Here's that update you guys have been waiting for! Sorry for taking so long!


'Thinking'

"Talking"

'Demon Talking' =can only be heard inside Naruto's mind

"Demon Talking" =can be heard by everyone

LOUD SOUND / Jutsu


Sunlight flooded into the forest as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky. The trees swayed gently as they basked in the warm light. Small animals chattered and scampered around the foliage as noon quickly approached. It was as if the entire forest had forgotten about the disruption that happened mere hours ago.

The traveling shinobi were getting close to Konoha now. The Wind/Fire border was now long behind them, as they had been traveling through most of the night. Currently, the mostly Leaf nin group was delving deeper into Fire Country. They were moving much slower than before since there had been multiple injuries last night. Kiba had Hinata in a firm grip in his arms, and Kakashi balanced Neji gently over his shoulder. Both were careful not to aggravate their teammates' wounds from last night.

Neji was still in pretty bad shape from the explosion and needed proper medical attention- and fast. Sakura had done her best but he was in need of additional treatment, not to mention some serious recuperation time. Hinata was fairing slightly better than her cousin, though her leg was still seriously injured. Both Hyuugas would definitely be out of commission for a while.

Kakashi, Kiba, Akamaru, Sakura, and Temari were arranged in a loose circle around Shikamaru, similar to yesterday's formation. Naruto was still unconscious, as expected, and it was currently the Nara's turn to carry him.

Everyone was alert and ready, despite having gotten very little sleep. There were barely noticeable dark circles under many eyes. Needless to say, all of the shinobi were relieved since they knew their journey would soon be over.

Kakashi gripped the branch of a tree, propelling himself forward with ease. One arm was around Neji's unconscious form, holding him securely against his shoulder. Kakashi panted with exertion, and along with everyone else, battled exhaustion. Temari drew a hand over her forehead, wiping away beads of sweat. Shikamaru shifted Naruto's body into a more comfortable position, careful to keep his balance as he leapt from tree to tree. Kiba ran a hand through his wild dark brown hair. A quick glance to his left confirmed that Akamaru was loyally keeping by his side.

Suddenly, the nin dog let out a growl. The sound was deep and guttural. Kiba whirled around, eyes wide. His red, fang-like tattoos stood out against his medium skin tone. Everyone's attention was immediately locked onto Akamaru. Kiba looked at his partner in confusion, whispering in concern, "What's wrong, boy?"

The large dog bristled, the fur on the back of his neck standing straight up. With a quick glance towards Kiba, he crouched down low. Seeing as he was about to jump, Kiba yelled, "Wait!"

Akamaru disregarded his master's command and leapt up into the air, becoming a white blur. At the same time, a black flash flew out of a nearby tree, headed directly for the blonde shinobi on Shikamaru's shoulder. Before anyone else could react, Akamaru slammed into the black shape, cutting it off from its original course with a dull thunk. A strangled cry of pain was heard as the two collided. Everyone abruptly got into defensive stances, wondering what just happened. Kiba got ready to run towards Akamaru, but then he stopped. The dust cleared. Akamaru was standing on a tree branch, a man clasped between his enormous jaws. The dog's sixth sense had just alerted them to an attack.

"What just happened?" Sakura asked, not relaxing her fighting stance at all.

Kiba stared at Akamaru in confusion, trying to figure his companion out. "I'm…not sure."

The white dog then opened his jaws, allowing the lifeless body of an enemy shinobi to tumble to the ground. Temari stared at the dead man with wide eyes, her gaze moving over the bloody bite marks on his neck. Akamaru's training had definitely paid off for him to be able to kill a man so quickly and effectively.

Two more ninja instantaneously launched from their concealed spots in the tree branches and flew at the group. Kakashi shrugged Neji off of his shoulder and gently placed him on the ground. He immediately intercepted one of the enemy shinobi, and to his right Sakura did the same.

