Disclaimer:The anime Naruto and Twelve Kingdoms are not my properties. If I owned them, why would I be writing fan fiction based on them. No money is being made from this, it is just for the entertainment of any that wishes to read it.

Warnings: AU, OOCs, OCs, Crack, Sues (you have been warned)

Note: none at the moment.

"*"

"*"

Their World

"*"

chapter one

"*"

"*"

The worlds are all connected in some way shape or form, Hourai wasn't the only world that was connected to the world of the Twelve Kingdoms.

No.

It wasn't the only one.

There were others, but these others rarely had people cross over and into the world of the Twelve Kingdoms. Shoku, those blackhole like storms that sucked things into them and into the world of the twelve kingdoms weren't common in those other worlds. Their reach didn't go that far, but even without them it was still possible to travel from those worlds to the world of the Twelve Kingdoms where the god Tentei ruled.

There were other ways, some far more supernatural than most, while others were simpler like slipping off into a dream and never waking again in one's birth world, but waking once again in the world of Tentei's creation. Retaining memories was a rare occasion, but only those that were blown away or with a shoku, those rare occasions that it happened, did memories remain.

Taika were what those that returned were called, while those that held no connection to Tentei's world did not retain anything and sometimes was just like all the other natives of Hourai, they were unable to understand anything.

Tentei's creation is a world of change and permanence. While the borders would forever remain the same, the governance of those lands changed hands, eventually, usually anyway. Most rulers either abdicated when they realized that they were steering their countries to ruin, while others needed to be removed from power by those that dared to face the wrath of heaven to do so. While there were those that remained in power, until the creeping hands of corruption sent them to their deaths some other way.

Rare was it for a prosperous bringing ruler to be removed from power, as those rulers were more blessing than anything else. But that was not to say that it was not possible for a ruler to meet an untimely or unneeded end. This was still a world of people, a world of economics and politics, a world like any other.

To the heaven that showed itself in the light of day, there would always be a balance to that light, the dark depths of the underworld. While not always relevant to the shaping of the world, it was still there, lurking in shadowed corners, waiting for the perfect time to strike and cause some manner of chaos or problem for the world.

#

It wasn't all that impossible for the worst of people to be sent off to another world on accident or intent, nor was it all that impossible for the best of people to be sent off in the same manner and in the same general direction.

There had been a war that been waged, where there were only two sides. The side of a megalomaniac intent on enslaving the world forever in an illusion of peace under his rule and whims. On the other side of the field was the unified forces of the different lands, lands that at many points in time had been at each others throats vying for dominance and for simply survival.

A unified alliance of all nations fighting for the survival of their world and their continued existence as well as for peace, against a force commanded by one man against the world for complete command of the world.

It was quite the war to be waged, and quite a war to be won.

Each side had their own champion, the conquering side, the side that planned on enslaving the world had Uchiha Madara, the strongest Uchiha in history, far surpassing even the actual founder of his own clan in power and ambition. The alliance on the other hand had Uzumaki Naruto, one whose blood was a mix of legends and heroes.

Just like any fight, any war that these two sides were used to, the champions of each side, those carrying the hope of each side, met on the field of battle. It was inevitable for both of them to meet. Not only was it written in the stars, but it was foreseen ages upon ages, and generations upon generations ago, when their ancestors did battle.

Uchiha Sasuke was not even considered as one of the major characters of the play that was playing out in the middle of the battlefield. He was nothing but another member of the supporting cast. He was nothing but another bystander that had placed his hope, added some form of burden on the shoulders of one of the champions.

His former teammate had actually managed to sway his heart, change it, and changed his decision. It was an inevitable thing to happen as he had some light left in him despite the darkness that had clouded his heart for most of his life.

That was one of Naruto's unconfirmed innate powers.

It was two titans clashing, one with stolen power against one with the hopes and dreams of an entire people coupled with hard work, determination, as well as his own heritage. It was a battle of monsters and gods. It was a battle that would not be forgotten, would not be washed away by the flow of the river of time. Their legends would only grow greater and more epic with each telling.

It was an intense battle, one that eventually caused all the others to stop around them. It was better for all the rest involved in the war to move as far away from the battle between the two behemoths lest they be caught in the crossfire. Attacks were traded, fists and feet met fists and feet. It was an epic event of any of their lifetimes.

Such a fight would never again be witnessed by any generation in the world. It was a battle of true living legends. A battle between the old and the new. It was a battle of chaos and order, though one couldn't really tell which was which in this case.

Suffering and despair clashed with hope and peace.

Like any epic battle between two titans, the end, the winner would only be decided with the final move. The kill shot. The finishing blow.

Each had to decide what would be that move, what would be the winning blow. What they would have to put in their all and then some to win.

