DISCLAIMER : I DON'T OWN NARUTO. I ONLY OWN MY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS...

AUTHOR'S NOTE : THANKS FOR ALL YOUR REVIEWS. I WILL TRY TO MAKE MY STORY LONGER AND MORE INTERESTING, SO PLEASE STAY TUNED...

THE JOURNEY OF A YOUNG WARRIOR

MEETING THE LEADER

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

- LANGSTON HUGHES

NOW ON WITH THE STORY...

The morning sun had risen to wash away the darkness. Narutowas led out of the forest and into an open valley. He now had a much better view of the land. In the direction they were heading, East, Naruto could see the valley end at a small village about five miles away where the tree line picked up again, wrapping itself around the valley. While Naruto did not see any major elevation changes to the North, he did see massive snow capped mountains rise from the South and East.

They now started to pass some of the farms located on the outskirts of the village. The village itself was tucked in at the end of the valley with the hills on either side. It was not long before they entered the village. The houses were built about a foot or two off the ground, Naruto assumed that this was in case of any flooding in the valley. The walls of the houses were made of wood planks, the roof made mostly of straw. Pillars, about the thickness of a tree trunk, supported the outer edges of the roof. The larger buildings were similar but had their roofs made up of wood and were more elaborate. The architecture definitely looked like something out of the dark ages, perhaps almost close to ancient Nordic.

Despite everything Naruto had gone through in the past twenty four hours, the biggest shock came when he saw the residents of the village. While some were half human and half wolf-like, the majority looked like full wolves. They stood on two legs, crooked backwards like the hind legs of a dog and had five fingers on each hand with claws for tearing flesh. Many stood well over six or seven feet tall. Even more startling, their heads looked exactly like that of a wolf, which Midori told were Lycans.

Naruto noticed that the half-lycans seemed to stay isolated in their homes, only peeking out to see the stranger walking down their streets. It seemed that half-lycans were second class citizens. The full lycans however were dressed in much nicer clothing and proudly roamed the streets. But once Naruto had entered the village, all activity stopped. Those in the streets moved out of the way to let them through before turning their gaze to Naruto and Midori. While some had an initial look of curiosity, that quickly changed to hatred. Naruto heard manly low growls in quickly gathering crowd.

"Filthy human!" one of the male lycans growled next to Naruto.

'Holy crap, it talks!' Naruto turned to look at the lycan, his head was lowered and claws extended, desperately wanting to tear Naruto to shreds. Naruto lowered his head and brows, he clinched his jaw in an attempt to stare down the lycan. Naruto and the offended lycan made direct eye contact with each other, neither wanting to back down. He then went ahead.

They finally approached a large, elaborate building near the center of town. Naruto could only assume that it was the town hall. The building was at least two stories with carved wooden wolf heads extending from the roof. Several stone steps led to a pair of large doors. However, Midori and Naruto did not have to go inside because it seemed that their arrival was expected. This seemed to even surprise Midori as she saw three male lycans step out of the town hall and approach them.

The lycan on the left had brown fur and wore black plated armor over a red robe. Since the outfit looked more ceremonial than practical, Naruto assumed that this was a palace guard. The lycan on the right was the exact opposite, he had black fur and wore black steel armor over chain-mail. He was battle ready, and not just by his outfit. Like almost all the other lycans in the village, he looked at Naruto with hatred and malice. The scars that were visible through the fur showed that he had been in many fights. Naruto's gaze then turned to the lycan at the center. He was clearly older than the others and had a thick coat of white, almost grey fur. He wore an elaborate white robe with red and gold lines that twisted and crisscrossed like vines. Unlike the others, he did not look ready to kill Naruto, instead he looked at Naruto with intrigue.

The black lycan scoffed, "Why did you bother bringing this beast before us? If you had any brains in that tiny head of yours, you would have killed him. I guess you are also growing a soft spot for humans."

