Apocalypse

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and favs, it's glad to know I have support when going into another chapter. Anyways, I noticed that I forgot a disclaimer in the first chapter. Ps- a couple said the first chap went a little fast. Apologies then, I'm still new to this. Also, poll is on my profile now for pairing!

Disclaimer- Neither Naruto, nor Fairy Tail is mine, though both would be beyond awesome to own. I seriously think Acnologia didn't get enough screentime or backstory. Could have been cool. Oh well.


Arc 1: Return

Chapter 2: Uncertanties


It was dark, the sky clearly visible to anyone, the stars and cosmos shining their lights on the land of Fiore. Naruto stood, facing off into the distance, standing above a large crater. He could remember it so clearly, the moment when everything changed. The crater, possibly a mile wide, was a harsh memory of times past, but now it was the present and he could change everything. "I'll save you 'ttebayo!" He shouted.

A black mass shifted in the center of the crater, turning towards him. Splotches of blood covered its black, feather-like wings and scales, lines of blue intricately crisscrossing its body. Two beady white eyes glared at him through the night, situated atop a large, almost scowling, reptilian head. Naruto's eyes widened. The dragon, his friend, was bathed in crimson blood, and it looked absolutely monstrous. It took the blond a moment to notice what else was in the center of the crater. It was a dragon, though that word could hardly describe the mangled mess.

"You aren't the Dragon King!" Naruto pleaded. "Please, I know you! You wanted everyone to live together peacefully, and now you only destroy."

A booming, evil laugh filled his ears, a demonic sound that held far too much amusement. "There is only one important thing in this world. Power." With a beat of its wings, the dragon flew into the air and landed feet away from Naruto, tilting its head downwards to look him in the eye. "Zeref gave me power, and now I'm the one in charge. Father was weak."

"We're friends. We were brothers, we are brothers, Acnologia! We won the war, we can go home now, remember? You weren't like this, you weren't..."

"Powerful?" The dragon interrupted, amusement in its deep tone. "Enlightened? Zeref opened my eyes, insolent little brother, and he gave you the chance to receive the same gift."

"Strength only creates more problems. You'll be just like them, abusing people for you own gain. That's why we wanted peace, remember your old family?" Something snapped in the dragon's eyes, the amusement turned to rage. It leaned forward, less than a foot away from Naruto now, but the blond wouldn't move. He wasn't afraid, he couldn't be.

"They were weak, just like you. All humans are weak. One day, we will fight again, and when the time comes, you will fight me as an equal or I'll kill you myself. No one will get in my way." Acnologia turned around, whacking Naruto with a tail. The blond skidded back, barely remaining upright.

It was then he heard the voice for the first time... 'I can help you.' There was a soft, feminine chuckle.

'I can give you the power you desire.'

"No!" Naruto snapped awake, his scream echoing through the forest. "I'm okay... I'm fine... Still human..." He yawned, looking at his sleeping prisoner who was tied to a tree. "Man, these dreams suck." Every day.

The brunette who he captured earlier glared at him. "Oh, don't mind me, just standing here. Do you have any idea how hard it is to sleep tied to a tree, especially when you're always screaming 'Acnologia' in your sleep? I haven't slept at all. At all!"

With a sigh, he crossed his legs and faced Conway. "I liked it better when you begged for your life."

"Shoulda known a pansy like you wouldn't kill me." Naruto growled at him, not once confused by why he did so. 'I swear, travelling with this guy was a terrible idea. I'm talking Gai's youthful rants terrible. Nah, I could actually use one of those, especially since I officially surpassed Jiji in age' He almost laughed at that. 'That guy's still got me beat in wisdom though.' Naruto didn't think he was wise, no matter how long he lived. Jiraiya, Hiruzen, his final teacher, they were wise.

Groaning, he replied, "Can someone remind me why the hell I agreed to take this mission. Two days, I have to travel with you for two days!" Yes, that meant Naruto had to figure out how to tie him up and keep him from casting illusions. Normally, he'd have figured out something smart or bought handcuffs beforehand, but this is Naruto Uzumaki, number one improviser, so he just grabbed some spare rope he had in his pack and used it to tie the bastard to a tree. Thankfully, Conway had yet to attempt escape, and there was only seven or eight hours to go. Judging by the clouds in the sky, Naruto knew they were going to be in for a crappy day. Unlike his dream, the sky was dark and gloomy, even at night, not mystical and bright.