Madara had sealed within the first eight tailed beasts, the Hachibi had come into his possession as a tactic and decision that Killer Bee had chosen for himself in order to give his friend and comrade time to prepare for the inevitable final confrontation. Madara also had the power of the fully evolved form of the Sharingan, along with the stolen powers of the Senju and the Uzumaki in the forms of Mokuton and the Rin'negan. He also had a heart so dark that even demons cowered at the prospect of facing or serving it.

The attack he had settled on was something which he himself had stolen from his almost protege. Chidori, but this one was different. With access to all elements, it would be something infused with all of that along with the combined might and power of his eight bijuu combined.

An end move to end all moves.

Naruto on the other hand had made the split second decision to use the one thing that he knew he could do and still had a high possibility of working. He winged it, and formed a Rasengan in each hand that he had access to which considering that he had enough chakra to create more Kage Bushin than anyone else alive and sane for that matter, he could create a lot and had a lot of spare hands.

It was the legacy that his father had left him after all. It was about time that he upgraded it, and not in the way that he had already done. The only way to defeat this foe that he was facing was by facing it head on, close quarters.

He had to be sure of the outcome himself, and not leave anything to chance or fate, even though both were firmly on his side, actually Fate and Luck were both his bitches, he just didn't think much on that fact.

Dominating the bijuu, all eight that he had sealed within him, he channeled all of their available power into the ball of the elements that he had formed within the palm of his hand. It burned black with the added flames of Amaterasu. He prepared for his charge, Kamui would not be needed here.

When each of their attacks were ready, they charged.

They were each on a side of a ravine that resembled the Valley of the End, it was fitting in a sense as once they were through it would be the end.

One chaotic ball of darkness met with one solid ball of light. It was a battle of wills as soon as both balls met. Much like how Naruto had had a battle of wills with his inner demon for control of that awesome power.

He gave his attack his all, he pushed as much energy as he could into his attack. It was well known that when it came to control he wasn't the best of the best, but in this case he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could not mess up. His success was what everyone else relied on for their continued better future.

He could not falter. He would succeed.

He was being pushed back, and the smirk that he saw that graced Madara's face pissed him off to no end. He promised himself that he'd wipe that smirk off of the arrogant old shit's face once and for all. So he did something that everyone should have expected.

He did the unexpected.

He switched places with a shadow clone, one of the many that had been attacking Madara's own versions of the technique. The clone continued to fight the good fight, while Naruto used a sealess version of one of his father's other legacies, the Hiraishin and appeared just behind and angled somewhat below Madara.

"Eatthis," Naruto whispered, "KonohagakureHidenTaijutsuOugi: SennenGoroshi, RASENGANSTYLE!"

No one was expecting something like that. It was the first jutsu that had ever, in a combat situation, actually been used on him. Hatake Kakashi hadn't been expecting it at all. It was one of those things that people didn't expect to happen during a battle that was to decide the future of the world after all. It was a prank jutsu at best, but Naruto decided that it could be used seriously in a fight, and with a rasengan added to the attack it could truly prove devastating.

It was a stroke of genius, that's what it was. Instead of creating a regular sized Rasengan, he did what he had only dreamed of ever accomplishing, the Bijuudama, a ball of compressed chakra. But unlike the regular technique that was launched like a laser beam from within a jinchuuriki's transformed body, this one ball of brilliant blue, gold, and flaming red, energy and light hovered just on the tip of one of Naruto's fingers. It was also just about the size of a ping pong ball.

Size didn't really matter, it was how something was used that counted. Naruto wasn't the sharpest kunai in a pouch academically, but that was just because his education had been sabotaged and also because he learned differently. But when it came to thinking the fly, he was a genius to rival all geniuses.

When it came to unpredictability, this teen was king.

Madara only had those words as warning for what was to come.

His world exploded in pain as the ball of light was inserted where the sun don't shine. This was a ball of swirling chakra shoved up where such things were not meant to be shoved up. It was a ball of glowing energy that was made up of his own human chakra, the Kyuubi's bijuu chakra, and Sage chakra or nature energy. It was made of the three things that made up his unique energy, all perfectly balanced and compressed extensively and extremely in that one small ball.

One false move and it wouldn't be just the battlefield that would go up in smoke, like a Kage Bushin, but possibly the whole alliance as well, not that anyone realized it, of course, that would really put a dampener on morale.

The malevolent energies of the Kyuubi combined with the balanced energies of nature or of the world did something that Naruto hadn't planned on. It made him truly the reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths, it drew from within Madara the eight tailed beasts that he had sealed within himself and placed them under Naruto's control to do with as he pleased.

These were no longer the malevolent beings of chakra that they had once been. They had been slowly reformed into somethings closer to humans due to their integrations and interactions with their hosts, and the seals that had kept them at bay.

