The Heavens Curse

Chapter 1: Stitch in Time

"KAI!" his voice echoed as the chakra he had focused pulsed out of his body in every direction.

The sheer force that came with it floored everyone who had been standing around him. But the pulse didn't stop there. It rolled out and away from Naruto like an invisible tidal wave. Anyone who was standing within the walls of Konoha immediately fell to the floor as the wave of chakra washed over them.

Genjutsus that were being used around the entire village wavered and disappeared as if they didn't exist in the first place. People traveling outside the walls were nearly knocked off their feet as the sudden burst slammed into them. The entire happening occurred in under two seconds and in those two seconds, Naruto starred in horror at the now more confused and terrified looks of the three people in front of him.

"They... They didn't disappear. They aren't illusions..." Naruto thought before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he promptly fell face first into the ground unconscious.

Drip

"Ugh..."

Drip

"Oh... who the hell left the faucet on?" Naruto groaned. Everything around him was dark but he could feel that his eyes were closed.

Kit...drip

"Huh? Kyuubi?" Naruto asked aloud as he tried to open his eyes.

Wake up!

Naruto's eyes shot open immediately at that point as a large burst of chakra rushed his sense. At the same time he sat up quickly and felt something that had been on his chest fall away.

Yet, as he opened his eyes, he had to immediately close them, the bright light from where ever he was being more than he could handle so suddenly.

"Ah hell, someone turn down the sun," Naruto grumbled as he rubbed his closed eyes that had started to water a bit.

"I would bad that would be difficult task to accomplish would it not?" a deep voice sounded from in front of Naruto. It was filled with mirth but at the same time, very wise.

His body instantly stiffened at the voice.

"Who are you and where am I?" Naruto growled. His eyes were still closed, for fear of having whatever bright light there was throwing off his senses again. His other four senses however immediately went into overdrive and heightened.

The sound of clothes brushing against each other from the briefest of movements, the slight humid taste in the air, the smell of tobacco being light, and the feeling of something extremely soft underneath him.

'Wait a second, cloth, tobacco, and something soft? What the hell? Nothing like this was left before that fight..." Naruto thought as his body relaxed from his battle senses but settled into that of now utter confusion. It was then a thought suddenly came to him.

"So it finally happened," Naruto said as he laid back down against the soft material, "Akatsuki finally managed to kill me off."

With that said he let out a heart felt sigh as every muscle in his body, which was just registering in his brain that they were in a decent amount of pain, relaxed.

The chuckled from the voice though made Naruto lift his head up a bit and, still with his eyes closed, stare directly at the man who was at the foot of whatever bed he was on.

"And what pray tell is so god damn funny?" Naruto asked a bit peeved.

"Your words. I'd have to say you would have to be having some very odd dreams to be thinking that you are dead," the voice said, still full of amusement.

"Oh," Naruto said as he laid back down, not paying to much attention to the persons full response. He had somewhat tuned out the rest of the words after 'your words' and was relaxing again.

That is until the words finally sank into his head.

"NANI?" Naruto screamed as he sat up again very quickly and forced his eyes open as well.

The sensation of blood draining from his head as well as the searing pain from the bright light blurred his vision greatly but he could make out someone dressed in white and red robes in front of him. The person also was the source from where the smell of tobacco was coming from.

"Who are you!" Naruto growled out again as he continued to stare at the rapidly sharpening image of the man before him.

As it did though, his answer didn't come from the words of the man but his image. The red and white coat, the gray robes underneath, the white and red hat with the symbol for fire embroidered into it, and namely that old and wise face of the man that was wearing the attire.

"Sa... Sandaime-sama," Naruto whispered out in sheer and utter shock.

The old man though got his own look of shock at the words.

"That's the first time I think I have ever heard you call me that," the man said with his mouth agape starring at Naruto with a questioning look.

"But... But... you died fighting... you sealed... how... how are you alive?" Naruto stammered, his voice caught in his throat as he stared at the old man in awe.

"By simply living, I assure you," Sarutobi, the sandaime(third), said with a puzzled look at the now very confused and shocked boy in front of him.

It was silent for a few moments before Naruto shook his head in disbelief at what he was seeing and rubbed his eyes again before starring for a few more moments. He even went so far as to pinch his leg, which he now knew where under covers, very hard. The flinch of pain and strong of mumbled curses that came out of his mouth in the next few moments had Sarutobi wondering if the boy had somehow suffered a nervous breakdown.

