A/N: Well, here I am, working on another new project. Again. Sorry if you're waiting for me to update something else of mine. Here's a story in response to all those fics where bloodlines or other superpowers figuratively fall from the sky for Naruto, in which a superpower literally falls from the sky for Naruto.

Also, I decided to amuse myself with an extremely OOC Kyūbi. There will be an explanation for his OOC qualities, half-assed though it may be.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor do I own the title of this chapter, which is named after a song by the awesome band Mors Principium Est. The song itself has little to do with the chapter or story, but I thought it was fitting anyway.

Naruto sat upon the Yondaime's head on the Hokage Monument, staring up into the night sky wistfully. He had just failed to graduate from the Academy for the second year in a row, and was feeling depressed. He'd met all of the requirements for graduation (though only barely for the written portion), except for the jutsu section. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't make any Bunshin, and he didn't know why.

He picked up a small rock and threw it angrily. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't get the stupid Bunshin jutsu to work, and it isn't like it's even a very good jutsu anyway. No flashy explosions or anything! Naruto couldn't fathom why the academy wanted everyone to learn it so badly.

The unhappy child laid back on the head of his idol, staring up at the night sky glumly. He really wished he could become powerful enough that he wouldn't have to bother learning to make those stupid Bunshin.

In another universe, Naruto would have simply laid there for several minutes, depressed, before heading back home and going to sleep. However, in this universe, a meteoroid that was originally bound for Kuma no Kuni, where it would crash land and facilitate the creation of Hoshigakure, was diverted off course slightly by a one-in-a-trillion impact with another meteoroid mid-flight. It would fall into orbit around the planet for nearly 200 years before its orbit would deteriorate enough to be caught by gravity and pulled to the ground.

Naruto blinked at the sky, frowned, then blinked again and sat up. Was that a shooting star in front of him? Had he just accidentally made a wish on a shooting star? The boy jump up to his feet, his hands in the air. "YES! A shooting star! Now my wish HAS to come true!"

As he jumped up and down in excitement, Naruto failed to notice that the meteorite was slowly growing brighter in the sky, indicating that it was coming closer and close to him. A strange sizzling noise from the meteor caught the boy's attention though, and he turned in time to catch the meteorite directly in the chest, sending him careening backwards into the forest behind the Hokage Monument. A sonic boom followed right behind the meteor, shattering windows and drawing the attention of every single person in the village to the giant cloud of smoke coming from the top of the monument.

…

The Sandaime Hokage looked down at the injured form of his successor's son, worry clearly visible on his face, as the medics in the room ran their medical techniques over him. How the boy had managed to survive such a catastrophic injury was anybody's guess. The meteorite had punched a hole in the boy's ribcage and embedded itself in his chest cavity, next to his heart. They had considered operating and removing the the rock, but due to its close proximity to his vital organs, removing it was more likely to kill him than leaving it be for all but the most skilled of medics. Instead, they had opted to stabilize him until they could contact Tsunade, stopping him from bleeding out or getting infected long enough for her to return to the village and operate on the young Jinchūriki.

The one thing they didn't expect, though, was for the resilient eleven-year-old to actually begin healing the damage caused by the meteorite. Even before the Sandaime's eyes, the gaping hole in the boy's chest was steaming and closing. This was relieving, but also brought up other concerns. If it had simply been healing, it would have been puzzling, but not alarming. Hell, if it had just been the Kyūbi's chakra, it wouldn't have been that concerning, since the damned fox wouldn't want to die along with its container. There certainly was some demon chakra in places, red splotches surrounding heavily damaged organs.

However, the glowing chakra surrounding the boy's injury wasn't entirely the angry red of the demon's; most of it was an odd purple color. It wasn't even the purple created by mixing human and demon chakra, which might also have been expected; it was fluorescent purple, an incredibly bright shade of purple that Hiruzen had never seen before in chakra. His only guess was that the chakra was somehow coming from the meteorite, a notion that was simultaneously absurdly far fetched and concerningly plausible.

So far, there seemed to be no complications with the boy's recovery; or, more accurately, there were enough unusual elements working together at the moment that the boy seemed unlikely to die from the massive damage he had taken immediately. That fact might change at any moment, though, so they were still anxiously awaiting the arrival of the best medic in the world to take a look at the boy.