Along with these beings of chakra came their knowledge and memories, those and the ones that they had all subconsciously copied from their previous hosts, along with a number of things that they had unintentionally incorporated into themselves.

All this came crashing down and into Naruto as he withdrew his hands from the disgusting place they had been just to inflict some pain on Madara. It may have been disgusting now that he thought about it, but it had been worth it as the man that a whole people had feared due to his power and ambition lay a few feet away crumpled in a heap moaning and groaning in pain.

He had never been or felt so violated in all his long nearly truly immortal life. It was so degrading what he had suffered.

'AllIwantedwastobecometrulyimmortal, respected, andadored!' Madara thought, a tad bit insanely, to himself, 'Ijustwanttoruletheworld, isthatsomuchtoask? WhocaresthatI'dhavetostripthefreewillofallhumanlifetodoit! ButwhyinKami'snamedidIhavetobeviolatedinsuchaway!'

"You DEMONIC BASTARD!" Madara shouted as Naruto approached his still in immense pained form, "I WOULDN'T HAVE EVER EVEN THOUGHT OF DOING THAT TO HASHIRAMA-TEME! YOU SICK SICK BASTARD!"

"Can you still fight?" Naruto, kind of, dumbly asked his downed opponent, the man should be dead actually but he wasn't yet.

"Not in this state! Let's see how you feel after having such a painful thing done to you!" Madara whined, it was so like Tobi, splittle also just so happened to fly out of the man's mouth as he shouted those words.

"Eww, gross," Naruto said as he wiped away some of the salivatory grime that landed on him, "Could you please die properly now?"

"No," Madara said, and as a final fuck you to the world, since he knew he was almost dead anyway, he did one last thing, "Kamui."

It was a rather weird, but not unpleasant feeling, having time and space warp and distort around a person, or so Naruto thought. He didn't know of any way for him to stop what was happening, but he was happy to note that it was Madara's final hurrah, so to speak. It was an I-may-be-going-down-but-I'm-taking-you-with-me thing. While Naruto would miss his friends, and would miss the fulfillment of his dream he was glad that the bastard that had caused so much pain and suffering was going to finally be gone from the world. He was also glad for the fact that he hadn't promised anyone that he'd return. While he may not have been able to become Hokage, he did something better.

He became the hero of the world.

"Naruto!" his allies called out to him as they trickled close to the place where the warping and distorting of space and time was occurring.

"Its alright guys!" Naruto said, a true smile gracing his face, "We win, though it doesn't look like I'll be going home after this. Haha! I'll just be going to my next great adventure sooner than expected!"

"Shut up!" Madara half shouted half whined, "I'm trying to make you suffer the loss of your friends and your world! Damnit! You're not supposed to be happy!"

"Shut up yourself ya has-been!" Naruto shouted back at the man before kicking a soccer ball sized Rasengan at the man's groin, he could apparently do stuff like that now like it was nothing.

"Only you, Naruto, only you," Kakashi said, deciding that at least his one time student was happy as he left the world, "You really are Konoha's Number One Most Hyperactive and Unpredictable Ninja."

"Of course I am," Naruto said, and gave the assembled and still arriving ninja a thumbs up, "Believe it!"

Having said his catch phrase, the wrinkle in time and space distorted some more by a little bit, before all of that area was sucked into a pin hole in the fabric of space and time, and he and Madara were gone. Leaving the world of the Elemental Nations forever.

"What a way to go," Kakashi said, "Well, at least he was happy."

"So are we adding his name to the memorial stone?" another Konoha-nin asked from the assembled group.

"Technically we're not sure if he's dead or stuck in a never ending battle with Madara wherever that man sent the two of them to," Kakashi said, "So...we'll let the Hokage decide...or the Kage Council...anyway, the battles are over, the war has been won, and I need some rest. We all do."

"Wait," someone, from another village said, getting the attention of all present and still converging on the spot.

"What?" was the collective question.

"We won?"

"Yeah."

"We won?"

"Yeah."

"WE WON!"

"WOOHOO!"

From there, everyone forgot their troubles for a moment, and the lives that had been lost. There was much rejoicing, all the sacrifices that had been made, were all not for naught. They had won, the world had been victorious.

They had won.

The Bijuu were no longer in the world and thus no longer a threat.

There could finally be peace.

All it had taken really was a single teen with drive, determination, and a dream. As well as the support of an entire continent backing him up.

#

'WheretheHellamI?' Madara wondered upon regaining consciousness, he knew that by all rights he should be dead, but instead he found himself laying in a very comfortable bed with silken sheets the kind that nobles or royals used.

He looked around the room that he found himself in, it was a rich room, he wondered who it belonged to. But he had priorities, one of which was finding out where he was, for he was sure that it was not anywhere near the Elemental Countries. He also needed to know what had become of Naruto, the bane of his existence.