"Naruto," Sarutobi said, snapping a still very confused and shocked face back to his, "Why do you keep starring at me as if I am a ghost."

"Because you sealing that snake bastards arms away," Naruto said with a growl as an image flashed through his mind.

However, the second that one came, many more quickly followed with vivid pictures of everyone he knew. The flashed all happened within a second but the moment they passed, Naruto shook his head.

"Okay, I need some answers," Naruto thought angrily as he bit his thumb.

He then performed hand seals very quickly at a speed that made Sarutobi's brow furrow.

"How does he know those seals and can perform them so fast? He couldn't possibly have that..." the old man thought as he watched on but his thoughts were suddenly interrupted as Naruto finished the seals and placed his hand on the bed next to him.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu," he all but growled out and a wave of intricate writing suddenly spread from underneath his palm followed very quickly by a puff of smoke.

Sarutobi's eyes widened in awe and disbelief as the smoke appeared, curious, but at the same time he prepared for a battle for he had not known Naruto could do the summoning jutsu.

When the smoke cleared a second later, both Naruto and Sarutobi starred with wide eyes at what had been summoned.

It was a fox, a small one in comparison to to any ordinary one. But the thing that made Sarutobi nervous the most were two things. One, its fur was a dark blood red, a very unnatural color for a fox. The second was the nine tails that were sprawled out around it. That simple fact made Sarutobi very tense as he starred at the small version of the demon fox that had wreaked havoc on Konoha.

Naruto however noticed a few things about the fox that unnerved him greatly, besides the foxes' small size. One was that it's body was extremely thin, as if it had been starved for a very long time. Next was that all nine of the tails weren't moving and the last was that the fox was barely breathing as well as unconscious.

"Sweet kami," Naruto whispered as he leaned over to the small fox that was passed out on his bed and lifted it up gingerly in his arms to set it in his lap.

Sarutobi saw this and to say he was unnerved was an understatement. Especially when he heard Naruto start to talk to the fox that was now in his lap.

"Kyuubi. Hey Kyuubi, are you okay?" Naruto asked gently, barely pushing the side of the seemingly dead fox in his lap.

It stirred a little before lifting its small head up to look at Naruto.

"He he, so it worked," a soft but deep voice sounded from the fox as it tried to grin but grimaced in pain and tried to curl into a little ball.

Naruto was confused to say the least but he was more concerned with the fox's health.

"Hey what happened to you to make you appear like this?" Naruto asked, completely forgetting the fact that he now had one very shocked and on edge Sarutobi not two feet from him.

"The... the others and I decided to give you a second chance. You... You gave us the understanding of what makes you humans so strong as well as an understanding of emotions. After that last fight... we thought you deserved better than what you had to have endured. We... we wanted you to have the chance at a life that wasn't like the one you had lived," the chibi Kyuubi said in between flinches of pain and gasps of breath.

"That still doesn't tell me why you look like a baby fox that is barely alive and has been starved," Naruto said, his head spinning with information as more images kept flowing throughout his subconscious.

"It... took a lot of our energy to bring you here. This place... its another reality that had been frozen in time from the choices made from the world you used to be in. It's... it's exactly like the world you were once in but at an undetermined point. We tried to place you in a spot that would be good but I don't know when you ended up in," Kyuubi said, his deep voice coming out a bit better but still in short gaps from him flinching in pain.

"So where are the others?"

"Sealed back in their original containers," the fox said and then tried to take a deep breath but flinched greatly as if something had just slammed into him.

"I need to rest kit. My chakra is drained from all of this, as is your's too probably. We can finish talking about this some other time," Kyuubi said and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Naruto sighed again as the smoke cleared but this time he felt his own muscle react in a painful manner, turning his sigh into a hiss of pain. The hiss snapped a very shocked and confused Sarutobi back to his senses as he starred at the now cursing Naruto.

As he did though he started to see a few things he had previously overlooked. For instance, Naruto's hair was a decent length longer than it had been. It was now about four inches below his shoulder and seemed to be a lot darker than it had been as well. His whiskers marks were also darker like his head and were also a bit thicker than they had been.

