Dark God

by mortalone

[AU] The sealing goes wrong and a being is created so terrifying that the Kyuubi is scared. Enter the Dark God, a being who aims to make Naruto's and Kyuubi's power its own. [Hiatus, see profile for details]

1. The Faulty Sealing

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It is owned by Kishimoto Masashi and published by Jump Comics.

Warning: This story is rated T for violence, language and potential sexual situations.

Feedback: You can review anonymously. Please feel free to give me your input through review or private message. I read all the feedback I get. I only ask that you do not make demands and do not flame.

"Character speech"

'Character thoughts'

"Demon or large summon speech or jutsu name announced"

'Demon or large summon thoughts or jutsu name thought'

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Dark God

Chapter 1 – The Faulty Sealing

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'It's terrifying. There are many words an eighty thousand year old demon would use to describe what it is like to be sealed in a newborn human, but terrifying should not be one of them. Something happened when I was sealed. I have never been sealed before, but I know what it should be like.

'Naruto... I pray that some day I will be able to save you, because if I can't…'

XXXXX

BOOM.

The explosion of wood and cement rocked the Konoha plaza. Naruto's Anbu guard had only left to use the bathroom when a villager with a vendetta tried to enact his "justice" against Naruto. The result was terrifying.

The body of the villager was flung out through a cement wall and into the middle of the street. Already the villager was dying from the broken bones and internal bleeding and there would be no way to save him. Wood splinters littered the area as a wooden table had also been flung out with the villager.

From out of the hole in the side of the building stepped a four year old Naruto, but this was not the Naruto everyone knew. His appearance was unchanged except for his eyes, which were now completely black. No irises, no whites, no pupils, just darkness. Surrounding Naruto was a thick black chakra that made the air feel heavy. Its aura and oppressive weight were even more sinister than that of the Kyuubi who attacked four years earlier.

In the middle of Naruto's chest was a spot of dried blood and a tear in his shirt where he was clearly stabbed with a knife, though already the wound seemed to have healed without leaving a scar.

Shinobi rushed onto the scene with orders to clear away civilians and wait for the Hokage. They need not have waited long; he came almost instantly.

Inside Naruto's mind he was drawn to the pleading screams of a female voice. "Come, come, COME," the voice yelled. Naruto found himself in front of a giant cage containing a red haired woman who looked to be in her mid twenties. She had red eyes that glowed with power, though otherwise she looked normal – astoundingly beautiful, but normal.

Right away Naruto asked, "Who are you? And where are we?"

"There isn't time to explain," the woman said.

Naruto simply replied, "Oh," but Kyuubi felt something wrench at her heart from the sorrow in his voice.

'Naruto, just being inside you I can tell that I have changed. If I could take it back, I would never have attacked Konoha.' "I'm going to give you power and this may hurt a little, okay?"

Naruto simply nodded in reply.

"Promise me you'll visit," Kyuubi added.

How was he supposed to visit if he didn't know where he was? "But I don-"

"Ask your Hokage."

"Hokage?"

Kyuubi bit back her frustration and her anger – she wasn't used to dealing with kids – and replied calmly, "Your Jii-san" (grandfather).

Naruto's demeanor suddenly lightened as he thought of the old Hokage, "Okay!"

Inside his mindscape, red chakra suddenly engulfed Naruto.

In the outside world, there was borderline pandemonium. There was nothing the shinobi could do unless they knew that Naruto was alive and that "it" hadn't taken over. All they did know was that "it" was ranting about it's power.

"Fool," 'Naruto' said staring impassively at the battered body of the would-be assassin. "You cannot get rid of me!"

The almost dead villager through ragged and dying breaths spat out "K-Kyuu…bi."

"Hn, the Kyuubi is weak. Her chakra is so thin, so weak…" 'Naruto' replied, holding op his right hand. Black chakra engulfed it. "My chakra is Dark Chakra, the chakra of the gods. My chakra is so thick it actually becomes weaker through elemental re-composition." 'Naruto' chuckled.

Through trembles a chuunin managed to throw out the question, "Who are you?"

