This story is inspired by the fanfiction "Kid Kyubi" by mellra. It works under several layers of AU, and as such is not canon-compliant. A lot of things that didn't makes sense, or were just never explained will be fleshed out, with special attention given to the history and cultures of the various nations. I also hope to make it more of an ensemble piece. Team Seven are the main characters, but they will not exist or succeed alone.

Leave a review if you have something to say, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

Regressed: A Naruto AU by MBScavenger98

Prologue

Contact

It was a peaceful night in Konohagakure no Sato. The temperature was moderately warm and a slight breeze ruffled curtains in the late-summer air. The dappling of clouds in the sky was light, allowing the moon to shine like a great pitted disc of silver in the blackness of night. By all accounts, it was a superbly comfortable climate. This only made it stranger that Uzumaki Naruto was thrashing in his sleep, sweating and moaning as though afflicted by some terrible pain.

Physically, this was in fact the case. However, submerged as he was behind layers of sealing and dimensional boundaries, all that he perceived was a slight headache as he walked though a sewer that felt strangely real.

Naruto had never been in a sewer, but he thought that this must be one. The walls were covered in grime, and alternated randomly between crumbling stone brick and patched sheet metal. Water dripped around him and came all the way up to his short, eight-year-old knees. He remembered from a day about a year ago when he'd snuck into a horror movie that people said 'Hello' in situations like this. It seemed stupid, but he figured he didn't have much else he could do.

"Hello?" An echo was the only reply. The scared, scarred and survival-oriented part of him noted that it was very, very dark in here. And cold… He felt like he'd been invaded somehow, though he didn't know what that word meant and therefore couldn't put it to the feeling. Deciding that he had nothing else to do, Naruto looked around, picked a tunnel that felt right and followed it.

After a few minutes of echoes and sloshing through water, Naruto came to a large room, bigger than the one he'd appeared in and quite a bit more interesting. He noticed what looked like rats running away and shivered; he hated those things.

Bringing his full attention to bear on the most interesting feature of the room, Naruto noticed that the water was lower than before. Either that or the floor was higher. It was perfectly still around him, with not so much as a single current directing it. At the end of the room, there was a giant set of metal bars held together at their center by a paper tag with something written on it. At the back of his mind, Naruto decided he needed to ask jiji about learning how to read better. Then a pulse went out from the cage, disturbing the mirror-like surface and giving a single, very important piece of information to the small boy outside it, 'There's something in there.' He decided the tried and true response was the best one and walked toward the bars to investigate.

"Hello?" He heard rustling and grumbling, the ripples grew into a few small waves and soaked his shorts. Intimidated, but unsure where he could go except forward, Naruto walked closer to the cage and leaned his head through the bars. "Is somebody there? Do you need help?"

A loud groan greeted his probing and he saw something enormous shifting in the dark recesses of the cage. He squinted into the darkness, trying his best to see whatever it was. From what he could tell, it was orange and furry. "Hello?" A high-pitched growl (or maybe it was a whimper) echoed from the thing and Naruto saw slitted, dimly glowing eyes through the bars of the cage. Slowly, an enormous vulpine face moved into the light… And despite it's scale, it was one of the cutest things Naruto had ever seen. Somewhere at the back of his childish mind, he decided he had to give voice to this cuteness.

"FOXY!" A grin spread across his face, the creepiness and general depressing nature of his surroundings completely forgotten in the wake of the giant plush toy before him. The fox didn't have any distinct eyebrows, but somehow, you could tell it had raised one at the sheer strangeness of the whole situation, though mostly at the way he'd been addressed.

"What?" Naruto's eyes widened at the incredulously spoken word and his smile broadened.

"You can talk? That's awesome! Not even those stupid tattoo-face peoples' dogs can talk!"

For his part, the fox was completely clueless as to what to do. He had never met a human child before. He'd seen them, sure, but their parents had always been too scared of him and his siblings to let them near. At least, after old man Sage died…

His memories rushed over him like a gale-force wind. Shukaku and Gyuki (his least favorite and favorite brothers respectively) had split off first, going on alone for their own reasons. He still remembered Gyuki saying farewell, asking him to take care of the rest. If Isobu had been able to, he probably would have cried. Son Goku had gone soon after, determined to help a group of humans in some sort of dispute, and eventually, it had been down to him, Matatabi and Chomei. Then it was just the last few weeks drifting in and out of consciousness in this damp cage. It was at this point that he realized the child was still talking.

