Naruto moved silently through Point Prometheus where he had managed to follow the men who had kidnapped Eleanor. Knowing this to have been a subsidiary to Fontaine Futuristics before Fontaine's death, he feared for her safety. Trying to go unnoticed, he peered into a door, seeing researchers moving through the halls with armed guards following them.

His blood turned cold as he heard a breath behind him. Spinning around, he looked up in time to see the butt of a gun coming down at him.

His mind was hazy at best as he came to, barely able to open his eyes. It felt like hours or days had past, and he was unable to tell which. He could feel the tight restraints on his arms and legs, keeping him immobil. His mind was in a fog, feeling tired, drugged.

"Hey!" someone yelled out. "He followed, he saw faces. I don't care if he's a kid. Who knows what he saw. We have our orders. Get rid of him."

"Alright, how?"

"Put him through the process. We have plenty of extra slugs. Survival rate for a kid like him's gonna be low. If he does survive, then we can still put a bullet in him. Either way, we can harvest the extra ADAM for ourselves."

And then it was all dark again. Indescribable pain engulfed his body, turning everything red. It felt like he was being ripped apart. like his body was being burned, frozen, shattered, shredded, broken. It was too many different cascading sufferings to count or name.

And through the darkness and Hell, came a voice.

"Kid! Kid! Stop panicking you useless little shit!"

And the pain was dulled, not gone, but heavily muffled. He was standing in a flooded industrial looking basement. He looked up with clouded eyes, the pain dulling him. But his mind became sharp in here at this moment.

"I wondered when you would talk to me, fox." Naruto scrutinized the beast behind the bars.

"Cut the shit, we both have an interest in working together. You're dying, your body is rejecting your own genetic code. It's burning itself from the inside. I have an interest in keeping you alive."

"Why would that be?" Naruto was suspicious.

"Let alone for now that we are not in our world, I do not know what will happen if my form is dispersed on the bottom of the ocean. Even if I am simply unsealed here, the city will be destroyed and the ocean will crush me. I don't know what will happen, so I have an interest in staying right where I am."

"So you have a way of keeping me alive?"

"Yes. Normally I could flood your body with chakra and heal you quickly, but your body is ripping itself apart too quickly and continuously for that to work, and the seal restrains me too much to keep up, despite how powerful that burst would be."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I already tried. It's the only reason you're still alive now. The normal and gradual healing isn't enough. I need more freedom."

"What do you want?"

"I want to survive. Take the seal on the bars and rip it in half." The fox saw the mistrust instantly. "I already told you, this is for mutual survival. If you don't, you die anyways. Look behind you."

Naruto turned around, seeing his mindscape collapsing, electricity urging over the walls, scorching everything before it fell in on itself.

"Keep the piece in your pocket, your mental inventory if you will. It will keep me contained and keep you protected while also giving me the freedom I will need to save us both. Hurry!"

Naruto was reluctant, but either way he was dead. He leapt up, grabbing the bars. He braced as a massive claw came towards him, but felt the strain on his arms lessen as the claw was giving him a place to stand.

He didn't say anything, gabbing a corner of the paper and ripping it in half down the middle from top to bottom.

And everything went white.

Naruto woke up groggily, his vision blurry as he came to. He blinked and squinted, trying to see. As his sight cleared, he found himself in a ventilation duct.

"Where am I?" Naruto shook his head, groaning in pain as his head hit the wall.

"I couldn't do much since the seal still has many restraints, but since my full body is inside the seal, I was able to take over long enough to get us out of that facility and into the ventilation system. It's a good thing your father wasn't able to split me in half before sealing me."

"And how do I get out of here?"

"I don't know. I was only really able to put your body in a 'controlled' frenzy. It was a mad dash for as far away from those people as possible. But I believe we are in the air system between Point Prometheus and Asgard Station."

"Shit. And Eleanor?"

"What did I just say to you kid? She's gone. Whatever they did to her, you have no way to find her now."

"Then give me more of your power. I'll go back there and rip them apart until I find her." Naruto tried to move, grabbing his ribs in pain.

"You will still be suffering the aftereffects for a while now, not just from residual pain, but also from how quickly your body was ripped apart and stitched back together. You're fully healed, but you will be in pain for quite some time. Get home, far away as that already is, and take care of yourself and me before you worry about some other child."

Kushina stormed into Ryan's office, fire in her eyes that Ryan had only seen a few times before. It set him on edge, but he was more nervous about what could have put her in this state than he was afraid.

She grabbed one of the guards that were trying to stop her and threw him into a wall.

"Ryan! I stood by you through a lot of things, even being understanding when you kept creating Little Sisters. I know that sometimes horrible things are necessary. But kidnapping girls, not just using orphans?!"

Kushina threw a chair out of her way as she got closer.

"And almost killing my son?!" She nearly screamed as she grabbed the corner of his desk and threw it as well, finally putting a great deal of fear in Ryan through her words as she picked him up and pinned him to the wall.

Ryan looked at her with that fear as well as some confusion. "What are you talking about Kushina?"

"Your people kidnapped a girl from Pauper's Drop! My son followed them in an attempt to rescue her, making it all the way to Point Prometheus where he was nearly killed!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I gave no order for a girl to be kidnapped, let alone for your son to be anywhere near those operations. Trust me when I say that I will find the people responsible and bring them directly to you. I am grateful for your loyalty during these years, don't think I'm not."

Kushina continued to glare at Ryan, putting him down. "Do you know how they almost killed him? They put one of those things inside him. They put one of those fucking ADAM slugs inside of him!"

Ryan became enraged himself at hearing this. He had ordered his people to kill anyone who intruded in Point Prometheus, that much could be understood, but doing that to a child with the intent to kill them? It served no purpose. It was unacceptable.

"I'll bring them to you on their knees. You can kill them if you want, but if you don't, I promise you that I will."

December, 1960

Naruto stood there, looking in the mirror. His mother had gone to talk to Ryan, so he was alone. It was good. He wanted to be alone in this moment. It had taken him nearly two days to return home, his mother having panicked as she searched for him.

He heated how weak he was, unable to save Eleanor, unable to reveal his abilities. He was glad to be alone, knowing how much his mother would feel about what he was about to do. Looking at the assortment of Plasmids and Gene Tonics in front of him, he picked one up and examined it.

Looking back at himself, he watched the small light that seemed to emanate and pulse from his belly. Knowing now that his shinobi training wasn't enough, that all of it couldn't be revealed to this world, he fortified himself in what we would do.

Grabbing the hypo, he filled it with one of the Plasmids and stabbed it into his arm. His hands trembled as he injected the substance. Pain surged through his body, the edges of his vision becoming white. He clenched his fists, drawing blood as his nails dug into his palms. Despite the pain, he stood strong, withstanding the familiar sensation of his body being changed from the inside. A pain that was nothing compared to what he felt before.\

It took a moment to really feel the effects as his body began to tremble before his skin was covered in a layer of ice, his fist clenching as spikes of frost grew from his hand. He exhaled a heavy breath, the air showing that breath as it got near his hand.

He had heard of the ice using shinobi of his world, those with such Kekkei Genkai. And now, with the press of a needle, he had a similar power. He smirked into the mirror. He was going to fix the mistakes he had made.

He looked to the other tonics and knew just how he was going to do that.