The jounin, moving in sync, whirled around to face their opponents. The Copy-Nin balled one hand into a fist and struck the man across his face. He then leapt into the air, bringing his right leg around and slamming it into the nin's side. A nasty cracking sound let Kakashi know that he had fractured a couple ribs. Kakashi followed up with a quick blow to the gut and the dismayed man was out cold. The silver-haired jounin wasted no time in finishing him off.

Sakura, with a vengeful gleam in her eye, as if these men were somehow responsible for what happened to Naruto, unleashed her fury on her opponent. She instinctively tightened her glove and gathered some chakra into her fist. With murder in her eyes, the normally cheerful kunoichi charged at the enemy, who surprisingly evaded her strike. The cocky smirk on his face, however, vanished as soon as he saw the kunai that seemed to materialize in the pink medic-nin's hand. Emerald eyes narrowed determination, Sakura twirled the kunai like the experienced kunoichi she was and let the metal weapon fly with just the slightest flick of her wrist. The nameless shinobi died with a distraught look on his face as the kunai embedded itself into his skull.

"Pathetic," Kakashi stated. Temari and Kiba nodded in agreement. Shikamaru, however, had a thoughtful look on his face as he observed the surrounding area with narrowed eyes.

A split second later, a fourth ninja silently jumped out from his concealed hiding spot and snuck up on the group from the opposite side. "Body Restriction Jutsu!" he murmured quietly, directing the immobilizing attack towards the Leaf and Suna shinobi in front of him. A white mist lethargically seeped into the air and began to swirl towards the group of ninja. The pale vapor descended onto each person, curling delicately around their body. Unseen to all but the user, the mist turned black after coming in contact with a person, and then completely vanished from sight.

Shikamaru's eyes widened as he discovered his inability to move, or even talk. He desperately tried to turn around, but other than slight twitches and the minuscule widening of his eyes, he couldn't really do much. Kakashi, Temari, Kiba, Shikamaru, and Sakura all stiffened at the same time as they sensed the fourth presence and discovered that they couldn't even turn their heads. Akamaru's ears twitched as he bared his teeth, ferociously growling and snarling like a caged beast.

Grinning nastily, the deadlier enemy gripped a kunai in his hand, fingering the dark metal as he sprinted towards Naruto's unconscious form. The other three men in his group had been mere decoys, collateral damage for the cause. He, however, had been the real threat. His grin widened as he lunged for Naruto's throat, kunai raised. The blonde was still held on Shikamaru's shoulder, eyes closed in his medically induced sleep. 'This is it,' the hired nin thought, 'They'll award me greatly for killing you.'

Temari desperately struggled against the jutsu, trying to move but knowing she wouldn't be able to get to Naruto in time. Kakashi's one visible eye widened in horror as he saw the kunai in the nin's outstretched hand getting closer and closer to his student's body. 'No, NO! Not again….'

Kiba's vocal chords strained as he attempted to yell, but no sound came out. Tears of frustration leaked out of the corners of Sakura's eyes. Shikamaru just stood there, his expression one of horror and disbelief as he found himself completely helpless. The Nara trembled as he calculated the only possible outcome of this situation.

But then the unexpected happened.

A pulse of chakra suddenly burned greedily through the air, like a forest fire devouring countless trees. Naruto's eyes flashed open. The attacker's kunai was barely a foot from Naruto's head when it froze. The blonde's hand had shot out and latched onto the man's throat, causing him to stop in his path. Sakura gasped. Naruto was awake!

'Welcome back, kit,' a certain voice said from within the jinchuuriki's consciousness. Naruto noted idly that Kyuubi had returned to the cage within his mindscape, probably drawn back by the current influx of demonic chakra. Kyuubi didn't really need to be inside of Naruto for him to be able to access the fox's chakra, but using it sometimes canceled out the soul transfer. Naruto's thoughts, however, were still on the man who had just attempted to kill him.