"Hold your tongue Ulfric or I'll rip it out," the white lycan growled, "You may consider yourself our best warrior, but I'm still leader of this village. I had instructed my Sons to return any foreigners they found to me alive."

Ulfric backed down and looked away in frustration.

"My name is Radulf, you are in the village of Wolfdell," said the white lycan. "Now, who are you?"

"Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze, a shinobi of Konohagakure No Sato. And this young lady here is Midori, a friend of mine." Naruto decided to give honest and direct answers.

Radulf raised an eyebrow, "And where exactly is this Konohagakure No Sato?"

"In relation to here?" Naruto replied with a laugh, "I sure as hell wish I knew."

"So how did you even get here?" Radulf asked, looking even more curious.

Naruto shook his head, "Again, I have no idea. One moment I was in my world, I was knocked unconscious and then I found myself here," lied Naruto with a straight face.

Radulf's eyes widened in intrigue, 'what did he mean by his world? Did he simply mean some other far away land? No, he had to be from someplace that did not exist in this realm.' Everything about these humans was strange, their clothes, their weapons and the way they showed little fear around the other lycans. This certainly could not be the warrior the prophecy spoke of, could it? How could someone who was not from this world and had no reason to fight for this world save it? But he simply could not disregard this man, there was still a chance he could be the one. He would need to send Naruto to the Lady of the Mountain to confirm it.

"So you truly are a foreigner," Radulf said with a smile.

"Father," a lycan interjected, "These people have trespassed in our territory, they must be punished."

A wicked smile appeared on Ulfric's face, "Your son is right, I say we hang him from a tree at the edge of our lands and tear him open. He can serve as a warning to the neighboring human villages. And the girl looks young. We can use her as our pleasure slave."

"No!" shouted Radulf, looking back at Ulfrick, "What exactly do you think that will accomplish? I am not looking to start a war with the humans."

"But father!" shouted his Son with frustration. Radulf raised his hand, cutting him off.

Naruto knew something was up, but could not figure out what it was. While the rest of the village would certainly love to tear him to shreds, the very leader of the village was insisting that Naruto remain alive. He was surely not the first human that Radulf had come across, so why was he worth protecting? Naruto could tell that Ulfric and Lydia(Radulf's Son) could not understand either. Radulf knew something that the others did not know about or refused to believe. As Naruto was thinking about his current situation, a flock of birds caught his attention except that something about them did not seem right.

"Get down!" Naruto yelled at Radulf.

The lycan ducked giving Naruto a clear view of the bat like creature that was swooping down for Radulf's head with claws extended. With a loud bang, Naruto fired a single shot of FINGER SPIRALING SPHERES. The hideous creature let out a high pitched scream as it fell to the ground. Naruto looked at the creature he just killed. It was the size of a large bird, like an eagle. It's skin was a dark, blood red. Two sunken black orbs made up it's eyes. Despite it's size, it had long razor sharp claws that could easily tear through any hide.

"An imp!" Ulfric said as he gave the creature's corpse a slight kick, making sure it was dead.

The group looked up to see a dozen more imps swoop down into the town square and start attacking the citizens of Wolfdell. Rollo, Ulfric and Lydia unsheathed their swords, the villagers started screaming. Rollo attempted to get Radulf to safety while Ulfric and Lydia split up to fight. Naruto entered the fight too. Almost immediately, an imp made a beeline directly for Naruto. Naruto smiled. The loud, ear-splitting shots from his FINGER SPIRALING SPHERES seemed to draw more imps to him. Another imp made an attempt to dive-bomb him on his left. Naruto quickly turned, and fired his AMATERASU. Midori also killed many imps using her Fire Whips.

Lydia and Ulfric had each managed to hack and slash their way through a couple more imps. Rollo managed to score a kill too while protecting Radulf. Lydia swung his katana, slicing another imp in half, blood spraying into the air. He looked over at Naruto with amazement, not only was he fighting alongside them but he would also place himself between the imps and other lycans when needed. Naruto turned toward Lydia to see him staring at him. Another imp approached from behind him, Naruto threw shurikens aiming at the beast. Lydia could hear the sharp crack as the shurikens passed right by his head at supersonic speed followed by the high pitched screech of the imp behind him getting shot down.