"And I haven't slept a wink of it. Might as well get fucking moving so you can turn me in." The blond didn't concern himself on why Conway was so desperate to get back to Oshibana town, especially since he'd probably get handed to the army eventually. The client had some questions for Conway, and that was all he bothered to tell Naruto, but he'd had weirder missions before. Naruto just hoped it wasn't torture or anything the like, he really hated that aspect of his distant past.

"Don't be so exited to get away from the amazing Naruto Uzumaki!"

"What, the one who screams like a girl in his sleep?"

"I swear, you're so dead next time you say that."

"You don't have the balls to kill me," Conway smirked.

Naruto hung his head, exaggerating his defeat. "What the hell happened to you! The moment I said that I had to capture you alive you suddenly became a cocky asshole..." He shook his head, hating mind puzzels. "Whatever, I have a job to do, let's get going." 'I can't let that creepy, know-it-all smirk get to my head. I'm better than this!'

"Hmph, fine. I can't really move like this though." Naruto sighed, walking over to the man. A minute later, the rope now bound the man's hands together, a cloth over his mouth simply to help Naruto. It was tough to wake up from a bad memory then listen to his prisoner antagonize him. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, the blond grabbed his bad and pushed Conway ahead of him. When the man still wouldn't move, Naruto gave him an extra 'nudge,' making the dark mage nearly fall flat on his face.

"Hmm umm hmmm!" Conway protested.

"No, this is much more peaceful."

"MMMM!"

"Sorry? What was that?"

"Mmm muuhmm!"

Naruto shook his head. "You know I don't speak Spanish."


'Finally!' Naruto cheered in his head, pumping a fist. It was a couple hours before midday, and the weather hadn't improved at all. It was hardly any brighter than it was at 2 in the morning, and the clouds looked like they were threatening rain. Fortunately for the two, they hadn't had to walk in the rain yet, and they'd already arrived at their destination.

A mansion, maybe that was not quite the right word for the large house, but nonetheless, Naruto was going to stick with it. Back when he was actually a member of society, houses tended to be small, if existent at all, so the moderate two story building on the outskirts of Oshibana Town seemed fancy. It being on the outskirts of the town, the blond never had to drag his prisoner through a bunch of populated streets. On second thought, he probably should have stopped there for some food. Conway looked nearly dead and was no doubt hungry, while Naruto felt perfectly fine with not having eaten in a couple days. Just another reminder that he wasn't normal...

"Okay, look, I gotta hand you to this guy. Don't know what the hell he wants, and I don't care as long as he gives you to the army and gets me my money. I really need it, ya' know! Crap!" He thought he was rid of the verbal tick... oh well. "Maybe I should have grabbed a couple of your grunts... nah one of you was enough. I hope all my missions aren't like this. I'm rambling again, aren't I?"

"Hmhmmm!"

"Nope, that thing is staying on. It's a life saver." Naruto pulled the brunette up to the door and knocked a couple times.

He heard footsteps behind it and someone ran up to the door. "No, I don't want your damn fliers!" A man shouted. "Ya'll can go the hell home and leave me the hell alone!"

"Uhh..." Naruto replied. "I'm the mage from Fairy Tail..."

The door opened a little, and an eye peaked out at him. Then the door opened all the way, revealing a nearly bald, buff man in his mid forties with a camo jacket and jeans. A few medals were pinned to the left side of the jacket, though Naruto had no clue what any of them meant. The man turned his stone-carved face to the blond. When Naruto visited last, he discovered that the man was a Sargent in the army. That was probably why the client had Naruto refer to him as 'Sarge' instead of Garret.

"Oh, my bad," Sarge said in a gruff voice. "These pricks've been askin' me to buy some fake communication lacrima. Bunch a dumbass teens," he growled, looking behind Naruto and Conway. Upon seeing the prisoner he glared, "It's you."

"Mhmhmh!"

"Hah, gagged, you did the right thing kid. Conway never did shut up."