In the meantime, the Sandaime had to address the village and tell them what exactly had just occurred. He didn't need everyone panicking over a perceived enemy attack. He would leave out any mention of Naruto, since it wasn't relevant to the village's security.

He left his surrogate grandson to his convalescence, exiting the secure wing of Konoha's hospital and heading off to prepare his speech.

…

Naruto was awoken by water dripping on his head. His eyes slowly opened, and he took in his surroundings. It appeared that he was in a sewer of some kind. The floor was covered by several inches of water, and pipes ran along the wall. The ceiling was worn and cracked, and water dripped through the gaps. The strangest thing, however, was that almost everything seemed to be tinged light purple; the walls, floor, ceiling, water, and even some of the pipes were all glowing subtly with a purple light. The only exceptions were the rest of the pipes: a number of blue ones were connected to the purple ones, and there were a smattering of red ones interspersed throughout the others.

The boy sat up, trying to remember what had happened and how he ended up in a sewer of all places. I was on the Hokage Monument, lying on the Yondaime's head… I made a wish… There was a shooting star…! Naruto's hands flew to his chest, feeling for the gaping hole that ought to have been there. He was perplexed to find nothing out of sorts, no hint of damage to either himself or his clothes. Frowning, he decided to explore the sewer, and maybe find a way out.

The sewer continued on in two directions, and neither seemed exceptionally promising as a way out. However, the pipes on the walls sounded like they were all flowing the same way, so Naruto decided to follow the water and see if it led somewhere. He rose to his feet and began walking. Water sloshed at his feet, but didn't seem to impede his movement, which he found odd. It felt like he was walking on dry ground rather than wading through a pool. Something strange was going on, but Naruto couldn't figure out what. All he could really do was keep walking and see if he could get somewhere.

After an indeterminate distance, including a few turns and forks, the wide hallway opened up into a large chamber that seemed to have no place in a sewer. The ceiling was incredibly high, the walls far apart, and the far end of the room obscured in darkness behind floor-to-ceiling metal bars that were as thick as adult trees. Naruto's eyes followed the bars up to a large circular plate embedded in the middle of the obstruction, with the kanji for 'seal' written on it. Just like the rest of the sewer, almost everything in the room had a slight purple tinge. His eyes were drawn to the darkness behind the bars as something large and red stirred, and his gaze was met by two glowing red eyes that were as big as Naruto was tall. The eyes blinked once, and a calm but powerful voice filled the air.

"What in Kami's name did you do to yourself, boy?"

Naruto flinched back at the intensity of the voice, but continued to stare at the massive creature's eyes. "I… uh… I didn't do anything… I, uh, think I got hit by a shooting star…?"

The eyes narrowed, and silence permeated the purple room for several moments.

"I'd laugh at the ridiculous of your lie, if not for the fact that it's probably true. A meteor, huh? I suppose that would be capable of causing the catastrophic, life-threatening injuries I'm currently trying to heal."

Naruto looked down at his unscathed body, then back up into the creature's eyes. "Uh…"

The beast snorted, blowing hot air in Naruto's face and ruffling his hair and clothing. "I meant the injuries your physical body sustained, outside the seal. That meteor made soup of your chest cavity, though it was kind enough to leave your organs intact enough for me to repair before you died."

The blond just stared at the oversized ocular organ blankly, not even attempting to make sense of the creature's statement. The eye stared back, waiting for some sort of reaction, before coming to a realization.

"Those nitwits haven't bothered to tell you about me, have they?"

Naruto frowned. Another burst of air ruffled his hair and clothing, this time in the form of a sigh.

"Alright, just, please don't freak out. I have no idea how to comfort a human, and I don't feel like trying to figure it out."

Naruto's frown deepened.

"Just, before I start, I'd like to put out there that I had no control over my actions the night I was sealed within you, and that I never even wanted to be in your village in the first place. It was all just a big, unfortunate, coincidental misunderstanding."

Naruto's frown turned confused, as he attempted to parse the creature's evasive statement.

