Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing within, save a couple ideas and possible OC's, but there's to freaking much to name so just go with that…
NU: Birth of the Seekers…
Chapter 1: Gathering Shadows…
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"Normal Speech…"
'Normal Thoughts…'
"Demon Speech…"
'Demon Thoughts…'
[Seeker Speech…]
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(Konohagakure…)
A blond haired boy tosses and turns while lying upon a massive monument built into the side of a cliff. Grunting and sweating the boy suddenly sat up and looked around. He found himself laying down on top of the Hokage monument and let out a quiet sigh… "Just a dream…" He muttered before lying back with his arms crossed behind his head and looking up at the clouds as they covered the sky above him. This boy is one Uzumaki Naruto, a Shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato, or "The Village Hidden in the Leaves". The boy is a Genin, the lowest rank of Shinobi, due mostly to the fact he has been gone for two years, and is the sole Uzumaki in all of Konoha.
The boy is of average height, with lightly tanned skin and three thin whisker scars running down each cheek, a pair of bright blue eyes lay half lidded as he watches the clouds, his sun-kissed blond hair spikes in numerous directions, even down into his face. At the moment he is wearing a pair of baggy orange pants that cut off half way down his calves and some wrappings around his right thigh, a pair of black sandal boots with straps over them, a bulky orange jacket with a black T shape up the middle of the front with black arms and a strange silver spiral clipped onto his right bicep.
Beside of him however, lies a Kunai case over a weapons pouch, both lay in the shadows of his black backpack, his Hittai-ate resting over them and in the shadow of his back as well. The blond gives a faint smile as he watches the sky, soon reaching out with a hand as though to grab it, he merely holds his hand up towards the sky and then smiles. "Sometimes… you have to stop and appreciate the small things in life before looking for more…" The blond whispers to himself as he lays back, his right arm retuned under his head as the sun warms his skin…
"Naruto-Baka, wake up already!" With that voice Naruto quickly sits up and looks up to see a smirking Haruno Sakura, his only female teammate on squad Seven…
Sakura is a "Rosette" having bubblegum-pink hair that falls half way down her neck, a red Hittai-ate looped around her head to hold it back, pale skin with a lightly toned body and bright emerald green eyes. She wears a red sleeveless zip-up shirt with white trimming, a pair of skintight black shorts under a gray skirt of some kind that has belts looped into the sides to hold the front and back flaps together, gray elbow pads, wrappings over her own right thigh, and a pair of black high-heeled Sandal Boots with black leather greaves over her shins.
"Why'd you do that Sakura-Chan? I wasn't even sleeping…" Naruto grumbled and the girl rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.
"Because idiot, you can't just lay around and sunbathe all day… we have work to do in case you've forgotten…" The girl told him simply and Naruto rolled his eyes then stretched out with a yawn, wishing for the days of his youth when he could slack off all he wanted to…
"Yeah yeah… wait… what do "I" have to do today?" Naruto said then questioned with a confused expression and Sakura had the decency to blush… in all actuality it was just habit that she even went to get him…
"Uhh… well you never know… Tsunade-Sama might have something for you to do today…" Sakura offered, hoping that he'd actually buy that load of BS so she wouldn't have to deal with it any further…
"Ne, you're probably right Sakura-Chan… Besides I don't want to turn into a lazy sloth like Shikamaru." Naruto said then commented, allowing Sakura to breath a quick sigh of relief as the blond gathered his stuff, putting his Hittai-ate back on and slinging his back pack over one shoulder.
"Why do you have a backpack with you? Expecting some big mission or something Naruto?" The Rosette questioned of the blond who chuckled and rubbed the back of his head slowly.
"Nah, I had something to do today that required some of my equipment." Naruto told the girl then before she could ask what that was he bounded off down the side of the monument, pissing the girl off as she ran after him angrily. The blond eventually managed to escape the furious Rosette; somehow also managing to make it to the Hokage Tower he walked in to see his "Favorite old lady". "Yo, Baachan!" He said then moved to the side to avoid a bottle of Sake, which in turn hit an AnBu behind the blond.
"What do you want brat?" The blond woman then questioned while rubbing her temples and Naruto moved his arms behind his head.
"I was wondering if you had anything for me to do today?" Naruto explained and Tsunade looked at him with one eye then grumbled under her breath.
"I started something new while your team was gone brat… Missions for lower ranking Nin are on a board downstairs… grab the sheet from the form, finish the mission, then bring it to me to get your pay… saves me one hell of a lot of paper work…" The woman said then muttered under her breath, Naruto heard the muttered part but ignored it as he walked out of the room. He then went right passed the board, not really interested in doing any D-Rank Missions at the moment. Instead he walked back out into the streets of Konoha, he then walked back to his home to drop off his Backpack, then stretched a bit and looked around his shabby apartment.