Naruto rubbed the back of his head, grinning. "Uh... well... he was kinda annoying. I think I scared him to death by accident at first, but as soon as he figured I'd keep him alive, he got like that."

"Well, good job kid. Never thought even Fairy Tail'd have this mission done so quick. Say, you up for some food? I was 'bout to eat takeout from that nice BBQ place downtown."

'This guy is weird...' The blond thought to himself. The eight century itself was weirder than he ever could have predicted. "What about him?" He pointed to Conway.

Sarge laughed loudly. "Hah! He don't need to eat that nice food. Come in, we can throw him in the closet till you're done, then I'll take care of him."

"MMM!"

Naruto shrugged, then let out a wide grin. "Why not? Yeah, free food!" He cheered.


So, that was how Conway found himself stuck in a dark closet stuffed with old clothes, mainly underwear, trying not to cry comical tears. He was soooo hungry, and that blond jerk hadn't even stopped once to let them eat anything. Prisoners were supposed to be kept alive, right!? Frowning, he remembered that the blond was the only person to completely shrug off his most powerful illusion in seconds, then proceeded to pummel the shit out of him and his thugs. Of course, he'd never been great at hand to hand, even combat with a sword was not his forte, though Conway knew that this Naruto kid could still be a threat to his plans. 'Whatever... It doesn't matter. I'm sorry I told him your name, I didn't know he was the mage sent to capture me...' Man, the boss was going to be ticked.

His thoughts were interrupted. "Oh yeah!" Sarge exclaimed, looking at his meal. "Look at the size of this wing!"

"That's totally not a chicken! Hey, do you have any more ramen! That stuff was amazing, ya' kn-" The blond was cut off when some loud crashing sound pierced their conversation.

Conway closed his eyes, smirked through the cloth, and waited.

Naruto stood up quickly, looking around, startled out of his mind. He hadn't even noticed that a kunai had slipped from his jacket into his right hand. "What was that?"

"Probably nothin... Sit back down, there's more left. Oh, before I forget." Sarge ran to the kitchen drawer and pulled it out. From it, he grabbed a key and placed the key in a cabinet. With a click, something opened, but the man turned around and ran to a spot in the wall, reaching his hand seemingly though the wall. When he returned his hand, he was carrying a small case. 'Paranoid?' Naruto wondered. Rune safes, especially ones that were this well hidden, were expensive.

Sarge slid the case across the table to Naruto. "There's your money kid for a job's well done!" 'That's a lot of Jewels!' Naruto actually hadn't ever seen so many Jewels in one place before. 150,000, surely that'd get him a nice house and keep him well off for a couple weeks! Naruto pulled out the notes and placed them in his back pocket. Fiore, being as smart as it was, had 10,000J notes! "Don't tell anyone 'bout the safe," his tone grew very serious. "Don't care if you're a mage or not, I wouldn't forgive you." Quickly, the cabinet was locked, and the key disappeared.

Naruto sweatdropped. Yep, paranoid. He didn't even have a clue how the safe worked, much less an idea of why or how he'd steal from a near-stranger. "Uh, your secret's safe with me? Yeah, thanks for the food, I'll be goi-"

Another loud bang echoed across the kitchen. This time, the lights flickered with it. Naruto stood up and drew his kunai again, this time making it glow with blue energy. "Alright, kid," Sarge asked with hostility not directed to Naruto. "The hell was that?"

The blond sniffed the air, closing his eyes. Something or someone was here. He concentrated, filtering out the strong-smelling takeout and searching for anything out of the ordinary. 'There!' He twirled around, snapping open his eyes, and pointed his kunai at the wall of the kitchen. The exit to the back yard was on the other side, and someone had gotten into the house.

"Secret art," a deep voice echoed across the house. "Bringer of Darkness."

Everything went black. Even his enhanced vision could not pierce the infinite darkness that obscured his and Sarge's vision. The client stumbled around a little before landing back in his seat.

"Kid, you gotta help me out!" Sarge pleaded. "Find whoever that is, now!"

Naruto nodded, not like the man could see, concentrating his other senses. He could smell the intruder, even though the man was almost undetectable. It was weird... it seemed like he was masking his presence. The blond stumbled around the corner into a hallway, looking for the intruder.