"So I mean, I'm pretty sure between the one thousand hundred dogs and the one giant platypus the platypus could-"

"Hey, kid!" The sheer volume of Kurama's voice shut him up more or less immediately. "Do you know how I got in here?"

Naruto looked up and to the left, stroking his chin as though he had a beard.

"Uhhhhh… Nope. You want to get out?"

The fox nodded exasperatedly and pointedly stared down at the contemplative child. "Have you tried opening the bars?" The Fox almost hit himself at the sheer obvious nature of the suggestion, but instead gave the enormous gate an experimental push with his paw (which practically sent Naruto into a giddy fit) and quickly realized the surprisingly warm metal wasn't about to move.

"No good. Any other suggestions?"

Naruto returned to his thinking position and pointed to a large slip of paper between the two barred doors.

"There's a random paper with a kanji on it holding the doors together."

The huge orange pile of adorableness furrowed his brow and thought for a moment. What kind of paper could stand up to his strength? The only things he'd ever had a problem crushing were his siblings and the Old Man. And now that he came to think of it, what was with this setting? He'd never seen anything like it. It looked like a cave, but it was also distinctly man-made. There was metal and stone everywhere, but it was very clearly ordered in a deliberate manner… And there was a random little boy who just happened to be there. None of it added up.

'Genjutsu.' It was the only reasonable explanation. He clasped his hands together and bring the chakra that made up his body to a standstill. The world remained as it appeared. He opened his eyes and stabbed his thigh with an extending claw. He got nothing but pain for his trouble. Blood flowed for a moment before the puncture sealed itself. Naruto watched the display, unsure of what was even going on. He grimaced slightly at the blood.

"Hey, squirt, what does the slip of paper say? And don't lie, because I'll know."

Naruto shrugged.

"I dunno. Can't read."

With narrowed eyes, the creature put out its paw. After a second, something resembling yellow fire came out and formed the kanji for 'Seal.'

"Does it look like this?" The boy nodded vigorously, keen to help this strangely friendly giant animal, or at the very least appease it.

"Yeah, why?" Hesitantly, the fox put a paw through the bars and nodded to it.

"If I help you up, can you pull it off?" Naruto thought for a moment.

"Okay. But before I do… what's your name?" The Fox actually smiled, which was a bit more intimidating than he'd probably intended.

"I'm Kurama. You?" The boy smiled back, undaunted by the situation in the face of a new friend.

"Uzumaki Naruto." And with that, he climbed onto the paw and was lifted up, completely unsuspecting of the gravity of what he was about to do.

lRl

The Sandaime Hokage walked calmly to the door of Naruto's apartment and knocked, the barest hint of a genial smile on his lips as he puffed his pipe. It had been a good day so far. No major crises or political problems and a minimal amount of paperwork. It was the closest thing to a day off he was likely to get for a long, long time. When the door opened, he began to greet the small boy inside, but was beaten to the punch.

"Hey, Jiji! Did you know the Fourth's my dad?"

Hiruzen promptly quieted the boy and led him inside, setting several privacy seals and waving his day off goodbye. 'I was so close too.'

IRI

Uchiha Sasuke had a complicated relationship with his family. He loved them, really. His only real goal in life was to impress them, and they wanted so much to be impressed. No child before him had been born with the red eyes of Sharingan. But then he awoke not a week into his sixth year, and everything was different.

Wherever Sasuke looked, he could tell that something was off. Objects and people didn't mesh with his mind's assumptions in ways that felt fundamentally flawed. Flawless stone walls held invisible marks from phantom kunai. Water from a perfectly functional pump seemed a rusty red for a few moments before being normal again. Nothing lasted, but somehow, those moments felt far too real. He told no one. They would have thought he was crazy, and who knew what might happen to him then.

Eventually, he'd learned to ignore the wrongness of the world, but ignoring something and being truly blind to it are two very different things. Some nights he would wake up screaming, the feel of blood coating his forearm still fresh in his mind. No matter how hard he tried to push the visions and feelings away, they always came back. His father muttered about it to his mother when he thought he wasn't listening. He kept training and studying, and his mother bought him a mouth guard to sleep with so he wouldn't grind his teeth into nothing. His father hoped that the academy might take the weakness out of him, though he wasn't optimistic.

On the first day he met the short blond boy with the smile. Sasuke didn't understand how, but he knew him, minus a few differences. He could predict the boy's smile, though it wasn't as forced or overblown as it should have been. He saw the boy's blows coming when they sparred, even without his Sharingan. They became friends, as easily as a person falling into their own bed after a long journey. He told Itachi, and the older boy spared him a smile and a pat on the head, but not much else.

