Disclaimer: Oh god do I wish I owned Naruto, sadly I do not

Setting:

Ok I'm going to say that this takes place after Orochimaru. So before going into the story some points that happened before.

-In the final battle with Orochimaru, Naruto and Sasuke were fighting

-Once Sasuke saw that Orochimaru was about to kill Sakura he stopped fighting with Naruto and started attacking orochimaru

- he weakened Orochimaru enough before dying himself, so that Naruto could kill him.

I don't like Sasuke, but I decided to be nice since my friend likes him and she would kill me if I was too mean to him.

-I wont be talking about Akatsuki just because I don't really know that much about them or their motives.

On a personal note I finally reached episode 206 today!!!!

Anywho….

Now onto the story!!!

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18 years old. That's how old he was turning today. The last few years seemed to have flown past. After defeating Orochimaru there had been a lot of clean up; reconstruction to all of the places that had been destroyed during the battles, rounding up the last of his followers, and making sure that they found and destroyed all of his bases, especially the ones where he was conducting illegal experiments so that no one could repeat what he had done.

He was 15 years old when they had the final battle, and now it was three years later. Things were finally starting to calm down now in Konoha. These last couple of years he had been busy practically all of the time with missions, and now he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself with all of this free time. At least today he would be able to spend time with his friends, maybe even have a little celebration with them. It was his eighteenth birthday after all. He was now officially an adult. Naruto smirked at the thought.

He figured he would swing by Sakura's first. From there they could figure out something to do. Sometimes Naruto felt a little weird around her. It wasn't the crush he once had on her, he had gotten over that years ago, but the fact that she seemed to be afraid to mention anything about Sasuke. Of course he had been upset right after his death, but in a way he was happy for Sasuke. He had finally found something worth more then his revenge; the life of his friends. He may have died in the end, but he died free from the revenge that seemed to have ruled his life. It had taken a little while, but he had finally gotten over it, although, Sakura had a harder time then he did. Naruto was starting to think she was finally moving on too, since he recently saw her flirting a bit with another medical ninja.

The walk to her house from his own room wasn't very far and while he was lost in thought walking, he soon found himself outside her door. After banging a few times and getting no response he took off towards the Hokages office.

"Oy! Granny Tsunade!" He yelled barging in. He never bothered knocking before, no reason to change now. The Sake she had been attempting to sip quickly before Shizune came back into the room spilled all over her desk when she jumped.

"Naruto!" She yelled slamming her fists down onto her desk. "How many times have I told you not to come barging in here!" A small crack appeared on the desk after she slammed down her fists one more time. Finally taking a deep breath, she calmed herself. Picking up a few papers that got wet she started shaking them off. "Now, what did you want?"

"Where's Sakura?" He asked oblivious to her anger.

"She's out on a mission. I sent the other teams along as well. There were major reconstruction problems a few villages over involving a large group of bandits and several people were injured. They should be back in a couple of days." She told him not looking up.

"Oh ok." His voice sounded sad, even to himself. Quickly he gave her a goofy grin. "Well bye!" He yelled in a happy tone. Getting upset would do him no good.

Closing the door after himself, Naruto let out a sigh. They could have at least said something before they left. Unless no one remembered…

Or maybe they did and just thought he wouldn't care if they didn't say anything. That was the problem with always being the annoying jokester; always happy, always laughing. People forgot you could feel unhappy sometimes. Most of the time, people still thought of him like he was when he was in his early teens. No one had seemed to notice how different he actually was now. War would do that to a kid. He had seen so much death, who wouldn't mature because of that?

Time to go back to his lonely room. The one he had lived in by himself his whole life. It wasn't that he was un-grateful for all that he had; a roof over his head, cloths to keep him warm, food, especially ramen, and friends who cared about him. It was just… he had been alone for eighteen years now. He let out one more sigh before straightening up. No point it getting upset. He didn't get this far by crying over every little thing. With that new resolve he headed back home to warm up a cup of ramen. That always made him feel better.

xXx

Naruto was about to head off to bed when someone knocked at his door. He was surprised to find a messenger outside telling him that the Hokage wanted to see him. It was surprising since he had just gone to see her a few hours before. He nodded anyways and went off quickly to her office.