"Alright, here goes… I am the Kyūbi no Yōko, king of demons, lord of foxes, etcetera etcetera. Are you about to freak out?"

Naruto's eye's bugged out slightly, and he took several steps away from the giant, bloodthirsty demon with whom he had just been conversing amiably. The fox stood up from its prone position, finally coming into the purple light of the sewer. Boy and fox stared at each other for several moments, before boy keeled over in a dead faint. The Kyūbi sighed again, then settled down to wait for its container to reawaken.

…

Naruto opened his eyes to the sight of a massive, monstrous, evil, demonic fox… kicking and yipping in its sleep. He sweat dropped (or maybe it was just some residual water from the flooded floor), and got up to observe the demon from a better vantage point.

Some of the things it had said before didn't really make much sense. Of course he had been told about the Kyūbi, why on earth would it think otherwise? And what did it mean when it said it was sealed inside him? Wasn't it supposed to be dead? Obviously the part about it not being in control of its actions was puzzling. For the moment, however, he wasn't going to be getting any answers unless he wanted to wake up the big demon, and he most certainly was not willing to do so.

Naruto did watch it continue chasing what he assumed was a dream rabbit for some time, however. It really put the world in perspective, watching the most powerful living being in the world doing something so silly.

Before Naruto could tear his eyes away long enough to leave the room, however, the fox managed to startle itself awake by involuntarily kicking the metal bars of its cage.

"Gah! I'm awake! Er… hello again. You're finally awake… or, well, relatively speaking, I suppose, since you're still in the seal."

Naruto sweat-dropped again, but decided that since the fox was awake, he would get some of those questions of his answered. "Um… how are you alive? I thought the Yondaime killed you?"

The fox raised an eyebrow; or, more accurately, it moved its eyelid in such a way that, if it had eyebrows, they would have raised. Actually, since eyebrows are, in fact, the hair above the eyes, and that hair happened to be continuous across the entirety of the Kyūbi's body, it would be more accurate to say that the giant walking eyebrow raised part of itself. Naruto had to hold in a giggle at the thought that the giant, destructive, bloodthirst Kyūbi no Yōko was, in fact, just a giant eyebrow disguised as a fox.

The eyebrow gave the fox-equivalent of a frown at its container's odd behavior, but decided to answer his question anyway.

"It is incredibly difficult to actually 'kill' one of the nine Bijū, or any major demon for that matter. Us Bijū are also capable of reconstructing ourselves, given enough time, so even if we were killed it wouldn't be permanent. What your Yondaime did was harness the power of the Shinigami itself to trap me within you, sealing me away until you, and by extension I, die, which will allow me to reconstruct myself once again."

So that was why everyone treated him so badly and called him a demon. Huh.

Putting that aside, Naruto frowned once again. It would seem that the Kyūbi would benefit from his death, but it had mentioned twice that it was trying to heal him. "But, if my death would help free you, why are you healing me?"

"I don't suppose you've ever experienced death before, have you? It is an incredibly unpleasant experience, let me tell you. I'd much rather wait it out in here, then maybe ask you to release me voluntarily when you're old and dying anyway. Unless of course you're willing to release me now, despite the fact that it would kill you. I'd be open to that."

Naruto's frown lessened; the fox's explanation seemed plausible enough, so he decided to Believe It (TM) for now. He was mildly disturbed by the request for him to commit suicide though.

Polite requests for him to kill himself aside, the fox was acting nothing like he would expect a mindless, bloodthirsty demon to act. He voiced his thoughts to the aforementioned Kitsune.

"Well, that has two explanations. First, I've decided that instead of being the embodiment of hate and anger and whatever else, I'd take a more laid back approach to my Jinchūriki this time and see if I couldn't avoid being re-sealed when you die. Second, whatever weird purple radiation that meteor of yours is emitting is harmonizing my chakra, which has done wonders for my mind and my emotions."

Naruto tilted his head and looked at the fox uncomprehendingly. 'Harmonizing' was a pretty big word, after all.

"I suppose, being a being made up of things other than chakra, you wouldn't quite understand. I suppose the best way to explain it is to say that the radiation is making all of my chakra vibrate at the same frequency, which stops it from vibrating in weird patterns that interfere with each other. This helps me think more clearly and control my emotions better."

