I had always feared dying, like everyone else. But I never feared going to Hell, I hadn't ever done anything to anyone. I hadn't touched a hair on any of the villagers that attacked me. Unfortunately for me, when I died, the demon inside of me dragged me down to Hell with it. I came back, but not alone. No, I returned with the help of my current master. He taught me how to survive and take revenge. With his help, I was able to…but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning…

Naruto was running. He didn't know where or why he was running; only that he should. He couldn't see anyone following him, but all of his survival instincts were screaming at him to run, so he was. He was so focused on escape, that he didn't even notice when he dropped to all fours and continued to run. One of the disabilities of high speed movement was sight; if your eyes couldn't keep up, you couldn't see. Naruto didn't even spot the dead end of the alley he was running down until he hit it, hard.

As soon as the pain in his head stopped, pain exploded in his back. He had pulled a muscle and soon he couldn't move his spine without pain. While he lay there in the dirt of the alley, a shadow came over him. Looking up, he could see the face of his caretaker, Okei. He held a rock in his hand and a crazy grin on his face. Naruto's last sight was of a rock speeding towards his face before he passed out.

--

Kakashi held the bloody mass close to his body in the hope of keeping it alive. The heap of flesh was so bloody that you couldn't tell it was a blonde haired, blue eyed, five year old just two hours ago. Kakashi was angry, because of this; he had to start his shift right after a mission that had him dead tired. He hated feeling so helpless. Kakashi had no idea where his last ANBU guard went, but he had an idea that the ANBU had 'conveniently' left early.

"Hold on, we're almost to the tower." The ninja who actually cared for Naruto had long stopped taking him to the hospital all together. The doctors often refused to treat him, and when orders they would do their best to mess up some way. But the ANBU's personal medics didn't mind the boy at all. In fact, they would often watch and play with him when he was younger. But now it was an ANBU duty to watch him and Kakashi swore he would punish the person who allowed his charge to become so damaged.

Finally reaching the tower, Kakashi bypassed all of the ANBU stationed there and run inside. He didn't stop for the night clerk who was working the front desk or the chunin that were trying to get his attention. He just ran for the back stairs and took them down. Reaching the bottom floor, he ran passed the normal barracks for the special nin and kicked the medics' barrack door open. (He didn't have a free hand.) "Degaru, Futaba, come help!" Those two medics cared for Naruto the most; Kakashi knew Naruto would be better soon. He had to be. The medics were soon in front of Kakashi and his bundle.

"What is that?" Futaba questioned.

"Naruto." Immediately, the duo gently pulled Naruto out of his grasp and set him on the ground. One produced a cloth and began cleaning some of the blood away while the other checked for a pulse. As soon as they had enough room to work with, they pressed glowing green hands to the broken body. But instead of the wounds closing, they remained as gapping tears in his flesh, and though they stopped bleeding, it wasn't a good sign. After five minutes, they stopped.

"What's wrong, why did you stop?" Kakashi's voice cracked before he could even finish asking his question. Futaba kept her head down while Degaru picked up the body and carried it off. "Wait, where are you going with him?" Kakashi reached for Degaru's retreating back, but a hand grabbing his pant leg stopped him. Looking down, he saw Futaba's tear stained face.

"The morgue."

"Wha-wait, why is he going to the mor-" He stopped taking when the implications of what she said got to him. 'No…'

"He's taking him to the morgue. He's gone, Kakashi. Naruto died, we couldn't do anything." They stayed there for several minutes before Kakashi pulled her up and started walking down the hall. "Where are we going?"

"The Hokage should be told about this." Kakashi led the distraught woman away from the direction her husband had taken and up the stairs he had ran down only nine minutes before. 'Naruto was alive then.' They slowly made their way to the Hokage's office to report what had happened. Kakashi knew that the Hokage would take Naruto's passing even worse than he himself had. But he needed to be told.

While all of this was happening, a very interesting thing was happening in my own mind…

"YOU IDIOTIC BOY! YOU HAVE KILLED US BOTH!" Naruto was cowering in front of a large cage he found. He didn't understand what was going on and said as much to the unseen speaker. "HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW? WE ARE DIEING! ARE YOU SO IGNORANT TO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT?!"

"Stop yelling!" Naruto covered his ears to the noise. "Everyone always yells. Just tell me why I feel so cold." A loud roar blew him back and he fell into the water surrounding him.

"Because you are so ignorant, I'll explain. At your birth I was sealed inside of you."

"But, I don't understand. Who are you?"

"I am the great Kyuubi and I refuse to suffer alone!"

"Suffer?" A shiver racked his body. "Why am I so cold?"

"Because you foolish monkey, WE ARE DIEING!" Suddenly, the paper on the gate started to burn and Naruto felt a tugging coming from his stomach. The paper was soon gone and the gate opened. A terrified Naruto stayed down in the water as a clawed arm reached out of the gate and pulled him in. He experienced vertigo as he was raised to the face of a giant fox. The claw that held him started to squeeze and Naruto could feel his ribs breaking. "I refuse, I will not go alone!" Behind the two, another gate appeared. This one was far more frightening to Naruto then the one he had been pulled into. This one had solid black stone doors that seemed to scare the Kyuubi as well. Naruto could see movement on the doors, but couldn't make out any shapes. Suddenly, black skeletons reached out to the two. They were large enough that they could completely wrap their arms around the fox's stomach, which they did. Naruto was still held I the monster's claw as the fox was drug towards the gate. The doors slowly opened and Naruto could hear screaming coming from within the dark abyss in front of them.