Black eyes turned on the chuunin. "I don't have a name." 'Naruto' then turned his attention towards the Hokage. "Hn, seems like my time is up. Know this: you can kill Naruto, you can kill Kyuubi, but you cannot kill me. Take good care of Naruto, for some day his power along with the Kyuubi's will be mine."

Suddenly red chakra shot out of Naruto and the black disappeared from his eyes revealing red irises and slit pupils. Then the red chakra died down and Naruto's eyes turned blue before he promptly collapsed.

XXX Eight Years Later XXX

The class groaned as Iruka called out Team Seven. In short, the team was stacked – not to mention that most of the girls desired to be on "Sasuke-kun's" team.

Uchiha Sasuke was the rookie of the year. His scores on written tests were almost always among the top three; his scores in taijutsu were usually among the top two; his scores in ninjutsu and weapons throwing were consistently the highest in the class; he was among the top in ability to see through genjutsus; and finally, he was the last loyal bloodline genius of his clan. Though he didn't graduate early, he was considered to be a prodigy.

Uzumaki Naruto was one of the stronger students in the class. He was an enigma to most, possessing a goofy side that strived for attention and a serious side that was developing into a formidable shinobi. He lived in the Hokage's tower despite being of no relation to the Sandaime and everywhere Naruto went he was shadowed by an Anbu guard and none of the other children knew why.

His chakra control held him back, but at the same time, his stamina was by far the highest in the class. It was a mystery to the other students how good and at the same time how bad someone could be at ninjutsu and taijutsu. Naruto could perform several jounin level techniques including kinjutsu (forbidden techniques), yet it was a great difficulty for him to perform even an academy level Bunshin (clone). Naruto would spend many hours training his chakra control, but he struggled to improve – of course, the other students didn't realize that he had three different chakras mixing together somewhat unevenly. His physical ability allowed him to sometimes match Sasuke in taijutsu spars, but he fought without any particular style using strength and speed to make up for uncontrolled movements. His weapons throwing and genjutsu detection were both lousy as he had no form for throwing shuriken and he relied on Kyuubi to detect and dispel genjutsu, which she refused to do during academy training. On written tests he scored above average, but not amazingly high, often doing well in problem solving and poorly in recalling and reciting information.

Naruto's behavior was strange to say the least. He seemed interested in several different girls, but he only ever asked out one of them – Haruno Sakura. None of the other students knew why when in so far as they could tell he had an even bigger crush on the most popular girl in class, the beauty Ino. The truth was that of all the girls in the class, the only girl whose mother was accepting of the idea of their daughter having a relationship with Naruto was Sakura's mother, a piece of information that Naruto had deduced on his own through observation.

At times Naruto would pull pranks on people and it was a well known fact that the only teacher who would teach Naruto was Iruka; hence Iruka was the teacher for the same class year after year instead of passing his students off at the end of the year. It was not as if other teachers would scold Naruto – they would just avoid him as much as possible. Goofy Naruto was the class 'dobe' (dead last, failure); shinobi Naruto was a genius who even the arrogant Uchiha Sasuke thought of as an equal and potential rival. Sasuke had actually hoped to end up on the same team as Naruto, the only person who wasn't "guaranteed to hold me back."

The final member of the team was none other than Haruno Sakura. She was one of Sasuke's fan-girls, but while she acted like an idiot wherever Sasuke was concerned, she typically had the highest written test scores in the class. Even though she knew nothing other than academy techniques, her ninjutsu scored highly because of her excellent chakra control. Her genjutsu detection and dispelling abilities were also among the top in the class. Her weaknesses were physical – her strength, speed and stamina were all below average among the newly graduated kunoichi, and thus near the bottom of the class. Her only redeeming quality as far as taijutsu and weapons throwing were concerned was that her form was textbook perfect. Yet, she was almost dead last in spars because she had no ability for reading people's movements.

As the last of the teams were called out, the class rearranged itself into the teams with most of the girls trying to drag their teams as close to Sasuke as possible. He merely groaned before looking out the window. Sakura kept trying to get his attention while Naruto went into a meditative trance.