Naruto could understand it a little better, but was still a bit lost.

"...Ok, it's pretty much a backrub, but for my brain. How's that?"

Understanding lit Naruto's face, then died away when he realized he still had no idea what a backrub for someone's brain would be like.

"...Never mind. Next question?"

"What's a Jinchūriki, and what did you mean when you said 'this time'?"

"A Jinchūriki is a person who holds one of the nine Bijū within them, sealed away. What I meant before was that I had been sealed in a couple of people before, and had acted really aggressive towards them. My first container was really nice, but refused to let me out because of how angry I was acting, afraid I would destroy the village. In her defense, I probably would have at that point, just to spite the village that I held responsible for sealing me away. My second container had me pinned to a rock with spikes, much less kind than my first container. I saw that my old strategy wasn't working, and that I should try not being the big bad demon for a change. Any other questions?"

Naruto thought back to the questions that had pinballed around his head when the fox was still asleep, before alighting on one that had yet to be answered. "You said that you weren't in control of your actions when you were sealed in me, which must've been the night you attacked Konoha."

The fox nodded its head, having expected this question.

"Yes, I was being controlled. A ninja in an orange mask wielding a Sharingan placed me under an incredibly powerful genjutsu, forcing me to attack your village. If I had been under my own power, I would simply have run as far away from your village as possible to avoid being sealed again."

Naruto nodded slowly, pondering the excuses the Kyūbi had given. They seemed plausible, but then again, the giant eyebrow might just be waiting for a chance to eat him. Naruto decided to be cautious, but that he had no particular reason not to trust the bloodthirsty demon. Actually, scratch that, he had one reason: eyebrows were not known for being trustworthy. Wait, but eyebrows aren't known for not being trustworthy either. Naruto resolved to ponder the trustworthiness of eyebrows later.

Elsewhere, a fresh genin and his sensei sneezed.

"Alright, I guess that makes sense. Now, how do I get out of here?"

"You're not going anywhere just yet. I'm not done making a chest cavity out of the regular cavity where your chest should be yet. When I'm sure you're not going to keel over and die, I'll kick you out of the seal. For now, why don't you tell me about what things are like on the outside. I don't exactly get out much; last time I was outside and not under someone's control was like 200 years ago."

"Uh, sure! Well, there's this really awesome ramen stand that I like to visit…"

Several hours passed as Naruto spoke of the insipid environment in which he grew up that the readers would most certainly resent having to read unless I threw in something silly.

"... and then, a demon attacked me! Right on my doorstep! Well, at least I think it was a demon. It scratched me up really badly, and it even made me drop my instant ramen! How could it not be a demon if it made me drop my ramen! I'll never forget that red bow tied around its ear…"

The fox listened intermittently, being interested in learning about the world outside but bored sick by how the brat would prattle on about totally inane things like ramen. At least he could focus on healing the brat when he went off on a ramen tangent, which seemed to happen every other sentence. He almost felt bad about it, especially when he got called out…

"Hey, are you even listening to me?"

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, there was, uh, a tricky thing that I had to, uh, heal, or something."

"Oh, ok. Well, let me tell you about all of the ramen flavors that I like. There's pork, and miso, and…"

Eventually, the fox deemed the risk of spontaneous death from shock when he booted Naruto out of the seal lower than that of spontaneous death from listening to the kid talk about ramen one more time, and cut off the boy's latest noodle-related remarks.

"Alright, I'm finished healing all of the major stuff, you'll be able to leave now without dying."

"Alright, I was almost out of things to talk about anyway. You sure you don't want to hear about that time I ate a cup of instant ramen that-"

"No thanks, I'm, ummm… tired! Yes, very tired from all of this super strenuous healing that I've been doing, and I want to take a nap. I just want to tell you one thing before you go."

"Oh, ok. What is it?"

"I don't think the Sandaime would like that you've been talking to me. He doesn't know that I've chilled out, so he still thinks I'm dangerous. Don't tell him that we talked, because I think he might do something to prevent us from communicating if you did."

"Ok. I don't want to leave you all alone here, so I won't."