'Apocalypse Dragon's Ro-' Shit, he couldn't use that in the man's house. 'The hell can I do except destroy the entire house?'

He rounded the corner and swung his kunai towards an area of the darkness, releasing it with glowing blue energy. There was a small clang as the intruder deflected it with some weapon. "So you're the mage who captured Conway. I must say, you don't seem too impressive, despite your uncanny ability to find me in the dark. No matter, you've lost here. Tactics always win."

With enhanced hearing, he heard the man thrown something. 'But what?' Instead of risking it, Naruto released blue energy from every area of his body, covering him in it for a moment. Then he placed his hand out and spun. "Kaiten," he said, hearing the clatter of two weapons against his shield.

"Wow, not bad. But I still have the upper hand!" Naruto cut him off by diving towards the voice with a fist coated in blue flames. The intruder dodged. Naruto tried again. Dodged. Again, he swung a leg at the man, only to have it deflected with a well placed hand. The blond spun, launching a fist at the air to the man's left. "Apocalypse Dragon's Wing Slash!" The energy formed a blade, reaching across the entire hallway.

Something was cut in half. 'Holy shit, I killed him!' He always tried to avoid killing since he hated death.

"Hmm, close." Behind!

In seconds, a kunai from his left hand was sailing towards the intruder. Deflected again. 'I need to get my sight back. What kind of technique is this!' He needed to use an old attack to get out of this without breaking the man's house in two.

He placed his hands in the cross hand seal and called up all the chakra he could muster. "Kage bunshin!" Only three popped up, a result of his mere chuunin-sized reserves. Most of his chakra had changed forms when he learned his magic, but it was impossible to rid the body of its life force completely. He slumped over a little from exhaustion, then breathed deeply, trying to draw some energy back. One of the clones hid behind him while the other two ran towards the intruder.

"HELP!" Sarge. The scream was loud and followed by a thump. Naruto twisted around, finding himself facing the kitchen. 'Shit!' He sprinted back in, noticing a second unfamiliar smell touch his nose. 'There's two of them!' The second hid his presence almost flawlessly, no doubt an excellent assassin. Naruto stumbled around the table, running towards where he thought the man was when he kicked something squishy.

He stepped back, finding his shoe had stuck to some sticky liquid. He placed his shoe back down, noticing the almost inaudible splash that it made. Someone was there; the smell of blood was obscuring his senses. "Sarge?" he whispered. The man was holding his stomach in pain, though Naruto couldn't see. A wound ran straight through his body.

"Naruto." What! He wasn't even aware that the client had remembered his name. "You gotta stop- ugh." He groaned. "Samsara. Ugh... Old power." Then the blond heard his heart stop beating and the body slumped over.

A man just died. On his watch.

And he couldn't stop it.

'I can give you power. I can stop the pain...'

The voice, there it was again, plaguing his life. He shook his head, trying to stop himself from hearing it.

"What's wrong with you...?" Naruto asked darkly, looking up to face the second intruder. "You can't just run around killing people, ya' know!"

"Fairy Tail Mage, this is not your fight. It was destined for him to die. Return to your guild, you have lost." Memories suddenly flooded into Naruto's head. One clone was done for, the other was low on chakra and still trying not to destroy the house. He felt the large amount of bills in his pocket, unsure whether he was going to keep them or not. Either, way these bastards weren't going to get away with murder. Murder, but they had another objective.

'Conway!' He realized, sprinting back into the hallway.

There was light panting across the room. "I see you've met my friend," the first assassin smirked. "No matter how good of a mage you are, only runes could have stopped him. He's the best after all." So, they were assassins, right? Two assassins, one former assassin, all in the house. He needed to destroy the house and kill them along with it. There was no way he could fight blind in a confined space. A third set of steps were heard, and they weren't from Naruto's two remaining clones.

"You bastard! I've had nothing to eat for two days, two days!"

"Heh," the first chuckled. "Your own fault Conway. At least something good came out of this." What were they talking about?

"Look, I don't care who the hell you are or what you want, all I know is I'm taking you down for real!" Three seeing opponents versus three blind Narutos. Normally, he'd be all for those odds, but inside a house and in close combat, sight was vital. He held his hands up quickly. 'Damn, I've had less than a minute to gather energy, I'll have time for only a couple attacks.'

