Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way, shape or form.
Let me warn you now, this story does not start at the beginning. If you are not familiar with the series, this story will not make much sense to you. Since it has been a while since I've written any fan fiction, I thought I'd get back to it. This new story of mine will follow the anime/manga pretty closely. I will not change anything important, but Iwill add things to it. Romance is always nice, as is Hentai, so fear not. I have not renounced my old ways entirely! Now, on with the show!
A pair of hands emerged from the water, grabbing hold of two ankles upon the surface and attempted to slowly dragging them under.
"Sasuke!!" a voice screamed just before a long chain of shadow replications tore out of the valley's watery depths, whipping up a vicious cyclone of orange high up into the sky. The chain picked up more and more momentum until it abruptly crashed into a nearby promontory of rock.
As a thick dust set in, another voice could be heard. "Fire Release: Fire Dragon Technique!"
The remaining smoke was blasted away by an explosion of fire that led all the way down the chain link of shadow replications and on into the water. The burning dopplegangers released each other and one-by-one crashed into the water below. Elsewhere, an eye slowly cracked opened.
Up on the cliff, one body still burned as molten rock oozed down the cliff. The flames cleared away to reveal a wide-eyed Naruto Uzumaki. Sasuke merely stared at him as the two panted heavily from overexertion. "S... Sasu... ke..." Naruto choked out, his voice now little more than a whisper.
"You're too late, Naruto." Sasuke said shakily, abruptly getting to his feet and picking up Naruto by his white collar. "It's already too late, Naruto!"
In a blind rage, the pride of the ancient Uchiha clan hurled Naruto, his best friend and rival as had been for many years now, though neither would openly admit it. It broke Naruto's heart to witness his best friend, no... his brother throw him off of the sheer clifface, holding him into a death grip with Naruto's head facing the quickly approaching ground below. Was this it? This was the end? Sasuke really wanted him dead, didn't he? He really was serious about this, wasn't he?
A single tear of regret escaped the blond's eye before his skull was abruptly smashed into the solid rock bank of the valley's lake. A spider web of cracks and fissures quickly formed from the impact and Naruto's knees went limp.
Sasuke release his brother and let him fall and roll unceremoniously into the murky waters of the lake. It was over. Naruto was dead. Strange though; Sasuke didn't feel any stronger than he did a moment ago. If anything, he too felt a touch of regret, though he quickly blocked it from his mind. There was no back. Only forward. There was also the present, which at the moment had Sasuke crumpled to his hands and knees, retching at the ground.
Deep within the recesses of Naruto's own mind, the landscape of the Valley of the End under an ominous sunset became a massive flooded chamber lined with gargantuan bars of iron. Naruto's body floated lifelessly within the flooded catacombs as a pair of glowing red eyes opened up wide. Both looked down with mild interest accompanied by a snort of disgust.
"You are weak, brat." the ancient entity's voice boomed. He chuckled darkly. "You should be thankful... to me. And for the time I was sealed into you by the so-called Fourth Hokage!" the monster growled out, his eyes glowing more intensely with almost painfully suppressed malice. The vision faded and was once more replaced by the Valley's eerily beautiful landscape.
A small bubbling sound could now be heard, growing a little bit louder by the moment. From the far-off rocky bank Naruto's body had floated off from, Sasuke was beginning to see hints of red crawling up an over Naruto's 'corpse.' Perhaps his best friend wasn't quite dead just yet? No, it couldn't be. That fall should have effectively turned what little brains the dead-last had into paste, killing him instantly. But still... could it be?
Sasuke slowly paced over to the place upon the water where his dear friend lay, his stepping stone to obtaining the necessary power to kill his brother, Itachi. Even his mind spat the name out like poison. If only things could have been different...
The strange orange-red Sasuke had caught a hint of earlier appeared to be some sort of thick, gooey reddish chakra, if what his fully developed Sharingan told him was anything to go by. It seemed rather potent as well. Was this why Itachi was so interested in Naruto? This power...
"What's... that?" he nervously wondered aloud.