The place was no different than when he was little, but it DID seem almost smaller, or perhaps that was because he was taller… Either way, he'd found less room for his stuff and cleaned the place up recently. However, looking to a clock hanging on his wall, Naruto walked out of the apartment building, his arms folded behind his head as he walked down the streets wondering around the vast city aimlessly…
"What to do… what to do…" The blond said to himself, he still didn't want to do any D-rank missions… at least not today, so missions were out… He could always head over to Ichiraku but even HE knew his eating habits weren't healthy, he'd picked up some better ones while on his training trip after all… Then again, he did still love Ramen. Nah, if he got back into his fifteen bowls of Ramen a week habit, the "Ero-Sennin" would tear him a new one for sure… Visiting some of the other Rookies was a viable idea… but they were probably all training or on missions…
"Ugh… Mendokuse…" Naruto grumbled, stealing one of his good friends favorite words, as it seemed to apply to this particular situation perfectly. Looking around, Naruto frowned and decided on what to do while he walked back towards the Hokage monument. As he climbed the monument for what felt like the millionth time in his life Naruto stopped at the top and walked over to the Fourth's head to look out over Konoha for a short while…
After admiring the view for a few moments, Naruto began looking around for anybody and soon couldn't help smirking as he walked over to a bush. The blond then jumped over it to land at the entrance to a cave. Many would wonder why Naruto would come to a cold dark cave at the top of a mountain in order to relieve his boredom when most caves were very boring themselves. His simple answer was that he liked this particular cave; he had used the cave to hide from angry villagers for years, hell, for a while after the Orphanage kicked him out he LIVED in this cave, and he even used to draw his own bedtime stories onto the caves walls so he could always remember them or see the great battles his imagination somehow cooked up when he was a child…
"Heh, good times…" Naruto mumbled to himself with a smile before placing a hand on the side of the cave. Then the blond entered it sideways, the entrance to narrow for a full-grown human to easily get through, though not for a young Naruto. Once in, Naruto took even steps down the long stretch that the cave seemed to take, ignoring the breath like sounds of the wind passing through the cave, as well as passing cobwebs that had gathered and avoiding the sharp rocks on the ground. "I've got to remember to clear this place out when I get the chance…" He mumbled to himself when he saw a light and found the path of the cave expanding, allowing him to move normally at last.
Walking deeper into the cave, Naruto came to the only part of it that had any real light, due to a large hole in the ceiling. "Man… I've really grown since I was last down here…" Naruto mused while placing a hand on the ceiling, a hint of pride in his tone while looking around. The blond soon walked around the small cavern like room, looking at all the crudely drawn pictures he had made over the years. Some had him in Kage like robes, others had warriors fighting monsters, and if he wasn't mistaken, one or two of them were of toads… "Heh, I've probably been obsessed with Toads for a long time…" He mused to himself then looked at the one wall without anything drawn on it.
Over this wall was a strange door, Naruto had tried tens of dozens of times to open it… yet the damn thing never even budged and didn't have any kind of handle on it. "Wonder what's behind there…" Naruto wondered to himself thoughtfully then had a sudden chill run down his spine for some reason. Ignoring that, Naruto walked over to the strange door and placed a hand onto it. He wondered to himself, if possibly an old shelter lay hidden behind the brown and black steel/wood door… or maybe it could be a weapon cache, or perhaps simply a tool shed from when they were first constructing the Hokage monument all those years ago…
Smiling, the blond haired teen turned and leaned back against the sturdy door, a contented look on his face. He then looked around at the numerous pictures and drawings all over the walls and even somehow on the ceilings and slowly slid down into a sitting position… "I always loved adventure… I wanted to explore and see other worlds when I was little…" Naruto said with a soft smile, only for it to slowly fall as he sighed. "But… everyone says there's no way to get to other worlds… or that they don't exist…" He said to himself then shook his head and looked to a drawing that showed a crudely drawn Naruto with a sword of some kind in hand…
"I don't care, I'll become Hokage, and I'll become strong enough to visit all of the other worlds that lay out there… I won't ever give up… and if there's no way to get to other worlds…" Naruto then looked up out of the roof of the cave to the sky and the clouds as they hovered above. "Then I'll just have to MAKE a way!" He said firmly with a smirk, and then saw a cloud formation that looked like a boat. Raising a single hand up, as though to reach for it, the blond smiled softly as the boat like cloud formation slowly faded, leaving nothing behind it…
Dropping his hand at that and leaning his head back once more, Naruto gave a light laugh before closing his eyes… his dreams while in the cave were just like that as when he was still a child, filled with adventure and magic in other worlds on a great and epic adventure…
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(??)