The jounin instructors were called in from outside in the hallway. The jounin of the Team One called out for his students. The jounin of Team Two followed his example. The jounin of Team Three stepped forward and then suddenly the attention of the class focused on the doorway where a puff of smoke appeared, revealing a silver-gray haired jounin with his hitai-ate covering his left eye. In his right hand was an orange book, Icha Icha Paradise. His cool entrance was followed by a simple, "Yo."

All of the other jounin stood there shocked. Asuma's cigar dropped out of his mouth and fell to the floor. "Kakashi… you're on time?"

Kakashi countered with, "Huh, is something wrong?" Every jounin in the room face faltered.

XXXXX

The three newly appointed gennin were sitting on the roof of the academy. In front of them their teacher sat lazily on the edge of the roof. "Why don't you guys tell me something about yourselves? Naruto, the Hokage wants to see you so why don't you go first?"

"Err, right," Naruto said, "the name's Uzumaki Naruto and I like ramen, training and a certain vixen." Inside Naruto, our favorite fox had the graciousness to blush. "I dislike people who are intolerant of others and I hate the color black because it reminds me of something…" Naruto's face suddenly gained a far away yet discernibly cold look. "My dreams… I have two dreams: to make my parents proud and my other dream is a secret."

"Alright," Kakashi replied in a lazy tone, not surprised by anything Naruto said. The other gennin were just wondering what was wrong with black. "You know me already and I'm sure you know your classmates by now so why don't you get going? The details for where we meet are on this printout," Kakashi said holding out a slip of paper. Naruto grabbed the paper and rushed off.

"Okay," Kakashi said, turning back to the two remaining gennin, "next?"

"My name's Uchiha Sasuke. There are few things I like and many things I don't like. I don't want to use the word dream, but I have an ambition. To resurrect my clan… And to kill a certain man."

Sakura blushed, thinking, 'He's so cool!'

Kakashi had merely figured as much. "And now the girl."

Sakura quickly schooled herself as if she had been called upon in class. "I'm Haruno Sakura and the thing I like is… Well, the person I like is…" She blushed and looked over at Sasuke before continuing, "Um, should I say my dream for the future…?" Again she blushed before suddenly looking peeved, "The thing I dislike is Ino-pig. And my hobby is…" Once again she blushed.

Kakashi had the decency to look mildly embarrassed while thinking, 'Girls of this age are always more interested in love than ninjutsu.'

"That's enough of that. Tomorrow we start formal duties, but before that the Hokage wants to meet with you two as well. The details for tomorrow and such are on these printouts. Later." With a poof of smoke, Kakashi disappeared.

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Sasuke and Sakura arrived at the Hokage's office right as Naruto was leaving. Naruto flashed a sad smile at them but didn't say anything, instead walking down the hall towards the private living area in the Hokage tower. Sakura made to question him, but found herself stopped when Sasuke put his hand on her arm and shook his head.

"Ah, right on time. Come on in," the Hokage spoke in a grandfatherly way.

"Hokage-sama," Sakura asked, "Why did you want to speak with us and why did you meet Naruto separately?"

The Hokage puffed on his smoking pipe before answer. "Ah, that. There are a bunch of things I need to tell you, secrets that relate to… everything. First you must swear to me that you will never talk about what we discuss in this room to anyone. This is an S-class law that must never get in the wrong hands."

Sakura looked nervous, but followed Sasuke's example as he said, "I swear."

"Good," the Hokage said. "This secret starts twelve years ago when the Kyuubi attacked Konoha. You know that the Yondaime Hokage defeated the Kyuubi, but nobody has ever told you how. The answer is that he sealed it in his own son."

Both Sakura and Sasuke looked at the Hokage in shock. They were not even aware that the Yondaime had a son.

The Hokage took another puff on his pipe before continuing. "But something went wrong with the sealing that day. The technique the Yondaime used was a kinjutsu that summons Shinigami (the Death God) and sealed the Kyuubi in exchange for the Yondaime's soul. However, somehow a piece of the child's soul broke off and fused with a piece of Kyuubi's soul. This entity then fused with some of the Shinigami's chakra. Essentially, this third being inside the child's body is the makings of a god."

Both Sasuke and Sakura felt a sense of foreboding.