Naruto's body was now being raised slowly to a standing position, the sickly bubbling red chakra engulfing him. As Sasuke drew nearer, a fearful look in his eye, he suddenly found himself with his brother's fist in his face. This sent him flying backward, spinning out of control through the air before smacking unceremoniously into the water's surface. The self-proclaimed Avenger of the Uchiha Clan clutched his face in both hands, screaming out in pain.
Naruto, now standing, wobbled drunkenly back and forth clutching his stomach as the boiling liquid chakra enveloped more and more of his body until, with a scream of agony, the cursed energy swallowed his head. His whole body glowed a demented neon color as he fell into a four-legged stance. The chakra surrounding him took on the appearance of the Kyuubi no Youko with the addition of its long rabbitlike ears and a single red tail of concentrated chakra. He had dawned the Demon fox's one-tailed Cloak and the boiling temperature was excruciating. He growled menacingly, partly out of anger, partly out of sorrow but mostly out of pain.
Sasuke, still clutching his nose, slowly rose to his feet and gazed upon his brother. What a truly frightful sight it was. Naruto looked to be hiding his face behind his crossed arms, but this illusion abruptly ended when he flung his arms violently outward, releasing a massive shockwave of wind and energy that caused the water to rise up into a tidal wave and fly into Sasuke's face. The prodigy was momentarily blinded as a result.
No sooner had the water dissipated than Sasuke's Sharingan was racing to lock onto and track Naruto's movement. But Naruto was already right there and throwing hits that Sasuke could only barely dodge... until, that is, the chakra cloak itself took a swing at him. It scored a direct hit and knocked him totally off-balance and backward haphazardly.
Sasuke skidded and flailed along the water's surface until he sensed an object below the water. It was a perfectly straight and cut wooden log. What such a thing was doing floating beneath the water, Sasuke couldn't fathom. Even still, it was lucky.
He kicked the wooded pillar out of the water and applied a small amount of chakra to raise both himself and the log to a standing position.
'What was that just now?' Sasuke wondered frantically, "Even if I predict Naruto's next movements, the chakra moves differently by itself. It's as if his chakra is consciously moving itself. I can't predict that even with these eyes. That red chakra is no ordinary chakra.'
"Are they after Naruto after all?" Sasuke recognized the voice from memory as belonging to Jiraiya.
"Taking Naruto-kun is the highest command given from our organization, Akatsuki." This one he recognized as well. It belonged to his accursed brother, Itachi.
'I see. It looks like you have a special power.' Sasuke mused to himself. Aloud he merely stated "I understand that now!" before taking a leaping jump off the upright log and onto one of several large fallen chunks of cliff nearby. He didn't wait any measurement of time on it however and made for the next big rock. And the next; and the next before breaking into a run across another.
At the very same time Naruto was off, racing across the water's surface upon all-fours with his semi-liquid chakra tail and ears sailing though the air behind him.
As Sasuke continued to leapfrog between the partially submerged rocks, he also formed hand seals for the Phoenix Flower technique, launching several of them at Naruto while still in midjump. The small fireballs collided with the water and were extinguished. Naruto had either skillfully dodged or simply outran them. His direction shifted toward Sasuke, dodging a few more fireballs along the way.
Sasuke was getting slightly worried now. "Fire Release: Grand Fireball Technique!" he announced, flying though the seals with practiced ease. He arched his back and focused all of the chakra in his mouth back toward the Uchiha crest on his back before letting loose a string of fire that grew bigger and bigger until it dwarfed the surroundings. The massive fireball tore through the lake's surface, sailing toward his charging opponent at great speed. Naruto ran directly into the fireball attack, discharging its energy in a brilliant explosion of plasma and steam. Naruto could still be seen within the settling chaos, seemingly unharmed.
'Is that chakra protecting him?' Sasuke's thoughts were racing, 'Calm down, if I fight while keeping my distance, I won't be hit.' Ironically, it was no sooner that he completed that line of thought that Naruto raised his left hand high above his head and swiped the air, sending an arm of red chakra rocketing toward the Uchiha, who reflexively jumped high into the air. Still, the arm of chakra was still there to make a pest of itself. Sasuke dodged the first couple of swipes and one attempt to grab him, landing once again upon the water's surface.
