Crazy: well thanks to some advice from a reviewer i've decided to try change my writing style somewhat and i'm not too sure how well it went down.

Hazard: yes, no, maybe. thats how you live. isn't it?

Crazy: you could say that. I'm a bit of a romanticist i'm a bit of a sadist but i don't really care.

Hazard: Well lets do this Crazy doesn't own naruto.

Crazy: please any reviews. I got the most i've ever had for the first chapter for this fic.

Cloak and shadows

Naruto woke to the drip of water. "drip, drip, drip." he slowly dragged himself up. For some reason he didn't have the slightest clue why he remembered lunging then he was here.

There was a good question. "Where am I?" he muttered to himself as pure pain ripped through his chest.

He gripped his cold metal hand against….. "What the…..? He spoke and came to a halt upon setting eyes on his right arm.

In place of the limb he remembered was a silver blue metal arm plated amazingly, like old western civilization ornamental armour. From the outside it'd just look like armour but he could feel how the metal melded with his flesh and the cold power that flowed within it was within him as well. He didn't understand what was going on in the slightest but it scared him near witless. As he drew himself up he felt the power from his arm surge burning him once again. After a few minutes of agonising effort he was on his feet again walking slowly through the place he now resided.

It appeared to be a sewer of some kind, two pipes ran along the roof, one blue and the other red. The pipes had a constant flow in them. As he began to trudge ever so slowly against the flow that was in the pipes. The pain was constant and really, in Naruto's own words, sucked but still he trudged on, bit by bit.

Hours passed for Naruto as he made his way through the sewer, not really thinking just moving so that the pain was bearable. He walked without purpose until he came upon a huge room with a giant barred gate at one end. A web of strange metallic polls ran throughout the room, the floor, roof and walls where the polls protruded was cracked and ruined. Despite sewers normally being in bad condition, this was something else all together. The sound of a pained groan ripped through the chamber. The groan was tremendous and fill of power, almost dead power but power none the less. Naruto had only ever remembered feeling this power twice before. The first time was when he'd fought Haku on the bridge, the power had ripped through him like a monster, the second time was when he'd encountered a pair of sand nin, the power had come from within him both times but as he thought back he remembered when he'd released the energy the second time.

Flashback

The sand nin who looked to be dressed in pyjamas pulled Konahomaru up by the collar. "Watch where your going you brat."

Naruto rounded the corner to see a scene that angered him. After only a moment Sakura rounded the corner behind him ready beat the snot out of him.

"Your gonna pay brat." shouted the P.J. wearing nin drawing his arm back to strike.

Naruto stood at the other end of the alleyway anger growing in him by the second, this in itself was disturbing Naruto because the anger was coming so easily these days. It'd been like this ever since the fight with Haku, anger drawing on his power and drawing on something else, only it wouldn't budge. This time it did but when the power came so did pain, pain like something inside him had broken.

Naruto lashed out like a wild beast and a red aura around him slashed the sand nin's stomach just before his palm made contact toppling the nin. The sand nin dropped Konohomaru before dashing off. A blonde sand konochi stepped back from him in shock as the red aura vanished revealing Naruto as just Naruto. After only moments the konochi had speed off to follow the other ninja.

Naruto stood his breaths ragged and painful. "Boss! That was awesome what is that jutsu?" exclaimed the grandson of the Hokage.

Naruto looked down at Konahomaru. "Konahomaru!" Naruto shouted gaining the boys utmost attention. "You'll never get anywhere if you just try copy me, so find power in your own way."

the boy grinned at him and replied. "Okay it's a promise."

End Flashback

His memory was stopped upon the booming of a voice through the room. "Child listen and listen carefully. My name is Kyuubi often referred to as one of the nine most powerful demons in existence. Sadly for me this is far from the truth because I am not a demon. I am an elemental essence…."

Naruto felt anger boil all throughout him, before him was the reason for all his pain, for all of the hate he'd been given in his life. "what the hell do you want you piece of shit! No stuff this I'm leaving!" he shouted turning to leave. Then he stopped as he heard the elemental essence's response.

"So it's up to you now. I'm going to die and there was nothing I could do to stop it." with these words Naruto turned around to see a massive fox head come into view.

"what do you mean?" he spoke with the utmost delicacy as he watched the fox's head sway. Metal polls were riddled through it. It was a horrid sight before him. Not a mighty being feared by many but a dying. 'person.' he thought as the fox once again set it's vision straight.