"I don't want to go there! Let me go!" Naruto tried to struggle, but the claw just squeezed tighter.

"You are coming with me. I will not suffer alone!" The Kyuubi knew that struggling was useless; none could escape Hell. It just wasn't possible. He was content in the knowledge that he wouldn't suffer alone. He found no reason to fight. When they were pushed into the darkness, Naruto felt his body being pulled from the fox's claw. He opened his eyes, he couldn't remember closing them, and looked around. He was lying on a standard-issue hospital bed in a standard hospital room. Or, that's what it looked like to him.

Instead of the white wash walls and sanitary smell, the room was trashed. There was no roof and most of the other walls were gone as well; the only thing he could see for miles was dirt, the red sky, and the red bits of earth that blew on the wind. A heavy and hot breeze made Naruto cough and sputter while he looked around. The corner of the room his bed was by was the only thing standing as far as he could see. The air was so heavy that Naruto found it hard to breathe.

"Fox? Are you there?" His cry echoed across the empty plane. A hissing sound drew him to the foot of his bed. A decayed and intimidating hand reached up from the ground and grabbed the end of the bed. The creature lifted itself up and crawled towards Naruto. The boy was terrified of the thing. It looked like a body left out to rot; brown, crusted flesh still hung from its bones, its eyes and facial features were gone, but the most frightening thing was the top of its head. It just wasn't there. Naruto could easily see its decaying brain held inside its busted skull. Naruto felt fear rise up in his chest but tried to force it down when he saw that the creature smelled it and crawled faster. When it was near his face, Naruto yelled out and tried to kick it away.

Instead of being hit, the demon grabbed the offending appendage and bit into the flesh of Naruto's leg. The pain was nearly unbearable; he couldn't understand how a simple bite could be so painful. His cry of pain caused several more of the demons to appear and they began to eat him alive. Naruto was being smothered under the heavy 

weight of the demons and his cries for help were muffled by the feeding bodies. Right before he lost all hope of being saved, a shadow fell over his face. He could barely make out who it was with the writhing bodies on top of him, but he could make out flowing black hair and red eyes.

"Do you want an escape?"

"What do you mean?" Naruto practically yelled at him.

"Do you want me to give you an escape for the pain?" Just as he finished saying that, a demon took a particularly large bite out of his arm; ripping it completely off.

"Yes! I'll do anything! Just…make it stop! Please!" The person smirked.

"Very well, I will take away the pain in your heart." Naruto didn't know what the man did, but soon the demons were gone. He tried to say thank you, but his torn throat refused to work. But the man wasn't done. He lifted a clawed hand up and shot it into Naruto's chest. The five year old could feel the hand grip his heart. "Live boy, your time isn't over yet." Suddenly, the man removed his heart out of his chest and held it in his hand. Naruto couldn't feel it though and watched in awe as the heart started to beat. Naruto's world went black, but he felt his body drifting out of the abyss. He opened his eyes to see that he was back inside the gage room.

"I'm back?" He looked around, but all he could see was the open and empty cage.

"Yes, you're back." The man's voice came from behind him so he spun around without thinking and looked to see the man who saved him. "Your body is healed of the damage it received. You are back to how you were. The only thing changed physically is your face. You no longer hold the fox, your whiskers are gone." Naruto looked to his reflection to see that what he said was true.

"Thank you. You saved me." Naruto felt like he should break down and cry, but instead, he felt strangely devoid of sadness and pain. It was a weird feeling for the normally emotional blonde.

"Not without reason. I saved you so I could escape Hell. In fact, since you now contain me, your body will change accordingly."

"How can I repay you?" The figure chuckled.

"It's not how you can repay me, it's how you will repay me. You will do my bidding, and follow my orders. Understand?" Naruto was surprised that anyone would want him to serve them. After all, he was useless and weak, wasn't he?

"I understand. What do you want me to do?" He still couldn't see his savior, no master now, but he didn't mind.

"Aren't you agreeable? We'll cover that soon. You need to rest now. A tired servant is useless to me."

"You saved me, why wouldn't I agree?" Naruto was confused as to why anyone would deny someone who saved them anything. He didn't even mind that he had been called a servant.

"One of my previous servants often disobeyed me. But I should warn you, I hold your heart. You are mine." At this, the man pulled his hand from his sleeve and held it out for Naruto to see. Inside his partially closed fist was a beating heart. "Should you disobey me, I will cause you great pain." To show an example, the man squeezed the heart in his hand lightly and Naruto could feel his chest compact. It didn't cause any pain, but Naruto knew that his master could kill him on a whim.

"I will serve you to the best of my abilities." Naruto bowed low as he had seen a few ninja do to the Hokage. This action seemed to please his master. "Can I know your name?" Naruto carefully asked.

"You may call me…"

AN: Hope you liked it, don't care if you didn't. This idea has been bugging me a lot and I ran it through Dark Orb (awesome writer- thanks Dark Orb!) along with a bunch of other ideas. Now, I may post some new stories because I have an idea for them, but Liar's Place, Hive, and Bone Dancer are the ones I'll be working on the most. Deal with it or don't; I don't care. A mental high five for those who can guess the name of the man. (kind of obvious) And Dark Orb can't guess because he already knows! The demons are based off of constantein, but anyone whose never seen the movie can check out my avitar for a pic.

Ax (44-dd)