Naruto could now only see a few imps remaining. He then heard the sound of a child screaming. Naruto looked over to see a small lycan girl face first on the ground with an imp on her back, clawing at her back and head. Her arms were flailing, attempting to get the creature off of her as she screamed in terror. Naruto quickly used Hiraishin to get to the girl. When he reached the girl, he grabbed the imp at the base of it's wings, pulled it off the child and threw the creature to his side. Just as the creature tried to get up and fly away, Naruto turned and killed the creature using his senbons.

"Are you OK?" Naruto asked the child, helping her to her feet.

She nodded but John could see several deep gashes on her back. Naruto helped her into a nearby building where other lycans were taking shelter. Naruto then saw Lydia, Ulfric and Rollo sheath their swords indicating that all the imps had been killed. He sighed in relief and ordered Midori to follow him to the leader.

Radulf looked at Naruto and Midori and thanked them for their help. "You both have helped us defeat the imps despite what we did to you. So please forgive us and accept apology for the problems you both faced due to us."

"It was our pleasure to help you." replied Naruto happily.

"You are very polite young man. Now you would be feeling very tired. So please accept our hospitality and rest for the day in our guest houses. Rollo please take them to the River Port and provide them with the gift we give to our helpers and help them in any way possible."

"By gift are you meaning them?" asked a surprised Rollo.

"Yes Rollo, by gift I mean them. Now take them to their living quarters and no more further questions."

"Yes Leader. You both now follow me." spoke Rollo in an angry voice.

'Now it is getting interesting." thought Naruto as he and Midori followed Naruto.

IN THE LIVING QUARTERS :

Naruto sat in the bed and looked at his cute slave who had her eyes downcast for some reasons and looked a little bit puzzled.

"What happened Midori? Do you want to ask something?"

"My master, its just that why didn't you display your true strength at the battle?" chirped Midori shyly.

"Its because if I had used even 5% of my original strength, I could have destroyed the entire village and everyone would have been killed. So I had to only use 0.5% of my original. Now tell me the truth. Tell me the true reason you were unhappy and don't try to lie to me. I hate liars." Naruto replied sternly.

Midori quickly bowed deep, her head touching the ground and replied fearfully, "My master please forgive this slave for her insolence. This will not happen again. Please forgive me Master. Please don't cast me aside."

"No need to fear me Midori. Just speak your mind now, Okay?..."

"Thank You master for being so forgiving. I was just wondering why haven't you taken me yet? Am I not beautiful master? Have I done something to displease you master?" Midori spoke shyly and fearfully and again looked to the ground in shame. "Sorry master if I was out of line in speaking with you."

"No Midori you have done nothing wrong." spoke Naruto and then thought about the meaning behind her sentence and then the words hit him.

"...taken me yet.." Naruto then passed out having a huge nose bleed.

Midori looked at the passed out Naruto and blushed and then slept beside him, hugging him tightly.

AUTHOR'S NOTE - AND... THE SECOND CHAPTER IS UP. SO, HOW IS IT? PLEASE REVIEW. YOUR REVIEWS HAVE HELPED ME A LOT AND WILL HELP ME AHEAD IN THE FUTURE. SO PLEASE REVIEW AND CORRECT MY MISTAKES.

THANKING YOU...

I WILL TRY TO WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER QUICKLY, SO PLEASE STAY TUNED...BYE BYE...

So I am asking you guys, which anime characters can be added in this fic?

To give your choice, tell me in the following format -

NAME OF ANIME -

NAME OF CHARACTER(S) -

NAME OF HAREM GIRLS -

ANY VILLAIN THAT CAN BE ADDED -