The jinchuuriki's blonde bangs hung over his eyes, obscuring his face from view. The man made strangled gurgling sounds as he was lifted off of his feet. Suddenly, Naruto's head whipped up, revealing his hellish eyes. The man gasped, all confidence gone from his face. His cocky smirk vanished as it was replaced with an expression of horror and he began to tremble, eyes wide with fear. Naruto's orbs were a bloody red, with long, black slitted pupils. Anger and hate swirled within their fiery depths, like an endless pool of fury. He was looking into the eyes of a demon.

Naruto bared his teeth inhumanely and tightened his grip around the man's throat. His body was still bent over Shikamaru's shoulder, and the rest of his limbs appeared relatively limp. The attacker-turned-victim clawed fruitlessly at Naruto's hold, getting nowhere despite his struggling. The iron grip was unbreakable.

"Who. Sent. You?" Naruto asked, venom coating every single word. 'So what if I already know? I still have to play the part… though I really thought Hidan would have picked stronger mercenary nins….'

The shinobi's face, which had turned eerily pale, began to take on a shade of blue. "A…Aka…Akatsu-ki," he choked out.

Once he was sure that everyone had heard who sent the man, Naruto's glare intensified and he increased the pressure on the man's windpipe.

'It's a pity that yet another has to die, while he isn't even one that you truly want to kill,' Kyuubi muttered.

Naruto mentally raised an eyebrow at the fox's philosophical words and unusual lack of bloodlust. 'I'll get to them soon enough. Well, I might as well end this quickly, Kyuubi.'

With one swift movement, Naruto tightened his hand with crushing force. Before anyone realized what had happened, the man's neck was broken. He was immediately released and fell to the ground with a thump. The second the body hit the ground, all of the shinobi were released from the restraining jutsu.

As this happened, Naruto leapt away from Shikamaru and landed lightly on the ground in a crouching position.

"Naruto…" Sakura's voice trailed off.

"H-how is he awake? Sakura, I-I thought you said we'd have at least two more days!" Kiba spluttered.

"I-I don't know. This s-shouldn't be possible."

Temari stepped towards Naruto but Kakashi placed a hand on her shoulder, restraining the willful kunoichi. She looked sharply back at the Leaf jounin.

"We don't know how stable Naruto is, considering how he reacted yesterday to our presence. We also don't know how much the Kyuubi is affecting him, if yesterday was anything to go by. You may still be considered an ally in his book, but I…I don't know if we can say the same for us," 'yet,' Kakashi spoke quietly, his voicing growing pained around the end.

Shikamaru just stared at the unpredictable blonde. 'It's amazing that regardless of how many years have passed, Naruto is still someone that you just can't factor into a situation without being proved wrong. How troublesome.'

Naruto was still crouched down, eyes lowered to the ground and hidden from view. All of the watching nins tensed and prepared for what they figured was an unavoidable battle. Their eyes studied Naruto's every movement, watching as he looked to be trembling, but was actually conversing with Kyuubi.

'What did I miss while I was out, Kyuubi?' he was asking.

'Not a lot, kit. Deidara made his feigned attempt to 'capture' you last night…gave those Leaf shinobi one hell of a scare. Those two, Neji Hyuuga and Hinata Hyuuga, were injured the worst and are being brought back for medical treatment. And then a couple minutes ago, those four shinobi attacked. Too bad they didn't know their mission was a guaranteed failure and definite suicide. Humans are way too easy to manipulate, kit,' the demon lord muttered, rolling his eyes at the end of his statement.

Naruto smirked inwardly. 'Agreed. Even the Konoha shinobi have no idea what they've gotten themselves into. Well I guess I'd better get back to being the most unpredictable ninja.'

The blonde jinchuuriki abruptly stood up, startling everyone out of their thoughts. He glanced around, surveying the area around him. Naruto's gaze paused on each dead nin, including the one at his feet, until he looked up to see the Leaf/Suna nins watching him carefully. As his eyes came to rest on them, they could see that his orbs were, shockingly, a beautiful blue as he met everyone's eyes. The Kyuubi's chakra seemed to have disappeared.

The jinchuuriki himself was the first to break the eerie silence, with a basic question. "Where am I?"