"The man who sealed me inside you warned me that since your…no I wont lie, not when I am on my last breaths. He told me that his son would need help to control the power that resided in all of his family. He asked me to when you awaken the dormant part of the power to seal it until you are ready. It was going fine until a few days ago when you drew on a mass of my energies and formed the cloak for the first time. This disruption of my concentration gave the power a chance to strike. It drove me off and wounded me as such. You must master this power or you shall surely die."

the essence's words struck deep inside Naruto but he hadn't yet grasped all of what the Kyuubi had told him. "h-h-how am I-I supposed to control something that you couldn't. I mean your like the most powerful being in existence and I'm just a useless dobe."

The Kyuubi growled before roaring with all of it's might. The walls shook, the polls bent and snapped and Naruto stood through it all. "Don't ever call yourself that again because if you do I'll break out of hell to beat the shit out of you. You are the son of a hero, the son of a ninja queen and you are my vesicle. You are strong enough to hold me and you are strong enough to tame this power. You the son of the ninja queen of Uzu no kuni and the great Yondaime Hokage of Konoha." The words rambled out of the Kyuubi's mouth like water from a tap.

Naruto stood in shock just looking at the Kyuubi. The same shock that had gripped him over the whole conversation.

"y-your saying th-that he's my d-d-d-d-dad." Naruto was to shocked to continue any further.

The Kyuubi nodded letting out a grunt of pain before collapsing. "Naruto before I die I have one gift for you and some advice. The gift is a jutsu, it doesn't need any hand seals, all you need to do form the chakra in your body into a thick wall around your body and form a tight shell of chakra around your body then turn the chakra that's formed thickly around you into an essence like form." Naruto gasped desperately. Just the fact that the being that been his source of pain was dying just like that, it felt wrong.

"But how am I supposed to do that?" Naruto looked up at the Kyuubi and the Kyuubi looked down at him.

"well first you…"and the Kyuubi started to explain how to make the simple change to chakra that allowed it to make contact with the physical easily, this was something that humans simply hand never found out how to do.

Over the next few hours Naruto and Kyuubi talked about many things ranging from history to the power that Naruto would have to learn to control. "the power is something referred to as the 'live metal'. it is literally what it's name say's, the metal is alive, part of your soul has embedded itself in a certain piece of metal. Until you control the power it will continue to consume any metal it comes into contact with. It'll even take metal from living things. But when you do control it you'll be able to shape and mould the metal in an instant. However I have a warning for you. A seal has been placed on your metal, a cursed seal, and the only way to remove it is to venture deep into your own soul and destroy it. Until you do so using the metal could have disastrous consequences. Now I'm almost gone but you need to leave. Your friends are in grave danger. Take the cloak and fight." with these words Kyuubi's form started to disintegrate and through the flames Naruto saw women who looked to be in her mid twenties.

"Naruto you deserve to see my true form. You are pure." came a gentle feminine voice. With one final burst of fire the Kyuubi was gone.

The forest of death

Sasuke faced off against a trio of sound nin, a series of seals wound themselves down from his neck to his right hand. Resting in his right had was a katana. When the seal on his neck had expanded it had formed in his hand. The trio exchanged glances before the leader spoke. "this wasn't supposed to happen. The cursed seal has never done anything like this before."

The second male in the group looked at him before grumbling. "Well we follow orders, kill the target if the seal is a defect. Anyway this guys tough guy act pisses me off." He raised his arms and a second later lunched his attack.

The attack was invisible but somehow it was clear to Sasuke where it was and where it would be. A fluid slash of the katana and as he'd found earlier the sound waves split destroying the ground to either side of him. This made no logical sense as a physical object had so little effect on sound waves it was a waste to try but this katana seemed to split the sound. 'now how do I actually fight them. Sakura is in danger if I move and Naruto's still out cold…'

An explosion sounded as a red shape burst out of no where into the air. Sasuke took the slightest glance to identify the object. His eyes widened slightly as he recognised Naruto. He was still covered in blood, his cloths and hair were dyed red and a red aura hung around him. "Sasuke what you doing. Lets get in there already." he shouted dashing towards the ninja that had just lunched an attack. Without a thought Sasuke dashed at the leader of the group.

The leader of the sound nin raised his arm releasing his sound jutsu. Sasuke was less than a meter from the ninja and with a katana this distance didn't really matter. Then he realised that the sound ninja wasn't actually that strong as he seemed. 'His jutsu makes him seem bigger than he really is.' the jutsu was almost on him and his katana needed more time to reach it's goal. He quickly kicked backwards and continuing his slash he saw the sound around the sword burst away. He had a new goal.