In almost the same moment Sasuke landed, something unseen made a rapid circle around his position, stirring up waves and spray. That hand of red chakra made several vicious attempts to grab him which where each barely avoided. Sasuke again launched himself into the air, leaping across the water's surface as fast as his legs and chakra reserves would carry him.
In this same moment, Naruto's chakra tail wrapped around a nearby spike on the clifface and used it to hold himself in a steady crouch against the nearly vertical wall of rock. His eyes made a quick scan of the entire battlefield before they locked onto his opponent. With one jump and a whole lot of chakra, Naruto catapulted into the air. He took an airborne opportunity to swing his fist and extend another arm of red chakra that slammed into the lake with great force, sending an explosion of water in Sasuke's face and once again blinding him. Through the churning waters, the red hand grabbed Sasuke and smashed him brutally into the clifface, sending a massive amount of debris crashing down into the waters below.
The tide was kind enough to wash Sasuke upon a nearby shore, though mere seconds later he would regret his visual presence. A massive hand of red chakra emerged from the waters directly behind him. Sasuke leapt to his feet, trying his best to ignore the pain of being used as a wrecking ball, and bolted after taking one look at the Bloody Hand of Death reaching for him. He only just managed to jump out of the way before the giant hand came crashing down on where he stood just moments before.
Sasuke backed up against the nearest wall, his knees buckling beneath him as he gazed at his opponent once more. 'Damn it, what a bastard!' he thought as he was forced to release the power of his curse seal. 'All I can do is dodge.'
Once again, Naruto was directly before him among the settling dust and debris, his cloak of chakra still flowing off of him.
Sasuke abruptly felt a familiar crushing sensation around his torso and looked down to see that glowing hand of red chakra and its fingers wrapped tightly around him. The hand seemed to be coming out of the ground. This was made apparent when the ground started breaking apart in a straight line toward Naruto. The chakra limb was very clearly his.
With a snarl, Naruto yanked on the flow of chakra that made up the spectral appendage and dragged poor Sasuke along for the ride. With another scream of pain and anger, Naruto drew back his other fist and prepared to punch Sasuke into the next time zone. The Uchiha soon found himself flying backward toward yet another wall of rock and in a lot of pain.
Sasuke took a short moment to admire the small cave his impact had created before turning his attention back on Naruto. Sasuke chuckled darkly and rose limply to his feet. "It can't be helped... Geez." Sasuke said, falling to his knees and raising his head to make eye contact.
The flame patter upon his face was now clearly visible, a small shuriken-shaped cross adorning the bridge of his nose. "It is the end once I dye myself in this power. I don't even know what will happen to me." He rose to his feet. "But there's nothing else to be done, is there, Naruto?"
The cursed flame-like patterns covering his body again glowed orange to signifying their activation, although this was clearly different. The marks expanded and grew until they merged and intermingled with eachother entirely, darkening. Similarly, dark gray streaks appeared within his unruly raven tresses, spreading and lengthening his hair until it ended far longer and solidly dark gray in coloration. The whites of his eyes became black, though the Sharingan still remained a deep crimson hue.
As the black flames spread and engulfed the whole of his face, the unusual black cross covering his nose remained motionless and unaffected until the moving curse of power touched its expanse, lengthening it slightly but otherwise leaving it a part of Sasuke's facial features.
"It's true you're special," His skin had now become an unnatural gray-brown, signifying the completion of his transformation, "however... I am even more special than you." he said, still looking Naruto, his friend and foe, directly in the eye. He chuckled darkly once more, his lips now a light gray color.
Naruto's scowl deepened greatly. 'Sasuke..!' He was at a total loss for words upon seeing just how far his brother had fallen into darkness.
There Sasuke pridefully stood, power flowing throughout his being. At his new power level, the Uchiha would be far more difficult to bring down. Even still, Naruto refused to give up until his promise had been fulfilled.
'Sakura-chan... I will bring Sasuke back to you. Don't worry...'
Well?? Was my time well-spent practicing my skills away from the fandom? Tell me your thoughts. If I get enough feedback, perhaps I'll update at some point.
Ja!
- Syrus