Sasuke Uchiha was a boy of, in his own mind, simple needs. Power. That was all he needed or wanted, if he didn't get it fast enough or what he did get was insufficient, well… he tended to get angry… However, he'd noticed this fault during his training with Orochimaru and somehow literally beat patience into himself. As such, the boy was much more calm now, capable of waiting for the right moment to strike instead of rushing in blindly. This in turn led him to develop strategies that didn't involve rushing in headfirst. 'Honestly, even the Dobe knew better than that…' Sasuke thought bitterly, frowning at his former lack of thought or tact.
However, recently he had an almost frightening feeling something was going on. Looking to the star filled sky above him he narrowed his eyes seeing one of those stars slowly wink out of existence… "Something's coming…" The dark haired teen whispered then groaned as he felt a female body suddenly collide with his back and twitched. "Release me Karin…" He growled out, wondering why the fuck she had to be useful, he'd MUCH rather just off her fucking ass than touch or be near her at this point…
"Aww but Sasuke-kun, I'm tired." Karin mocked, obviously playing and Sasuke still didn't like it.
"Juugo…" He started to say and Karin jumped off the boy faster than he could continue. Smirking slightly, Sasuke wondered if having a bouncer like Juugo around in Konoha would help get rid of the fangirls… nah… probably makes the really tough ones get even tougher… Sasuke grunted at that thought and then walked on, passed Suigetsu then walked on into a field, only to stop and turn towards the sky once more.
"Sasuke-kun… are you alright?" Karin questioned of the dark haired teen and Sasuke narrowed his eyes onto the sky, seeing an ominous sign as he did… a star went out… simply blinked out of existence, yet it had been one of the brighter stars in the sky, why had it gone out? Frowning at the suddenly bad feeling he was getting, Sasuke pulled his Akatsuki cloak closer to himself, and then walked off without answering Karin, though he did speak one thing that made them ALL start to worry…
"Something's coming… something… dark…"
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(Secret Place…)
Naruto's eyes twitched at the strange sounds of breathing from the cave getting more realistic. Then his eyes slowly fluttered open and he sat up and stretched his arms out, yawning tiredly and looking to the sky to see the stars were out. "Whoa… I really got to sleep here more often…" He said lowly, mostly because he could never really get to sleep right in his own bed, often leading him to be late for his Team assignments. Getting up off the floor, the blond rolled his neck a little, feeling it pop and twist, loosening the stiff muscles from sleeping like he had been… 'Eh, no pain, no gain…' He thought with a shrug while walking over to the door of the cave only to stop suddenly as another chill went down his spine…
"Someone else who wishes to see the door to this world? No… I think not…" A questioning crisp voice came from behind him, and then amended it's own words. Upon hearing this scarily familiar voice Naruto turned around to face him, coming to see a man in a black cloak with a hood, his face completely consumed in shadows, a silver chain at his throat with two silver pull strings beside the chain, and a pair of black gloves and boots. However, the man's posture was horrible, slouching forward with bent knees and his arms folded behind his back with broad hunched down shoulders, making the man stand only to the height of Naruto himself…
"Who… who are you?" Naruto questioned slowly with narrowed eyes and the man looked at him for but a second then shook his head slowly from side to side. With that done and ignoring the blond completely, the strange hooded man turned his head and started looking to the door once more.
"It seems this world has also been connected…" He muttered to himself and Naruto frowned, quickly getting angry with the man as he continued to ignore him so blatantly. "Tied to the darkness… soon to be completely eclipsed… like so many other worlds before it…" He whispered softly while shaking his head once more and Naruto lunged forward, grabbing the man by his cloak and slamming him into the wall.
"Okay listen buddy, I don't know WHO you are and right now, I don't really CARE… but what the fuck are you talking about? Other worlds? Tied to Darkness? What the hell is going on?!" Naruto demanded and the man merely looked down at him, passed the endless shadows of his hood…
"You… you have a strong heart and an even stronger will…" He said simply and Naruto raised a brow towards him with obvious confusion, the man slowly shaking his head at the action. "Yet you understand so little of the world… just like him…" The man said and Naruto growled angrily, he wasn't going to let someone that didn't even KNOW him call him stupid Dammit!
"Shut the hell up!" With that Naruto threw the man towards the "Door" only for the man to flip in midair and kick off the door into a spin before landing on the ground gracefully as if he hadn't just been tossed around like a rag doll…
"Impressive strength young one… it will aide you greatly in the times to come…" The man said with a nod while now looking fully towards Naruto, the boy growling as this guy just seemed to rub him the wrong way… "I must say goodbye now… Until we meet again, young one…" With that said a strange field of black energy opened behind the man before he took a few steps back and vanished completely, leaving Naruto alone and confused. As soon as he was gone however, Naruto took another look around then shivered and walked out of the cave, leaving both it, and the so called door, to whatever was going to happen next…
If he had stayed even a few more seconds, Naruto would have seen a small, Ant like creature crawl from the place the man had vanished. It then crawled to the door, twitching as it looked up at it and a black cloud of energy formed at the center of the door… unveiling a Keyhole of some kind, which the Ant-like creature then entered by crawling up the door…
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(Disney Castle…)
Donald Duck walked down a long stretching hall with a red carpet laid out on the floor. Dressed in his blue robes/hat the Duck that walked and acted like a human soon came to a ridiculously large door, then pulled open a smaller door that was part of it. As he entered into another hallway he quietly began humming to himself, eyes closed while thinking of the past. He was the Magician of King Mickey Mouse's court and one of his two best and oldest friends. The other friend was Goofy G. Goof, captain of the royal guard and total "Goof Up"; honestly, in Donald's personal opinion the dog/man/thing was more trouble than he was worth.