The Kyūbi blinked in surprise. The kid was worried about him? It was nice of him and all, but what kind of kid starts empathizing with a demon that attacked his village after a few hours of talking about ramen and things tangentially related to it? On second thought, maybe it would be best to let the Sandaime keep the kid from mentioning ramen to him again…

No, that would deprive the kid of a source of advice that could keep them both alive, and even despite the constant talk of ramen surely the kid would figure out more interesting things to talk about after going on missions and maturing some. He'd just have to put up with the kid for a little while.

"Alright. Just keep that in mind. I'm gonna push you out now."

"Wait! How do I come back to talk to you again?"

"I'm not sure. I bet meditation would do the trick, but you don't seem like the kind of person that could sit still for that. You could always catastrophically injure yourself again, but I think we'd both rather that not happen. I don't know, go try different things and I bet you'll find something that works."

Naruto frowned but nodded. He felt something shift around him, and suddenly he was opening eyes that he didn't know were closed. He found himself in an operating room, in a bed surrounded by surprised doctors. He heard one mutter to himself in disbelief as another exited the room. Naruto cracked his stiff neck.

"Uh... how long was I out?"

The doctors looked at each other in disbelief. "You were unconscious for a week, Uzumaki-san. You, uh, got hit by a meteorite."

Naruto looked down at his chest, which was uncovered so that the doctors could have easy access to the injury site. It was closed, but there was a nasty circular scar where the meteorite had hit him, and his chest ached like he'd been hit by a freight train. Other than that, though, he felt fine. Better than fine, actually. He felt well rested, alert… even energetic. Even more energetic than normal, like he could run and train and exercise all day and all night and still not be tired.

As he pondered his newly energized state, the doctor that'd left when Naruto woke up returned, followed closely by the Sandaime. Seeing the boy sitting up, even despite the nasty scar on his chest, put a broad smile on the old man's weathered face.

"Naruto. I'm so glad you're awake. You don't know how worried I was about you. How do you feel?"

Naruto beamed at his surrogate grandfather. "I'm just fine Jiji! I feel kinda sore but I also feel super energized, it's weird."

Hiruzen frowned, thinking back to the strange purple chakra he had seen healing Naruto. The medics that had tended to the boy couldn't make heads or tails of the unusual energy. Hopefully Tsunade would be able to figure out how the energy was affecting Naruto; it seemed to be beneficial, considering the fact that it had helped heal the boy's injury, but with such unusual energy sources it would be best not to take any chances.

"I'm glad you're feeling well, Naruto, but there is something you must be careful about. The doctors were unable to remove the meteorite from your chest, and it's still there. It seems to have affected your chakra network, which may be why you feel so energized. I must ask you not to do anything with your chakra for the time being. I have contacted a highly skilled medic that will be here soon. She will scan you and determine if it's safe for you to use chakra."

Naruto opened his mouth, prepared to just say 'ok' and be on his way, before a terrifying thought struck him. It might not be safe for him to use chakra anymore with this meteorite in him. Without chakra, he couldn't do any jutsu, or very many other ninja techniques. If it turned out he couldn't use his chakra, he might not be able to be a ninja.

Hiruzen immediately noticed the boy's reaction to his statement. He knew why Naruto was worried, and his fears were certainly valid. If the meteorite made chakra use dangerous, and it couldn't be removed, it would be the end of the boy's ninja career and, as a result, his dream of becoming Hokage. There was no silver lining, no second chance.

He looked down sadly at the downcast blond, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry yet Naruto. There is no evidence that the meteorite is dangerous, and if it is, we'll have the best medic in the world here to try and remove it. There is still plenty of hope."

Naruto nodded slightly, but the churning fear still remained in his gut. He might not be able to become a ninja at all, all because he hadn't tried hard enough to graduate on his last two attempts. If he had graduated already, he would probably have been off on a super cool mission, freeing a country from a tyrannical billionaire or fighting a sand demon or something, when the meteorite landed, and his ninja career wouldn't be in jeopardy.

Naruto's resolve grew. If he wasn't forced to give up on his dream because of this, he would take full advantage of his second chance and actually focus on his training.

A/N: As always, flames are encouraged. Favorites, follows and other reviews are also appreciated.