But the most notably thing though now were the tattoos that had appeared on his body. On his right arm bicep was the phrase 'My Brothers'. Directly below it he saw names listed.

"Uchia Sasuke, Sabaku no Gaara, Rock Lee, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Neji, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji," Sarutobi thought in his head as he read down the list of names. And around all of the names was a chain that ran up his arm, onto his shoulder and over to his neck.

On his left bicep however was 'My Sisters' and he started to read off the names again.

"Haruno Sakura, TenTen, Yamanaka Ino, Sabaku no Temari, Ayame, Shizune, Mitarashi Anko. Interesting," Sarutobi thought seeing the name. Again around the names was another design except this time it was of roses. They too circled the names up his arm, onto his shoulder, and then finishing off next to his neck.

The most interesting thing he could see though were the tattoos on his chest. For right below his collar bone, circling below his neck line and connecting the chain and the roses together, in very intricate kanji was written 'My Family'.

And on his chest, following the same listing pattern as his arms were more names.

"Sandaime Hokage- Sarutobi, Iruka-Sensei, Hatake Kakashi, Momochi Zabuza, Haku, Maito Gai, Yuuhi Kurenai, Jirayi-Sensei, Tsunade-Sensei, Okaa-san, Otou-san, Hyuuga Hinata,"

To say Sarutobi was interested in why these names were now suddenly tattooed onto Naruto who be undermining his curiosity, especially after what he had seen on the boy's back.

There were nine extremely intricate and well done images of the nine tailed demons of legend, starting with Shukaku and ending with Kyuubi, all placed around a seal the likes of which Sarutobi had never seen before in his life. One of the main reasons being that from the markings around the main part of the seal it self there were chains that went up and attached to each image of each demons. Four chains went to the legs, one for each of them, and then an additional amount of chains corresponded to the amount of tails each demon had, with each tail touching and individual chain on it's own.

"Naruto," Sarutobi finally spoke, making the boy look to him with a questioning look, "I don't know what exactly is going on at the moment, especially with you suddenly being able to summon foxes and the Kyuubi no less which should not be possible. And from what you two spoke of, it seems as if there is now more to you than there was before."

Naruto sighed at this as his shoulders slumped.

"So I guess to Kyuubi was right and has given me a second chance," Naruto thought grimly as he looked at the awaiting face of the Hokage.

"This is gonna take a while," Naruto thought as he steel himself to speak, "Well, you are probably going to want to take a seat. This might take a while."

Several hours later found Naruto sitting atop the Hokage monument atop the yondaime's head. It was close to midnight now and Naruto was just starring out over the village, letting a cool but still warm breeze rush over him.

Most of the lights were out now, people having already gone to bed and closed up their shops. There were only a few lights on at several houses and every now and again he saw a blur of movement as various ninja jumped to and fro across the rooftops, making sure that everything was staying protected and calm within the village.

He sighed at the peaceful sight in front of him as an image passed before his minds eye. It was a memory, that much he had gathered from the many flashes that still flashed through his mind.This particular memory was of Konoha burning, the many houses and building smoldering from various that had happened, and the Hokage monument in shambles from an obviously massive battle that had taken place.

As the memory receded to the back of his mind, Naruto couldn't help but sigh again as he leaned back onto his hands and starred up at the starry sky.

"I never took you for the restless star gazer type Naruto," a voice said suddenly behind Naruto but he did not react. He had felt a presence behind him a while ago and knew that someone was watching him.

"Just thinking mostly, Kakashi-san," Naruto said not even turning around to look at the person behind him, his eyes focused on the clear sky above him.

"Kakashi-san?" the voice said again but this time directly over Naruto's head as well as within his view. The person in question had stepped behind him and leaned over into his sight and Naruto was now looking at the upside down face of the owner of the voice.

"Sorry Kakashi-sensei. I've just had a long night and needed to think about a lot of things," Naruto said with another sigh as he sat back up straight and stood up and turned to face Kakashi.

"I can see that," Kakashi said as he looked over his student. "You gave a decent amount of people a good scare today you know that?"

"Yea, oji-san told me as much," Naruto said with a grin as he scratched the back of his head.

"Especially your team, though I believe Sasuke was more curious than anything. Extremely curious actually considering the amount of chakra that you suddenly decided to burn off," Kakashi continued with a pointed look at his student.