The stationary clone disappeared with a poof. Naruto suddenly could see an outline of everything in the room in his mind. No, he could sense everything perfectly, seeing how he was in tune with the natural energy of the world. It was sage mode, but instead of orange with toad eyes, his eyes were gold, slitted with blue shadow. "Let's go wild!" His second clone jumped to him and held its hands out. Slowly, a blue ball of his energy with four black blades swirling from it took shape, spinning around quickly.

"Rasenshuriken!" He declared, slamming it into the ground at his feet and bracing himself.

Conway and the others' visions were obscured completely by a blinding white light, and they reached to shield their eyes. Miniature blades chopped through funiture, ceilings, floors, and walls, reutrning the house to almost nothing. The assailents were blasted back by the energy, the needles stabbing into their skin.

When the destruction stopped, there was a crater with Naruto in the center. He was breathing a little hard, though he wasn't anywhere close to his limit. His vision cleared up and sage mode disappeared, seeing how he used tons of nature energy and his own energy to shield himself from the technique. The apocalypse energy had eliminated the entire house.

"I can see!" He breathed out a smirk on his face. He looked at the three assassins. The two new ones were dressed in completely black cloaks, though they were now torn and blood had leaked out. The second assailant, he could tell by the smell, had blood coating his entire right side, even though his left was relatively intact. He fell to his knees, coughing up blood. The first had somehow escaped with no injuries whatsoever, minus a bruise on his shoulder and a cut on his cheek that came from his fight with the clones. Conway had suffered small cuts on most of his body, but it looked like the first guy had pulled him away from the worst of the blast.

'How did they all survive!?' The Apocalypse-style Rasenshuriken, slightly greater in power to a normal rasenshuriken, destroyed people on a molecular level. How could they avoid it or withstand it!

"Not bad, not bad at all." The first gave a few sarcastic claps, walking towards downed assassin number two. "We have what we came for, let's go Conway." The two unnamed assassins quickly disappeared in a poof of smoke.

Conway waved. "Well, Naruto, it was nice playing this game with you." With a wide, satisfied grin, Conway followed their lead and poofed away.

Naruto frowned, looking at the complete destruction of the property. 'Are my first missions always cursed?'


The Apocalypse mage had sorted the problem out with the army, and they let him off with a warning this time. 'Do not destroy any more private or public property,' the large man'd said, giving an 'I'm so done with this' look. There was just so much destruction, even by Fairy Tail standards, though it was to be expected the moment Naruto told the army that he was a Fairy Tail mage. Not only was the house and entire plot obliterated, but a portion of the main road leaving the town was destroyed as well. Seeing how it was his first infraction, they promised to either jail him or fine him next time. At least they believed he wasn't responsible for the dead man, Sarge, in the remains of his own house. The army couldn't tell who or what dark guild was involved, as they had no idea why Sarge would have been targeted by assassins. They didn't even know that Conway had accomplices beyond his own group.

Now, it was a day later and Naruto had travelled all the back to Magnolia. As soon as the army let him go, he caught a train in Oshibana town and arrived in Magnolia. He kind of wanted to run back, since it'd probably be faster, but instead he settled with reluctantly using his newly earned money to relax on a train. The moment he arrived in Magnolia, it was at night, he ran searched for an apartment complex and found one near Fairy Tail. He paid a hefty 90,000J for the down payment on the nice house that the man had for sale, but at 30,000J a month it wasn't too bad. Content as he was with his situation, he was down to less than 30,000J already. Sooner or later, he'd have to take another job. First, though, he had a relaxing nap at his house to deal with the stress.

In the morning, he got up and almost immediately headed for Fairy Tail. The moment he opened the doors, everyone stared.

"Huh?" He asked, startled. Whatever they were doing, they stopped and looked at him, even Cana paused her drinking. "Oookay..." He wandered over to the bar and sat down, leaning to Mira. "What's up with them?"

"Apparently, according to the Master, you had taken on 3 A class or above mages, almost defeating them, and destroying a house in the process. Most people are just wondering how strong you are." Wait, news travelled that fast!

"But that was only yesterday!"

"Master was informed of it last night. Houses are expensive."