The second male sound ninja aimed and shot at Naruto who was charging head on. The chakra claw around his right hand struck the ground extending and in a fluid movement he poll vaulted over the shot somehow keeping up with the shot. Before the sound ninja could react Naruto's hand surrounded by vicious red energy gripped deadly tight onto the his enemy's right forearm. A loud creak came from the limb, it was surely broken. The sound ninja surprisingly took the pain and aimed his spare arm at Naruto who just in time spun out of the way and slashed with his chakra claw across his enemy's back.

Sasuke saw his gap and in a second had taken it moving forward as fast as possible the katana extended downwards dragging behind him. He watched his enemy raised his hand to release the sound attack. This was just what Sasuke wanted. Arcing his katana up he split both the sound waves and the sound ninja's hand down the middle. With this single strike Sasuke had beaten his enemy and left him with a mutilated hand.

Naruto's chakra claw ripped though the flesh of the sound ninja's back. His aim precise so to stop the severing of the spine. He may have been Naruto's enemy but he still didn't deserve to be crippled for life. The blood turned to steam on contact with the chakra and a burnt scar was all that was left of his strike. Moving in the blink of the eye he stood with his hand gripped on the ninja's surviving arm and in a single movement there came a loud snap throughout the clearing where they resided.

Naruto and Sasuke let their enemy's drop to the ground in pain before dashing towards the konochi, who was too shocked to put up a fight. Naruto having dropped the cloak gripped the girl's wrists and tying them with ninja wire from his pouch. The katana who'd previously been in Sasuke's had was gone along with the seals down his arm.

He drew a kunai from his pouch and placed it gently against the girls throat. "your scroll." he demanded bluntly. The girl nodded towards the leader of the groups pouch.

Sasuke looked at Naruto who nodded and walked off to the leader and ruffled through the pouch before pulling out a scroll. "It's the same." he shouted back pocketing the scroll and walking over to Sasuke.

"Nite night." Sasuke laughed sarcastically before hitting a point on the girls head knocking her out cold.

Sasuke walked over to Sakura, Ino, Lee, Shikamaru and Choji who'd all just gotten up. "Thanks for looking after Sakura while Naruto and I were out." he looked over to Sakura taking note of the change to her hair.

'Well that's good. She's taken another step forward and it looks so much better.' throughout the whole thought he kept his usual scowl.

"lets get going Sakura." he ordered before running up a nearby tree. After a few seconds Sakura was at the top of the next tree and Naruto stood on a tree not far away.

Sasuke took a look at him before noticing the tears streaming down his face and he in turn let go of the mask he wore.

He let out a ragged breath. "it's getting dark lets find a place to rest for the night." Naruto nodded before pointing towards a spot in the woods and leaping down into the trees. Sasuke and sakura followed diligently trusting Naruto for once.

"Sasuke what happened to Naruto? He was crying, it's just not like him." Sakura asked having obviously forgotten something.

"Sakura he's been acting differently a lot since we entered this forest so don't worry about it too much. He'll be okay, he's stronger than you could imagine." Sasuke stopped on a branch before dropping down into small clearing beside a freshwater spring.

Naruto stood not far off from where Sasuke had landed. "Nice job Naruto. Lets set up camp." Sasuke for once complementing the often orange now red grabbed ninja. However Naruto didn't responded at all. Sasuke began walking over to his comrade.

He placed one hand gently on Naruto's shoulder before whispering in his ear. "It's okay Sakura and I are here for you. This is unlike you. I've never seen you break like this. Please tell me what's going on with you?"

Sakura watched somewhat astounded by the scene before her. As long as she'd know her two team mates they had never once offered an open sign of friendship but here today Sasuke had placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder in friendship, leant forwards and whispered something in Naruto's ear. This was amazing with all things in perspective, Sasuke was usually cold and unfriendly but here he was something completely different, here and now he was warm open honest.

Naruto heard Sasuke and felt the raw emotion that his words carried. Then it hit him hard, the truth as always hit hard. He wasn't the only one who'd suffered, Sasuke had lost everyone precious to him and Naruto doubted he'd spoken to anyone about it. This was something, that in Naruto's opinion had to be addressed and he'd have to finally reveal his part in the horrid day remembered not for the heroics of Itachi Uchiha but rather the vile deeds of the sadistic monster that had slipped into the souls of the Uchiha clan. Naruto gulp preparing himself for what was about to come, a battle far more frightening than any he'd faced before, he prepared himself to tell the darkest secret of Konoha.

Crazy: well i do love cliff hangers but it's annoying to the readers isn't it.

Hazard: yes but it's so good for the next chapter.

Crazy: well thats that and thanks for reading.

Hazard: Read & review.