As soon as the words faded, and colour returned to the world, Naruto was running again. He could wait to check the menu, Inari and Tsunami were more important.

As he got closer to the house, the shouting grew louder in his ears, more distinct.

"Inari, no!" Tsunami cried.

One of the goons laughed. "This kid's a little short on brains, don't you think?"

"Take him down." The other intoned coldly.

Inari screamed and charged the men holding his mom captive.

"If you hurt him," She said, "I swear I'll-"

She fell to the dock with a thud, knocked out with a chop to the neck by the shorter thug.

"Shut up." He told her. "Take a nap."

"Inari…" Tsunami muttered weakly.

The goons readied their blades, and slashed at the charging child….

Only to strike a log.

"Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Technique)!" Cursed the short thug.

"The woman, she's gone."

"Sorry I'm a little late." Came Naruto's cocky voice from behind the thugs.

"What the? Who's that?"

"But, you know. Hero's usually show up at the last minute." Naruto said, concluding his statement.

"Naruto, it's you!" Inari exclaimed excitedly.

"Who else?" Naruto asked with a smile. "Inari, you did great! When you charged, they forgot about your mom for a minute. That gave me the chance to use a cool jutsu to get her away from them."

Inari gave a small smile. Then a thought came to his mind. "Naruto, how did you know these samurai guys were coming here?"

"In the forest, I found a boar that had been attacked. And the trees were all cut up too, like someone was practicing with a sword or something! The cuts led back toward the house, so I followed them here."

"That was really smart!" Inari said.

"Blah blah." The taller thug, Waraji said. "It's one of those little shinobi brats Tazuna hired!"

"Get him!"

With that, the goons charged at Naruto and Inari.

"Th-They're coming!" Inari despaired.

Naruto withdrew two shuriken from his pouch, and threw them at the goons only for them to be deflected.

"Try something else!" Zōri taunted.

Chuckling, Naruto turned around. "I did!"

"I want him, he's mine!" Waraji said, as two more Narutos appeared behind him and his partner. The two Narutos proceeded to kick the goons in the back of the head, knocking them unconcious.

"You did it!" Inari said, excited.

"Yeah!" Naruto said, laughing. "Dattebayo!"

"That was fantastic!" Inari said, laughing as well. "Just like a real shinobi!"

"You little brat," Naruto said, "I am a real shinobi!"

With this exchange, more words popped into being in front of Naruto, while the world bled into shades of gray once again.

Congratulations!

For completing your first encounter, and sparking hope in Inari once more, you were awarded:

250 experience points.

50 Positive Karma.

"Yatta!" Naruto shouted, jumping up and down. "Wait a second, that wasn't my first! What about the Oni Kyōdai, or Zabuza?"

Congratulations!

For your solid reasoning and quick deduction of a fallacy, you were awarded:

1750 experience points.

1 Wisdom attribute point.

"That's better." Naruto grumbled.

Congratulations!

You have leveled up! You are now Level Two! You have received:

5 attribute points.

10 skill points.

1 perk point.

Enter the menu, and select 'Attributes', 'Skills', or 'Perks' to allocate your points however you wish.

"Wahoo, a level! I'll show Sasuke-teme in no time!"

With that, the words faded as the world once again become coloured. As this happened, Naruto's body shot back into the position he was in as the words had appeared. Not due to the rapid, odd movement, Naruto stumbled.

"Naruto-nii, are you alright?" Inari asked, worried.

"Y-Yeah! Just stay here and take care of you mom, okay?

Seeing Inari nod, Naruto rocketed back into the woods, towards the bridge.

As Naruto arrived at the bridge, he was greeted with a somewhat curious sight. Kakashi was fighting Zabuza at the unfinished end of the bridge, Sakura was standing in front of the bridge builder, Tazuna, and Sasuke was nowhere to be seen. Judging from the floating panels that looked to be made of glass, or maybe… Ice? That was probably where he was, along with Zabuza's minion.

Seeing as he couldn't think of anywhere he would be more useful, he chose to dive between the spaces between the floating sheets. As he passed them, he quickly realized that they were, indeed, ice. Glass wouldn't be that cold as he passed by it.

Words appeared again, but this time the world stayed as-is, time passing as it normally would.

Boo You!

You made a reckless decision. You have lost 1 wisdom.

"Dammit!" Naruto shouted.

"What's wrong, dobe? Did you just realize how utterly stupid it was for you to just jump in here like that instead of providing long-range support?" Sasuke asked, a scowl marring his features.