"I need you to be ready to leave in the morning." Tsunade said as soon as he walked in. Immediately he became curious. "Unfortunately all of the others are out working on the bandit problem, so you are the only one left to take this." On the outside he acted as he normally would when hearing this, by making a funny face and pretending to be insulted. On the inside it kind of stung that he was last choice. Didn't he prove himself in the war? "The village of Enshin is a few days walk from here. It is fairly small, but completely encircled in mountains. Lately they have been hearing sounds coming from one of the mountains surrounding them. They are a very private people so they didn't come out and say this before, but a few men matching the description of some of Orochimaru's followers had been spotted in their village a few times over the last few years. We now believe he may have another base set up inside one of the caves on the mountain. You are to go and see f this information is correct. Do not go inside and stay as far away as possible. As soon as you are sure there is something there come back immediately!" She said handing over the map and any other information he may need to know. "Understand? This is not a mission to take down the base, just to see if the information is correct. The sounds the villagers have heard sound monstrous. We do not want to open his base and let out whatever is in there, if in fact there is a base." He nodded along like he was supposed to before heading back to his room to get a few hours sleep before heading out.

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Naruto had gone on missions alone before. He didn't like them very much. You couldn't spend too much time sleeping. There was always the chance that he could be attacked during the night and there wasn't anyone to take shifts with.

The one good thing about them was the travelers he met along the way. They didn't know him, so he wasn't the annoying little boy when he was in a crowd. He loved sitting and listening to their stories. It was also nice to have some company on those long missions.

Two nights later, he found himself at the mountain path that would take him to Enshin. Since not many travelers came to the small village, he hadn't passed by any in several hours and while he did like some time alone, he was looking forward to being around people again.

It took him another three hours to make it up one side of the mountain and down the other, into the center of the ring where the village lay. It was a fairly warm day and Naruto had to wipe sweat out of his eyes as he looked down on the area below. He was wearing his normal mission outfit. He had dropped the orange jump suit a while ago, have grown out of it. Now he wore a long sleeved orange shirt with a black vest to go over it and black pants. It was simple, he liked it.

The village really was small. He counted, at most, a dozen buildings. Not wanting to waste any more of the day, he ran down the rest of the way.

xXx

It wasn't too hard to find the village leaders house. Out of the few that were there, he just went to the largest. He found that was usually the case in small villages like these. The other villagers seemed to avoid him as much as possible.

Granny Tsunade was right. He thought. They really are a private people.

The village head was nice enough. He pointed out the largest Mountain that surrounded them and told him that was were the sounds were coming from. Naruto thanked him and left, not wanting to cause any ore discomfort to the people there.

I already get that enough at home. He thought and smirked a bit. He dashed off to the mountain. This wasn't going to be an interesting mission. Just look around and report what he sees.

Once he got to the middle he slowed down and started to really look around. It would most likely be a cave or something similar in the side of the mountain. There was a lot of space to cover and it would start getting dark soon. He didn't think the village would really like him being there, so he would most likely have to camp up on the mountain. He wasn't looking forward too it since it was very rocky.

The sun was starting to set and Naruto was about to give up, when he suddenly spotted something about him. A large boulder sat five feet in front of a rock wall of the same color. Unless you were right next to it, you wouldn't be able to see that there was an area behind the boulder. He climbed up to the rock wall. A large opening was cut into it.

This was when he was supposed to stop and go back. Inform the others about what he had seen. But it was still fairly light out, might as well look around a bit more, he concluded. Stepping inside of the opening he gave his eyes a few moments to adjust to the sudden darkness. There were stairs leading down to a square room below. He followed them down to find a large metal bolted door on the wall across from the stairs. It was then a loud wail could be heard from the other side. It vibrated off the walls, making it seem even louder. Naruto paused and listened. It didn't sound like the monstrous sounds Tsunade had told him about. More like a creature in pain. What if the had abandoned this place with someone still inside?