However, he was forced to concede that no one was more loyal or reliable in a tight situation than Goofy, even compared to himself Goofy was still the best of the best friends. Shaking his head Donald got back onto his train of thought and got back to what he had been thinking of… Oh yes, the past… Donald and Goofy were King Mickey's most trusted friends and Advisers, superseded only by Queen Minnie Mouse herself. The trio have done many things over the years, the least of which was creating the "Disney Kingdom"…
Donald and Goofy had helped the Keyblade Master Sora in his quest not even a year ago. Together the three traveled worlds and saved so many lives from the threat of the heartless. However, nowadays Sora traveled with Riku and Kairi, leaving Donald and Goofy to fight with King Mickey like the old days. However, King Mickey had decided to return home to rest for a while, two + years of non-stop combat wears on even the strongest of hearts after all.
And so, here they were, Disney Castle, he had already gone to see his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, and uncle, Scrooge MacDuck, caught up with his girlfriend, Daisy Duck (No Relation), and visited his few friends outside of Goofy and Mickey, or simply put Chip and Dale Chipmunk and Drake Mallard. Also, from what Donald knew, Mickey was now spending some quality time with Minnie again, and Goofy was probably spending some time with his Son Maximillian (Max) Goof.
Shaking his head as he came to a door with two guards beside it Donald inwardly prepared to reign in his Temper… "Let me in." Donald squawked in his normal quack like voice and both guards looked to one another…
"What he Say?" They asked one another and Donald slapped his face, feeling his blood boil he glared at the two guards angrily.
"I SAID LET ME IN YA BIG STUPID PALOOKA'S!!" Donald shouted and yet again the guards looked to one another dumbly.
"What he Say?" They asked one another once more and Donald squawked angrily before lunging at one of the guards angrily…
Meanwhile, down the hall a certain humanoid-mouse with perfectly round ears from any direction had just heard the sounds of Donald cursing and yelling at the guards and chuckled. "That Donald… he'll never change…" Mickey said to himself then looked back out the window worriedly as he saw another star flicker. "Even after all we've done… the Heartless are still a threat to all worlds…" he said softly then walked over to one of his chairs, then sat down and looked to his Dog Pluto. The yellow dog looked up at him in response, opening only one eye and Mickey pet him once.
"It looks like things are going to get hectic again boy… can you look after Minnie for me for a while?" Mickey questioned and the dog nodded his head before yawning and snuggling down into his bed. Mickey smiled at this, only to lean back in his seat, looking down at his Keyblade "Darkside" and frown. "Even though your stronger than the other Keyblades, your not as useful… I almost wish Master Xehanort was still around… he could at least help me control your power…" Mickey said to himself then shuddered, his tail wrapping around his waist.
"No… Xehanort fell into Darkness a long time ago… and no one, not even HE could have found a way out of that place…" Mickey said to himself while yawning, then got up and went back to the window, looking down at a set of records chronicling the exploits of Sora, Donald, and Goofy, as well as his and Riku's own exploits over the years. Looking them over, he frowned noting a sort of pattern, it seemed as if all their troubles stemmed from Xehanort in the end…
"Hmm… I wonder why he only remembered Master Xehanort's name…?" Mickey questioned then had a couple thoughts as he then looked at the reports more closely, also checking several of the Ansem reports he'd gathered from Sora. Looking them over, he noticed something, a strange fascination for Darkness and power that Mickey recognized quite well… "Nah, he couldn't have survived…" Mickey said to himself then looked to the sky, only to frown seeing a star begin to dim…
'Is that the Heartless? Why are they active again? Hmm… maybe I should stop trying to find a way to stop the Heartless in the present… maybe I should look back into the past for a way to stop them…' Mickey thought to himself with a frown on his face…
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TBC…
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AN: Got bored and decided I might as well update this story, any ideas for it would be appreciated, though I am, as always, doing extensive research into Kingdom Hearts, I've played 1 2 and COM thus far but I'm looking up less obvious information on a Kingdom Hearts Wiki. Er, anyways, hope you liked the Chapter, why Naruto's "Secret Place" was so similar to Sora's will be explained later on... it's going to be a surprise for everyone I'm sure...