"Yeah, something like… Whoa, Sasuke are you okay?" Naruto responded, noticing the needles sticking out of Sasuke.

"I'm fine, dobe, just mind your own business." Sasuke snarked.

"Well well, isn't this just… Touching. Two friends reunited at last on the field of battle." Came the voice of the hunter nin, as his image appeared in all of the sheets of ice.

'Mirrors, then.' Naruto thought.

"One could even call this poetic, if it wasn't for such a detestable reason."

"What the hell are you talking about, bastard? It's detestable to try and free a country from tyranny?" Naruto shouted, angry at the asshole in the mirrors.

"Death is the trade of the shinobi, and it is a detestable thing to spread. What kind of life do you lead, if you only live to spread more death?" The nin asked rhetorically. "No, it's honourable to try and free this land, but trying to do so will only bring death. Be it mine… Or yours." When he finished speaking, the fake-hunter nin pulled senbon needles out of his sleeves and began firing them at the duo trapped in his technique. It seemed as though all of the images were barraging Naruto and Sasuke.

The Konoha shinobi, on the other hand, were having a hell of a time. They were dodging and deflecting to the best of their ability, though it was all for naught as the masked ninja kept finding a way through their guard, scoring hits all over their bodies.

Sasuke, firing Katon (Fire Release) ninjutsu as often as he could, was finding it slightly easier to track the ninja as he dove between mirrors. Seeing a flicker of robes, he ran through hand-seals and declared "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)!"

With a cry of excitement, he noticed that he had at least singed the masked ninjas kimono.

This cycle went on for a while, continuing to worry the ninja in the mirrors, before Sasuke grabbed the downed Naruto, and jumped away, flawlessly dodging all of the needles thrown at them.

Gently, he set Naruto down before looking up to stare at the masked ninja.

What the ninja saw truly shocked him to the core. Staring at him were two Sharingan eyes. One had a single tomoe floating on a ring of black, lost in a sea of blood red. The other eye had two matching tomoe.

Knowing it was now or never, the masked ninja reprioritized and lunged out of his mirror, intent on attacking Naruto.

Sasuke though, was determined to not let this happen, so he sprinted to get between the ninja and his target.

The end result of this was predictable, really. Sasuke, standing, covered from head to toe in needles. He looked more like a porcupine than a person at that point. Though, in his favour, the masked ninja was down on the ground, suffering from a devastating punch delivered by Sasuke.

"You always… Get in the way, Naruto." Sasuke said weakly. "It never fails."

"Ah, you beat him, Sasuke!" Naruto said excitedly. It was then that he noticed the state Sasuke was in, and realized that it was because Sasuke had protected him.

"You should see the look on your face. You… You look like a total idiot." Sasuke said.

"Wait! Why did you… Save me. Why did you do it?"

"I don't… Know why. I just did. You… I hated you."

"Then why?" Naruto asked. "It doesn't make any sense. Why did you… Protect me?" Seeing Sasuke smirk pissed Naruto off. "I didn't ask for this! I didn't ask for you to save me!"

"I don't know. My body… Just moved. There was no time to think. Dobe."

He then started to fall back, only to be caught by Naruto with a cry of "Sasuke!"

"He… He's still out there. My brother. I promised myself… I'd stay alive… Until I killed him. Naruto, don't let… Your dream die."

And with that, Sasuke Uchiha, the avenger, breathed his last.

A/N: Wow, a second upload in the space of twenty-four hours? Crazy. Looks like I'm on a roll!

And yeah, this will follow cannon pretty closely. That is... Until the end of the Wave Mission! It may diverge from cannon a little bit, but that will be simply because Naruto will change some things with his crazy video game powers, and the fact that he's not going to be too much of a blockhead to realize that Sasuke cares for him (as a friend, this isn't going to be Yaoi you SasuNaru fans).

But just because he's not that much of a blockhead, doesn't mean he'll notice Hinata's feelings for him. This probably won't be a NaruHina story. There is WAY too much of that all over this website, and while it's cute in the manga/show/movies, I'm sick of reading about it here. If anything, my favourite Naruto pairing is NaruIno. It's not as common as some, but more common than things like NarutoxKurotsuchi.

That being said, I hope you enjoyed! It's going to both be a rather typical take on VideoGame!Naruto, and it's going to be a little bit different. I hope I'm going to throw you for a loop, but if not... Shit.

Anyway, follow, favourite, and review at your leisure.

-RahvinsCage