"That child, the son of Kazama Arashi and Myobu is none other than your teammate Uzumaki Naruto." Both Sakura and Sasuke were aghast. It seemed absurd to think that Naruto would have something like that in him, yet it answered many questions. However, "There's more.

"We knew almost immediately that something went wrong with the sealing. The Council wanted to kill Naruto, but that could have potentially made things worse. The best we could hope for was that the entity would lay trapped and dormant inside Naruto. However, this was proven to not be the case when a villager tried to assassinate Naruto in the hopes of killing the Kyuubi as well. If Naruto dies, the Kyuubi will die as well, but this dark entity will be released, which would be far worse."

Worse than the Kyuubi? Why would they allow Naruto to become a shinobi and live such a dangerous life if it was so bad? Questions such as these raced through the minds of the newly appointed gennin.

"However, the longer Naruto lives, the stronger it becomes. Our only hopes are to either have Naruto re-absorb the entity or to find a way to erase it from existence. In either case, Naruto himself must become stronger to defeat the entity. It was for this reason that my student, Naruto's uncle Orochimaru became obsessed with studying higher powers in order to figure out how to stop it and save Naruto. Orochimaru began performing human experimentation even on children and… himself."

Both gennin looked mortified.

The Hokage once again puffed on his pipe before continuing. "It was for that reason that Orochimaru became a missing-nin. Regardless of the reason, experimenting on humans without their consent is not justified, and I tried to stop him.

"My other student, Jiraiya, discovered an organization that was ultimately responsible for the Kyuubi attack – an organization that is seeking to acquire power in any way it can. They are called Akatsuki, and this is where this story relates to you, Sasuke. Your brother Uchiha Itachi is a part of Akatsuki." Sasuke's head shot up at the mention of his brother's name and he clenched his fists.

"It is believed that the reason your brother massacred your clan because your father was friends and rivals with Kazama Arashi and took it upon himself to organize Naruto's security detail. It was even suggested at one point that Naruto should live at the Uchiha estate, but it was agreed that the safest place for him to live was right here in this tower. Itachi was placed in the Anbu by your father with the original intention of guarding Naruto and his secrets more closely after several major security leaks were discovered. Itachi, however, became obsessed with power and sought to attain it for himself. It is believed that he joined Akatsuki before he even left Konoha. We think that Shisui discovered this and confronted Itachi and was murdered and that your father discovered what Shisui had uncovered. We believe this in part because the same night of the massacre, Itachi attempted to abduct Naruto."

Sasuke clenched his fists harder, 'So that's why… Itachi… you betrayed the clan for power? You killed mom and dad because you want to become a god?'

"The way you relate to this story, Sakura," Sakura's head perked up, but she was terrified of what she might hear, "is that Naruto grew up with a rotating group of carefully screened caretakers. The head caretaker was none other than your mother." Inwardly, Sakura sighed in relief. Outwardly, she could bring herself to do nothing other than nod.

"Arashi had three students, Uchiha Obito, Hatake Kakashi, and Amai Rin. Your sensei Kakashi was chosen for three reasons: he is one of the strongest jounin in the village, he is one of the most familiar with this situation and knows all your families histories well, and when his best friend and teammate Obito died during the Great Shinobi War, Kakashi was given one of Obito's Sharingan eyes."

"Sharingan," Sakura questioned, "what's that?"

It was Sasuke who answered. "It is the Uchiha bloodline. It has four levels, each more powerful than the last. It allows you to predict and copy almost all techniques, see through genjutsus and even perform eye-based genjutsus without handseals."

"Amazing…" was all Sakura could bring herself to say. Had it been at any other moment she would have had hearts in her eyes.

The Hokage coughed before speaking again. "After it was discovered that the entity wants to someday take over Naruto, Amai Rin also left the village and became a missing-nin. She wrote a letter stating that she planned to return someday with a way to 'cure' Naruto.