Quickly without thinking he walked over to the door and tried to undo the bolts. They were large and thick, one across the top and one across the bottom. Definitely too heavy for one person to take out alone.

Throughout the years of training and becoming more powerful, he found himself to be able to control more and more aspects of the Kyuubi inside of him. If he concentrated hard he could bring forth the abilities he normally only could when he let the Kyuubi take over slightly. He also found that if he actually spent time every once in a while with the demon inside of him, the Kyuubi was generally more inclined to help him out.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he concentrated on the Kyuubi strength that he needed. With eyes still closed, he reached and took out the first bolt, then bent down and took out the other. Opening his eyes, he grinned. He still had a little ways to go, training himself to be able to do this in less time, but he was glade he had been able to do this when he needed it.

He swung open the door and immediately a burst of cold air and the scent of blood reached his nose. The lights over head were still on dimly so he could see fairly well. Bodies scattered the room covered in blood and dirt. The wail sounded again from a hallway to the left. Leaving the dead behind, he went to search for what was still living in here. The hallway lead to a larger room filled with tubes standing vertically, large enough to hold humans. They were all broken, fluids covered the floor. Naruto tried to step on as much dry areas as he could. Another wail sounded, from right behind the door to his right. Pulling out a Kunai he stepped over tot eh door and opened it slowly.

It led to another room with two rows of beds extending from the door. In the middle of the right row, on one of the beds something moved and whined again. He slowly approached it. It looked to be a small boy covering his face, crying.

"Boy are you ok?" he asked quietly. The small figure shot up and looked at him. For a moment his face looked strange. His eyes shaped strangely, fangs dipping low almost to his chin, and were those dog ears on his head? A shift seemed to happen and his face looked normal. Short brown hair tussled about on his head, reaching to his eye brows. He had wide green eyes and a splash of freckles over his nose. For a moment he was silent before tears washed over him again. Naruto put away his weapon and walked over to him. Laying a hand on his shoulder he said, "Shhh it's alright. I'm going to take you out of here."

The boy jumped away from him at this.

"No you can't. I'm a monster you can't" He screamed. He ran to the other side of the room and pinned himself again the wall.

"Now just calm down." Naruto said, "What is your name?" He asked sitting down on a bed. It would freak the boy out more if he came over to him.

"Remy." The boy said quietly.

"Remy huh? Well Remy I sure am not going to leave you in a place like this. Why don't we go out, set up camp, and then you explain to me why you think you should stay here. If I think it is a good reason, I'll bring you back, if not you can come with me. How does that sound? At least let's get some dinner. I'm hungry how about you?' He said with a friendly face. The boy looked as though he wanted to say yes, but stopped himself at the last minute.

"You don't understand." He said tear steaming down his face. "They put it inside me!" He yelled. He pulled up his shirt and turned around to show him his back. A seal covered him from his shoulder to where his pants started. "That thing. That demon… It's in me now. If I go out and it takes over…." He started crying again.

Naruto froze. Orochimaru was trying to copy what the fourth had done to him. He had used these people here as test subjects and when he had been defeated, his men had destroyed their creations and abandoned this place. Somehow this boy survived alone in the dark here. It was just an assumption, but he was fairly sure he was right.

"You are not a monster. There are people who can make sure that it doesn't come out." He wasn't sure if that was true, but Ero-sennin seemed to know a lot about seals, maybe he could help.

"How?" The boy asked coming a little closer.

"I am not really sure." Naruto admitted. The boy started to slink away again before he added, "But they did it for me." He undid his vest and lifted up his orange shirt. Closing his eyes a moment he concentrated on making it visible. In the faint light you could just make it out. "Now they can't do all the work. You have to work hard and become strong so that you can control it inside of you, but if you come with me we can help." He said putting his shirt down and zipping up his vest.

"Can you really help me?" The boy asked quietly.

"I promise I will do everything I can." Naruto said. "After all we are alike you and I." He said and smiled.

The boy thought a moment. "You mentioned dinner before?" Remy finally said.

Naruto Laughed.

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Well there goes the first chapter. Review and tell me what you think. It was just an idea I had and thought it would be a fun story.