Kakashi pushed his questions aside and answered him. "Um, past the Wind and Fire border, in Fire country, relatively close to Konoha."

"I see," was the only reply he got.

It was silent for a few more minutes while everyone pondered his words. Kiba, predictably, was the one to speak. "So, you're not going to... attack?" he asked dumbly, unsure of what to make of Naruto's answer.

"No." They all just stared at Naruto. And then he asked a question that completely threw them off. "Would I be safe in Konoha?"

Kakashi's eye widened. 'Does this mean he's actually considering it?' Everyone else was thinking along the same lines. But what could have brought this drastic change of attitude towards the Leaf?

Sakura was the one to answer him. "Of course, Naruto, you'll be safe there. Tsunade-sama wants you back and none of the villagers would dare to defy her," she cringed mentally when she forced herself to drop the -kun suffix, as that would probably just annoy Naruto.

But the blonde's attitude darkened upon hearing those words. "I don't even want to hear that traitor Hokage's name again! She's the one who banished me in the first place, so she might as well be dead as far as I'm concerned" Naruto spat venomously.

Sakura gasped. "Naruto don't say that! We already tried to tell you- it was the council that banished you! Lady Tsunade was at a meeting in Suna and had no hand in it!"

Kakashi carefully gauged his ex-student's reaction at those words. Naruto narrowed his eyes and hissed, "Don't you dare try to lie to me. There is nothing you can do to fix the past. The moment I was exiled, I lost all allegance to Konoha. Don't think I'll happily skip back to the village just because your Hokage says so. Maybe she should have figured that out before she banished me in the first place."

"I'm not lieing!" was all the pink-haired kunoichi could yell. Temari quickly glanced at the medic-nin. She hadn't ever seen Sakura this upset.

"Shut up!" Naruto snarled. 'Do they really think that lieing is going to get me back there? It's a good thing I'm genuinely pissed or it would be so much harder to hold up this act.' Kyuubi growled angrily in reply at the Leaf nin's behavior. He had seen what Konoha had done to his kit, and they were going to pay for it. 'Don't worry, kit, you're doing great. Besides, the angrier you seem, the less they'll want to pester you. Remember, you ARE their mission goal.'

It was at that moment that Kakashi started talking. "Naruto, think this through. Why would Tsunade-sama banish you? What reason could she possible have?" the copy-nin tried to be reassuring and gentle, but the effect was lost on the blonde man.

"I don't know and I don't care! Listen, I. Don't. Care. However, I have made my decision. I am coming back to Konoha with you, but make no mistake. I despise that village with all of my heart, but I'd rather be in it than have the bijuu sucked out of me and die. The only thing I regret is not getting out of their sooner. Sasuke, you lucky bastard...." Naruto muttered the end in as an afterthought, but it was overheard by everyone. Sakura gasped and a hand flew to her mouth. Kakashi's eye widened again, and beneath his mask he grimaced. 'What did I do for my students to turn out like this?' Shikamaru was shaken and looked around sadly. Akamaru bristled and Kiba looked outraged. Temari walked over to the Inuzuka in an effort to calm him down so that he didn't carelessly start a fight.

"But you're coming back?" Kakashi clarified, unable to keep the tremor out of his voice.

"Yes. But not if there was any other way around it. I will NEVER consider myself to be part of Konoha and am only there for one reason and one reason only: to escape Akatsuki. That doesn't mean I have to enjoy myself there, so don't think that I'd even consider rejoining that village," he spat the word. "They hated me when I was young and beat me, and now I will return the favor. Unlike when I was younger, however, I will not fail to kill anyone who tries to hurt me.

The Leaf shinobi flinched at his harsh words, missing the happy genin he used to be, but nodded regardless. They were shaken up after realizing the true extent of his hatred for the place. Kakashi closed his eyes momentarily as he recalled his failure as a sensei to this man. He had been too consumed by the Uchiha's training to even notice that something was wrong, much less do anything about it. Was it his fault that Naruto had turned out like this?