"Yea, sorry about that. It was an effect of something old fuzz ball here did," Naruto said pointing at his stomach making Kakashi open his one visible eye a little wider.

"Don't worry, he isn't 'taking me over' or 'trying to break the seal' or anything else that your mind is probably trying to come up with an explanation of what went on today."

"Then why the burst of chakra? You do realize that was probably a greater output than even the Hokage himself can do without using any particular jutsu?"

"Not sure. I just know that at the moment I probably couldn't do anything as spectacular as take on Haku again. Well not for a few days at least," Naruto said turning back to look at the village.

Kakashi had no idea what to say. In a very round about way, Naruto had just answered his question but at the same time not and ended the conversation about the events that had transpired. And the thing that was the most shocking was that Naruto had just done so with a calm and poised expression.

He took another look over his student as he starred over the village from where they were. He was taller than he had been, the only reason he being able to see this was because the normal orange pants Naruto normally wore seemed to be a bit tight on him now as well as about four inches above his sandals. He had on his usual black t-shirt but had forgone the jacket that he normally wore.

But the few things that caught his eye the most were some of the more noticeable as well as subtle changes in his appearance. The more notable ones being his hair, now a lot longer and darker than it had been was now pulled back into short, high ponytail, much like the Shikamaru's. Also, were ever there would be any space of open skin from the neck down, was wrapped completely in bandages, making him wonder what exactly had happened to his student. He had been on the outskirts of town when he had felt the chakra Naruto had released and as he had been rushing to see what was going on.

But when he had got there, ANBU were guarding the area very tightly and the Hokage's figure was seen rushing with two people under his arms back towards the tower, one of them being a distinct orange blur that could only have been Naruto. But since then, the Hokage could not be interrupted from what ever he was doing and no news of where Naruto was had been revealed either until about an hour ago.

Yet as he starred at his student more, he saw more and more subtle changes. The way he stood now was a relaxed one but at the same time ready to move at a moments notice. He stood up straighter now too and had a feeling of calmness just seemed to roll off of him in waves. He still looked like the twelve year old that he was but carried himself in the same way that the Hokage himself did.

After a few minutes of silence though Kakashi decided to break the silence.

"Anyways, the real reason I'm hear is to..."

"give me the form to partake in the chuunin exam right?" Naruto said cutting off the older man who raised a questioning eyebrow as his student turned back around to look at him with a foxy grin.

"Oji-san told me before I left the place that he had brought me to that you had recommended my team and I for the exam. I must say that I am honored at such a request but I can tell the real reason that you are giving us these forms."

"Oh really now?"

"Of course. You don't want Sasuke-teme or myself to pressure Sakura into taking the exam. It does after take three people on a team to enter the exam," Naruto said and had to restrain from laughing as the Kakashi's visible eye nearly doubled in size from shock.

"How the hell did he figure that out. And what's with the absence of the chan after Sakura?" Kakashi thought in shock as he starred at the still grinning Naruto.

After a few moments he regain his usual calm appearance and stood up straight again before saying, "Well then, since you figured that part out, I suggest you prepare yourself for the exam. And, I also suggest you don't tell the other two about what you do know. After all, even though this is a team oriented exam, they still need to come to the conclusion of whether or not to do this on their own."

"Don't worry Kakashi-sensei. They won't even need to see me before then," Naruto said with his grin getting wider.

"And why is that?"

"I have something I need to take care of before the exam even starts. It's kinda a mission from the Hokage but more like a request. I'll be back when the exam starts but I can say one thing to you though. Expect the unexpected and take things as they come."

"Pretty cryptic words coming from you don't you think?" Kakashi said with an amused look in his eye.

"Just remember them come the start of the exam, son of the White Fang," Naruto said his face suddenly going serious and deeper than Kakashi had ever heard it before just vanishing in the blink of an eye.

To say Kakashi was surprised was an understatement at what Naruto had said as well as him just suddenly disappearing withing the blink of an eye. He knew it was public knowledge of his fathers accomplishments and he himself had his own name for his own feats.

But to hear about his father's name from one of his students in such a serious tone with an obvious underlying meaning to it was more than unnerving to him.

"Something has changed you Naruto. But for better or for worse?" Kakashi thought as he pondered what his student had said.