"You don't have to do this you know," said Sasuke as he watched Naruto pack his bags.

"Of course I do," said Naruto, "I will do anything to protect the village I love."

"But we could find a different way to get the scroll," Sasuke tried.

"This is the best way to do it. It's the only way that we can get in without being detected."

"But there has to be another way."

"Sasuke," Naruto turned to Sasuke with his piercing gaze, "let it go. This mission has already been planned out and I've already decided to play my part in it so the only thing that you can do is help me at the end."

"But Naruto."

"No Sasuke," said Naruto. "I need you to support me in this. Please."

"Fine," sighed Sasuke. "Just promise me that you'll be careful."

"Of course I will Sasuke," Naruto said as he slung his bag over his shoulder. He grabbed the fake scroll that he was supposed to be taking to the village hidden in the sand and placed it into his knapsack. "I will be fine Sasuke."

Sasuke watched as Naruto walked out the door. The last thing he wanted to do was to let Naruto go straight into the clutches of the Akatsuki, but he knew that he could never convince Naruto not to do it so he watched with concern as he let Naruto out of his sight for the first time since he returned to the village.

Naruto walked slowly through the forest. He wasn't supposed to be in much of a hurry and the course that was chosen for him was supposed to be the quickest one. He knew his course by heart, but he didn't know where he was supposed to run into the Akatsuki. Itachi wanted that to be a surprise so that it didn't seem planned out. Naruto hated being kept in the dark. It made him giddy.

He readjusted the strap on his shoulder once more as he walked when something caught his attention. There was some chakra signatures in the background that he recognized to be Akatsuki. His back stiffened as three men dropped down and surrounded him.

"Well if it isn't a little fox out here all alone," said one of them.

"Well that just makes it easier for us," said another.

"What do you want from me?" asked Naruto as he reached into his knapsack and gripped the fake scroll.

"Oh don't worry," said the third, "we don't want that thing."

"Then what do you want?" asked Naruto.

"We want you," said Itachi as he walked out of the tree line behind him.

Naruto spun to face him directly and was met with the mangekyou sharingan.

Naruto woke up in the middle of the forest with his hands chained above him in the tree branches. It only took him a few moments to realize that he was stuck in his nightmare which was made even worse because of the Mangekyou Sharingan. He struggled to break free from the chains, but it was fruitless. He had to at least try to get away from here because he knew what would happen next and he didn't want to have to experience it again.

His friends arrived within seconds and he wanted to scream at them to leave before they got hurt, but his voice wasn't cooperating with him. When they saw him they immidiately tried to come to his rescue, but they were attacked by himself. He had to watch as his own self fought with his friends. Slowly killing them one by one. Ino was the first to fall and then Sakura and then all the rest died one by one until there was only Sasuke left. Sasuke fought with all his strength, but with one well place attack he fell to the ground, still alive but unable to move.

"I guess you can't protect me after all," said the evil Naruto. "It seems that you'll just die if you do." He forced Naruto's white sword slowly into Sasuke's stomach so that he would bleed out painfully.

Naruto screamed as his evil self killed his only love. His voice stil remained silent even as his throat grew sore. The evil Naruto laughed as he looked around at the bodies he had just created. He slid his sword across the throat of one of Naruto's friends slowly until the head was completely separated from the body. He carefully placed the head on top of a nearby stump and said, "Lookey Naruto. Lookey what happens when you make friends. They all die."

Naruto watched as his evil self switched the sword so that the blunt end was facing towards his target. He began to bash the skull in with the weapons until it was nothing more than fragments. He continued to do that with every head as Naruto tried to beg for him to stop. Each time blood would spray onto his face.

"But Naruto," his evil self said, "I'm you. I'm only doing what you want me to do."

"No," Naruto cried, "I don't want any of this. Please stop."

"But I'm just getting to the best one," the evil Naruto said as he bent down and picked up Sasuke's head. He kissed the cold lips and placed it where he had placed every other one. He lifted the sword to hit Sasuke's head as Naruto screamed. "You know," sighed the evil one, "your screaming is really getting on my nerves. You should just shut up and die so that I can officially take your place." He walked up to Naruto and thrust his sword into Naruto's stomach. "So just die quietly."

Naruto awoke to find his arms chained to a cement wall. For a moment he believed that he was still in his nightmare, but as reality washed over him Naruto realized that he was trapped in the Akatsuki's dungeon.

"Are you alright?" asked a woman that was in a cage just in front of his own. "You were screaming." The woman had long beautiful silver hair with bright green eyes and she was dressed in a lovely white kimono

"I'm fine," Naruto nodded. "It was just a nightmare." He swallowed the bile that was rising in his throat from the nightmare. He couldn't afford to throw up now.

"I see," she said. "Kyusuke has nightmares all the time."

"Kyusuke?" asked Naruto.

"He's in the cell next to you," she said gesturing with her chin to his right. He looked that way only to find that his view of the person was blocked by a grey stone wall. "My name is Irena. What is yours?"

"I'm Naruto," he answered.

"It's nice to meet you Naruto," she smiled. There was a moment of awkward silence between them as they both tried to think of something to say before Irena said, "If you don't mind me asking which demon do you have?"

"Excuse me?" asked Naruto shocked by the question.

"I'm sorry. I assumed that you had a tailled demon in you since both Kyusuke and I have one in us."

"They're not demons," said Naruto.

This time it was Irena's turn to be confused. "I don't understand," she said.

"They're not demons," Naruto repeated, "they are spirits who were supposed to protect the land that we live in until the humans began to fear their power and locked them away in human cages known as jinchuuriki."

"I'm afraid I still don't quite understand," said Irena. "Kyuusuke and I have only heard horrible stories about the de- I mean spirits that you're talking about."

"Perhaps you'd better understand it if you met the spirit that resides within you." Without letting her answer Naruto clasped his hands together, ignoring the shock he got for using his chakra, and performed a jutsu that forced both him and Irena into darkness.

just to let you know, I don't know what any of the jinchuuriki look like or what demons they hold so I'm just making up my own.