"Those three, Orochimaru, Itachi and Rin are considered the highest level missing-nin in Konoha's history with the only possible exception of Uchiha Madara. Orochimaru was a once in a generation prodigy, Itachi was considered the greatest bloodline genius ever born in Konoha, and Rin is a medical genius rivaling Tsunade as well as a seal master whose only better in Konoha history was the Yondaime himself. In your journeys, you may encounter any of those three and while Orochimaru and Rin may have good intentions at heart for Naruto, it is unclear how they will act. Team Seven will not be sent on any missions outside of Konoha until I think you are ready to handle yourselves against chuunin at least.

"But there's one more thing. When Naruto's life is in danger, the entity will take over Naruto's body to defend him. You will know when this is happening if Naruto's eyes turn black and the chakra he uses becomes thick and black as well. Thankfully, the Kyuubi helps Naruto to control himself and prevent himself from being possessed. We are unsure, but we believe that the part of Kyuubi's soul that was lost to the fusion was the most evil part so you can trust the Kyuubi to try to help, but you should stay on your guard."

XXXXX

In a dark cave, nine figures gathered. "We have finally found a way to harness the power of the 'Dark God' by using the power of 'The Nine.'"

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AN: I completely came up with this plotline and wrote this chapter in the span of three hours. I am quite proud of that fact.

There may or may not be any pairings in this story. I haven't decided whether romance will be appropriate. For the time being this story will be Action/Adventure/Suspense, but that can change at a moment's notice. However, don't think that pairings are "open," because they definitely are not. It's more a question of whether or not I will actually develop the pairings I have in mind or leave them as "implied pairings."

As far as I know, this is a totally new take on Orochimaru, Itachi and Rin. I'm sure everybody has a bunch of questions about them. Answers will come in time. I don't want to kill the story by giving too much away.

Sorry Itachi fans, but he will be evil in this story. That much I will say. Everything the Hokage said about him is true – he desired power so he massacred his clan when they got in the way.

Still, there are some things I should answer…

Q and A.

Q: Why was Kakashi 'on time'?

A: You'll find out next chapter.

Q: What was meant by Akatsuki being responsible for the Kyuubi attack?

A: Hmm, you'll find that out soon too. However, it wasn't a genjutsu or anything like that. Simply put, the Kyuubi was evil and no longer is truly evil because of the soul splitting that occurred and because she has gained a new perspective. You'll see soon enough how Naruto changed her through a series of flashbacks that will be spread out over the coming chapters.

Q: How does Madara relate to this story?

A: Since I mentioned that name already, you can assume safely that you will hear it again. You'll find out some more next chapter and more still later.

Q: Why didn't Sasuke and Sakura know about their connections with Naruto?

A: You'll see next chapter that Sasuke kind of did. Or rather, he saw Naruto at the Uchiha compound several times, but all he knew was that his father was friends with Naruto's father and that Naruto was an orphan. Sakura didn't know because Naruto's caretakers were kept secret for security reasons. Basically, they were all civilians and if their identities were leaked, an enemy nin could pose as one of them and do something to Naruto. In fact, you'll find out more about that next chapter as well. I'm thinking the title for the next chapter will be "Questions Answered."

Q: Are Sasuke and Naruto rivals? Do they hate each other kind of like in canon?

A: They definitely don't hate each other but they aren't really friends. Naruto would like to be Sasuke's friend, but until now Sasuke has been too self-absorbed and brooding over Itachi. Now that Sasuke sees the bigger picture, he will open up to certain people that he considers "friends of the Uchiha." If he were to make Naruto an enemy, he'd essentially be spitting on his father's grave. But that doesn't mean they won't be rivals. Their relationship will be described as similar to the relationship their fathers had.

Q: Will Naruto be super strong?

A: No, he will of course be very strong at the end of the story and he has both the Kyuubi and the 'Dark God' to fall back on (but the latter he definitely will NOT want to rely on). That said, without relying on them, right now he is strong among the rookies but Sasuke is stronger for the time being. In his strong areas, Naruto is comparable, but Sasuke is more of a generalist.

Q: Was the inspiration for Naruto's image in the 'Dark God' transformation inspired by Ichigo's hollow from Bleach?

A: Yup, however, it is its own character, as you will see.

That's the end of Q and A for this chapter. The next update will be chapter 3 of Naruto of the Sharingan. It's almost fully written but I need to sort out some very important final elements and I have an exam on Thursday that I need to study for.