If the monkey king could he would've raise his eyebrow

"A sign? For what?"

The aged kage did not respond. He suddenly came to a halt when he felt something. The thing that they were after could be felt by all not too far from their position. However, the dust blanketing the whole area made it impossible for anyone to see anything. Those of the Hyuuga clan tried seeing through it with their Byakugan but there was so much chakra saturating the air that it was almost blinding for them to keep it activated. The sensor nins were worse off.

To everyone's shock and surprise the over bearing chakra suddenly disappeared as though it had never been there to begin with. All of the gathered ninja had to double take at that, there was no way that something with that much chakra would just disappear without any sign of where it was. The chakra they had felt only moments ago was large enough that it was probably felt all the way to Kumo!

A strong gust of wind suddenly appeared, making everyone take cover behind their hands and some even went as far to erect an earth barrier around them thinking that they were getting attacked. After a few seconds the wind finally died down, when everyone opened their eyes they were greeted with a sight that made them many of them confused.

-A few minutes earlier-

After Naruto had eaten the fruit something strange started happening inside his stomach, it was a warm tingly sensation growing from his tummy and slowly spreading to the rest of his body. Thinking it was just an upset stomach, he ignored it. After all it, was not the first time he had eaten something that made his stomach feel funny.

Realizing he was running out of time for his pranks, Naruto decided it was best he heard home now if he wanted to sort the supplies for his prank. He would tell the old man about the weird fruit after.

And then without warning, his vision suddenly blurred and soon he couldn't see anything. In panic, he tried to scream for help but his body refused to move, he could feel something, something inside of him growing, changing him. Dimly, he heard the sound of something or someone screaming, shouting angrily at him but the voice was so far away he could barely make it out.

His eyes flew open when he could feel nearly every single person in the village and the feeling continued to increase until he could feel people from far away. His eyes burned, his head was pounding so loudly that it was unbearable.

'W-What's h-happening to me?!' Naruto screamed in his mind.

He could feel many people, more than he could ever count, heading towards his direction. As they approached Naruto could distinctly feel and remember one person amongst the multitude of people, it was the old man! He wanted to run to him but still his body still refused to move, he couldn't even talk.

After what seemed like an eternity, he felt as though whatever had been holding him, preventing him from moving, had finally let go.

Almost like a toddler taking his step, Naruto tentatively moved forward, staggering a bit as he did so. Just a few steps into his freedom, something dawned on the blond haired troublemaker. Now on his best day, Naruto usually felt so much energy rushing through his veins that he could hardly pay attention at something for more than a minute even if he wanted to. He would run around the village reigning havoc wherever he went and would then run from the ninja that tried to catch him, 'tried' being the key word.

Because of his seemingly endless stamina and boundless energy he would easily out run them all for hours and only be slightly winded by the time they gave up. But now, now he felt like he could run forever and would never get tired, his whole body felt so alive, so powerful, so full of energy...it was AMAZING!

When his vision cleared, which was a moment after he had gained control of his body, the first thing or rather, person that he saw was the old man. Wearing armor and everything.

"Old man?" his voice nearly cracked up with joy at seeing the familiar face.

-Present-

When the wind settled down, they were greeted with the sight of a small child who looked to be no older than eight. The child had unkempt pure white shoulder length hair. His eyes were something to behold, for they were metallic silver with black rings forming around a small black iris, if one was to look carefully they would notice a single black tome in the first ring of both eyes. In the center of his forehead was a small vertical slit, he also had six distinctive whisker mask on his pale white cheek, three on each cheek that made everyone instantly recognized who the person was.

For his clothes, he wore a high-collared white robe with ten black magatama markings across his chest and the pattern of a black Rinnegan and nine black magatama markings, in rolls of three on his back. There were also additional magatama markings on his sleeve cuffs and also on the rim of his robe.

Behind him, ten purple-bordering black-orbs could be seen floating in a circular formation.

"Old man?" The child asked

"N-Naruto?!"

Chapter end