Naruto sweatdropped. 'That didn't belong to anybody once Sarge... died, did it? I hope the old man wasn't forced to pay.' "Yeah, I think I went overboard a little. I was blinded by their funky illusions though, it was the only way to hit them."

"And did you?"

"Well," Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "They got away, but next time I'll get them good. Ya' know, they killed my client." He clenched his fist tightly, hating that he'd let that happen.

"It wasn't your fault. The mission was only to capture that one guy. Two more weren't supposed to launch an assassination." Mira was so reassuring for some reason, Naruto knew she tended to calm people down a lot. It also seemed that she was somewhat of a gossip.

Naruto gave a smile, the first real one in days. "So, where's Natsu? I don't sm-see him here." He was about to say smell before realizing how weird that'd sound to her.

"Natsu? He left with Lucy early this morning on a job. I think they went to Shirotsume town, something about a book. Must have been an important book, seeing how the reward was 200,000 Jewels." 200,000 Jewels, for a book? He totally picked the wrong job to go out on. Why was the first mission always cursed, and couldn't things ever be as the seemed?

"Actually," a voice put in. The master was standing behind Naruto, drawing the attention of Levy, Droy, and Jet, who were at the job board, "the reward was bumped up to 2 million Jewels."

"W-w-what! This isn't fair!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Wow," Levy said, "I wonder what kind of book it is. I'll have to ask Lucy what it was about when they get back." She waved at Naruto and went back to looking for another mission. Oddly enough, both Jet and Droy gave Naruto an unhappy look. The blond gave them the peace sign. 'I wonder what they're thinking...'

Things calmed down, so he turned back to the white haired waitress. "So, Naruto," Mira began, "what exactly happened on your job?"

"I'd like to know too." Makarov had jumped up onto a chair, now eye level with Naruto.

Naruto sighed. "But you guys already seem to know about it."

Mira nodded. "We want to hear it from you, though."

"Alright then. It started in the outskirts of Oshibana town, where I met the client, Sarge..." The story dragged on and on. Naruto had refused to tell any detail about the two days in which he and Conway travelled alone, the blond forgetting to feed his prisoner. That was kind of embarrassing. He also had to be prompted to tell the full story of what happened at Sarge's house with the assassination. When it was all said and done, Makarov gave him a pat on the back.

The master nodded approvingly. "You did well, Naruto. I'm concerned about this Samsara character and those three dark mages, though it's not our business now. The council has this information, and those fools have to decide whether people're going to look for those guys or go after worse dark guilds."

Mira nodded. "It was a well planned assassination. Though I have to ask, why was it done the middle of the day with a light mage in the house. For that matter, why did they let Conway get captured before the assassination."

Naruto shook his head. "I don't know, but that guy was freaky paranoid. Maybe he was hiding something." He put his head in his hands, "not much I can do about it now..."

It was silent for a few moments. Makarov left and went back to his office in order to fill out some paperwork related to whatever happened in Oshibana Town. Mira gave Naruto a glass of water, which he drank silently then stared past her shoulder. "You know," she said, "you should try to meet some of the other guild members. You're an interesting guy with unusual magic, I'm sure you'd fit in just fine."

Fit in? Naruto was sure maybe he could fit in and connect with them as friends. But he'd always be different than the average mage, no matter how hard he tried otherwise. He looked across the room at the mage that smelt like ice. 'You know, maybe I should try anyways. It'd be nice to have some friends again after all these years.'


A/N: Sorry I ended it a little early. It seemed like a good cut-off and this chapter was running out of ideas. Anyways, to explain two things. One, the rasenshuriken would have killed Naruto if it was made of wind chakra like originally. However, when he got his Apocalypse Dragon Slaying magic, his chakra changed to magic power, allowing him to substitute that for chakra. Since a dragon is very resistant to his own element, he was able to survive a point blank apocalypse rasenshuriken without any problems. As for how the others escaped, it's a secret.

Man, I thought I was going to write a 2k finish to the Conway mission, but I got carried away and the assassination took way too long. Maybe that's because you guys wanted it slowed down with a little more detail? Anyways, I'm open for feedback, especially on the fight scene.

Ps- Naruto was very limited in the fight since he was blinded and indoors, while his magic is better in open areas.