The last week of his life began simply enough. He ate dinner with his family, hoping to sneak out later that night. Naruto had asked him to help with a prank. His father talked about the goings-on of the clan; several women had given birth in the last month, which posed a problem considering the problems they were having with some of the district's water pumps. Itachi was gone on a mission, but would supposedly be back soon enough. Sasuke wasn't really listening.

A few days later, Itachi almost got into a street-fight. Sasuke heard him argue with their parents that night, his gentle older brother practically yelling about their clan's idiocy and shortsightedness. He worried that his family was starting to hate each other. Shisui didn't turn up for Thursday dinner, but nobody said a word about it. By the end of the week, Sasuke came home to find his entire clan dead.

In the dark days after the massacre, Sasuke took time to put the pieces together; one soul-shattering realization and all the warning signs fell into place. Itachi had thrown that kunai, made that crack in the wall that Sasuke had forgotten about so long ago. Uncle Shisui's bloated eyeless body had been found miles downriver, just as Sasuke had seen in his nightmares. He could remember the horrible loss of his family, as though he were experiencing it again. He hated himself for forgetting his visions, for forgetting the pieces of the puzzle that would have shown him this terrible thing before it could come to pass. In that moment, he knew that if he could do so, he would change everything.

Sasuke's eyes opened onto a room, large and dimly lit. The walls were red and black stone with blue columns at the corners and sliding doors on each side. The floor was fine polished wood intricately carved with ever-shifting designs surrounding a stone hearth filled with black fire. It burned low and silent. Next to it was a man sitting on a wooden stool, glaring at the world as though it were dangling his heart's desire just out of his reach.

He was, quite frankly, a sad sight, with an empty sword sheath at his hip and his clothes ripped and dirty. The haunted look in his eyes was completely foreign to the boy, having not looked in the mirror the last few days, but even with all these changes, the similarities were there: the hair that stood up in that strange and singular way, the sharp angle and straight bridge of his nose, the strangely accusatory quality of his black eyes. It wasn't a stretch to figure out who this person was.

"When is this?" Sasuke gaped at the person in front of him, not quite comprehending what was going on.

"What… how?" The older him raised an eyebrow and frowned as if to ask if he were serious. He turned away and thought for a moment.

"Okay, I'll make this easy… Has Itachi done it yet?" Sasuke nodded after a moment, not trusting himself to speak. His eyes were wide, as his older counterpart looked him up and down, his expression coldly appraising. Sasuke thought momentarily how very much this man reminded him of his father.

"I… Well…" He took a moment to collect his thoughts. If he was going to ask questions, he had to be calm enough to process the answers. The first was simple.

"How?" The man stood up and walked to Sasuke, putting a hand on his shoulder that was more steadying than comforting.

"I've been trying to do this for weeks now, sending myself back I mean. Did you receive anything? Memories, feelings, anything at all?" Sasuke couldn't quite gather his thoughts, but tried his best.

"I, uh… Yeah, I think so. Nightmares, weird déjà vu, stuff like that. I've had it my whole life." The man narrowed his eyes thoughtfully for a moment before nodding.

"Nightmares… Yeah, I guess they would have been those to you. Well, first of all, I'm not actually here. This is just a dream." Sasuke blinked, momentarily losing his already fragile self-control.

"So this isn't real?" The older Uchiha narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

"The mind's just as real as anything else." The man's eyes returned to the flames and Sasuke's brow furrowed for a moment as he concentrated on figuring out how that would work.

"That's beside the point right now. I can't keep this up for long. It's hard to keep a spacetime rift open for very, even for just metaphysical things." The man seemed to mentally prepare himself before placing a hand on his young doppelganger's head.

"I don't know if this will hurt, or even if it'll work, but it has to be done. Hopefully, you'll never have to meet me again." There was a rush of pain, strangely numbing, as though he knew it was excruciating, but didn't really believe it. The world around him started to crumble and the man-that-was-him-but-not faded, a smile that looked unnatural, yet genuine on his face even as his body phased itself out of existence. "Don't screw it up like me."

"AH!" He woke up, his sheets soaked through with sweat. The world was so much clearer. Something… something was different. He could feel it. He'd had a strange dream, but now he couldn't remember it…

Eh, it probably wasn't important. For the first time since his brother's betrayal, he felt calm, not at peace, but something resembling it. He nodded to himself, a course for his future appearing more or less full cloth in his mind's eye. As far as he was concerned, the worst possible thing to do now was to stay at home moping when he could be bettering himself. And with that, he stretched, got out of bed, and got ready for school. He had a favor to ask someone.