Before anyone could say anything else, Naruto had turned his back to them. He took a few shakey breaths in order to appear to be trying to calm himself down. Naruto then took a step towards what he knew was the way to Konoha. These woods were still familiar to him from when he had to run and hide from the villagers. Naruto suddenly glanced back at the frozen shinobi, and said "Are you just going to stand there all day, or what?"

That snapped everyone out of their daze. Kyuubi chuckled at their startled expressions. Shikamaru knelt down and picked up Neji, while Sakura did the same for Hinata. The nins all formed a circle with Naruto as the center and started towards Konoha. At first everyone went relatively slowly, testing out the best speed for the group now that Naruto was awake. However, everyone sped up quickly after seeing the jinchuuriki's fast pace. Soon they were leaping from tree to tree faster than the eye could track. The only hints that gave away their presence were the occasional footprints that were left in the mud, and the rustling leaves of the trees where they had brushed them.

Everyone had fallen into a good rhythm within the first ten minutes. Sakura desperately wanted to talk to Naruto, but knew he'd never believe her, no matter what was said. Kiba wondered what had happened to his friend to make him like this, and desperately wanted to beat some sense into the guy. Temari pictured the happy man Naruto had been back in Suna, and compared him to this different, angrier one, finding very few similarities. She knew he had been exiled, but just how deeply had that betrayal cut him? Not to mention that she didn't know what to believe- was it really the council that had banished him, or was it actually the Godaime all along?

Before they knew it, an hour had passed, and then another one. Naruto pretended to be oblivious to the many 'discreet' glances thrown his way more often than strictly necessary.

Suddenly, the group of shinobi all stopped at the same time. No signals were needed, nothing. It was as if some kind of telepathic command had been given to them. Everyone knew they had arrived, and that Konoha was only a minor distance away. They also knew that Naruto probably wanted a moment to gather his thoughts. Slowly lifting his head, Naruto dared to take a look at what was ahead. His eyes, lacking any emotion, took in the tall, strong gates that were now visible, the ones that sheltered the village he hated so much. The village that beat and tortured him when he was too young to do anything about it. The village that attacked him when he was too stubborn to share his burdon . The village that robbed him of his childhood.

The village he would burn in a heartbeat if it had been an option.

Those massive gates were the only thing that kept him separate from that disgusting place. In his eyes, those gates were evil, laced with hatred and pain and betrayal. Sighing, Naruto resigned himself to his fate, and tried to accept Kyuubi's version of a comforting embrace. If his plan was to go through, then he had to go in there and complete that part of the mission. But those thoughts didn't seem to mean as much as they should have when he was standing right before the place that was the sole cause of his pain. He had to dampen the strong bloodthirst that threatened to overtake him, the need to kill everyone who wronged him and revel in their blood.

The gates of Konoha contained horrible people, people who were the true definition of evil, people who should have been killed a long time ago. And yet within these gates, they were protected, some even held in high esteem. But, they were no missing nins. They were the villagers and 'trusted' shinobi of the Leaf. Naruto knew not to overlook people just because they were 'harmless' civillians- harmless civillians my ass- they were the true demons!

Naruto watched, eyes devoid of emotion, as those same barriers that held everything back began to move, the strip of light between them growing and expanding. They moved lethargically, almost as if they wanted to prolong his pain and torture. And as the gates of Konoha slowly parted, in Naruto's eyes, they could have been the gates of Hell.

Finally, Chapter 10 is DONE. I know it's not my best work, I've been kind of out of it lately. You'd think that I'd get more done than usual since it's spring break, but apparently that's not the case. I didn't expect it to take this long either- it took me a while to actually figure out how I was going to make things work in this chapter.

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Oh, and any suggestions you have for the rest of my story would be GREATLY appreciated (I love it when readers give their input!). So if anyone has ideas as to how meeting everyone in Konoha again will go for Naruto, or for future events in the story, please feel free to either message me or add them in your review. Yes, I know that some of you doubt it, but I actually do read every single review. You don't know how happy it makes me feel when I know that people actually like my story and are eager for me to update =)