There was also the reason for his survival, had he actually been immortal like he had wished, and if so why had it only kicked in after he more or less tried to commit suicide.

He got out of the bed, or tried to. He didn't know that he had been bedridden for a good portion of a month. Which meant that he would be needing some sort of or form of physical therapy to get his body back into shape, the kind of shape that he could use to his ends or needs or whatever.

Try and try as he might, he just couldn't remain standing for more than a minute or two. It was something new, since he was quite used to just being able to force himself to stand and move about normally after ordeals such as the one that he had gone through.

He was clearly forgetting the fact that he usually had some chakra induced healing to help along his healing and getting better process. But he was not in a world where chakra was in abundance, it seemed, since he couldn't find it in him to move about on his own for the time being.

"I see that you're finally awake," a woman entered the room, she wore clothes that befit a very high station in life, and society for that matter, "How do you feel?"

She really did look like she belonged in the upper echelons of the social strata. Something that Madara could relate to as he had been a member of such a class himself back when he was just one of the two strongest ninja in all the world. But that was a long time ago and his clan had fallen from such a height after he had become the village he helped found's first ever rogue ninja.

"Weak," he replied, it was something he learned about healers. It was best to be honest with how one felt, lest the healer force one to remain in their care longer than necessary. It had messed up a few of his plans in the past, and it had led to being one of the reasons why he never had managed to have kids. Contrary to popular belief he hadn't always been an asshole. He had loved once, he had at one time had a heart.

He lost most of that heart after he pissed off the healer or medic that had been in charge of his health that he had actually had a crush on.

It was because of her that he knew not to piss off a healer ever again. It just wasn't all that good for one's health and love life, that is if one wanted to be romantically involved with one's healer.

"Oh?" the woman said, "Well I guess that is to be expected."

She had ebony black hair, that reached well beyond the small of her back, an oval face, and a pair of black eyes that would have looked just right on a woman of the Uchiha clan. What actually started creeping him out was that she vaguely also reminded him of one of the Senju, one of their best kunoichi to be exact, and he wasn't thinking about Tsunade either.

"Err..if you don't mind me asking, but where am I?" he asked.

"I suppose that is an expected question," she said to him, "You are in the Seikan Palace, though I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about, do you."

"No, I'm sorry but I'm a bit lost already," Madara said, he knew he wasn't anywhere near the universe or dimension that his beloved birth world, "I appear to know not of this palace of which you speak of."

"It is the seat of power and home of the King of the Kingdom of Sou," the woman said, "I am Bunki, I head the national hospital and the department of health of the country. You were lucky that I stumbled upon you when I did, since I'm the one responsible for saving your life."

"Never heard of such a place in my life," Madara told her, "Thank you for saving me then, but how were you able to do it? I was sure that I was going to wake up in the after life."

"I asked my father to temporarily have you become a sennin of our kingdom," Bunki said, "It was the easiest way to ensure that you lived. You do know what a sennin is don't you?"

"I don't think my understanding of what one is is the same as what you know a sennin to be," Madara said.

"Being a sennin basically makes you immortal," she said, "In the sense that you will not age physically, and can not die by old age or any form of disease. It gave you a health boost when you were at your weakest allowing the best of our medical practitioners to get you into a more stable condition."

"I see," Madara said, "Thank you. I owe you my life it seems."

"Think nothing of it," she told him.

But he would not be able to do as she said, since even though he was a real bastard, he still had honor and a a truck load of pride. He paid his debts, he was honor bound to do so, especially since she had saved his life, nigh selflessly.

Instead of voicing his intent to see about paying her back for saving him, he keeps such thoughts to himself lest she find him more useful and actively and actually use him for things that he had no knowledge of or interest in. There was a limit of course on the things that he would willingly do.

"Since I'm obviously not from around here...what happens now? Do I return to being mortal?" he asked her from his bed.

"Not until you've fully healed, and even then, if I find you useful, we'll see," she said, "Now, I've already introduced myself, your turn."

"I am Uchiha Madara," he introduced himself, as best as he could from his bed, "Do you believe in the possibility of coming from another world?"

"Yes," she replied, almost mischievously, "While rare, it does happen. People from another world can find themselves in this world, people from this world can also find themselves in another world too, which is also just as rare."

"Really? That's interesting," he said, "Well, I'm from another world. I was fighting in a war, but apparently was on the losing side, at the end of the war I was removed from my world, and I guess you found me in the state that I had left my world."

"It appears so," Bunki said, "Well, until you are well enough to move on your own, I shall have one of my servants tend to you, since all the ones that have been taking care of you while you were unconscious have other duties to attend to."

She left him then, and a few minutes later someone in servant's attire entered the room he was staying in, and informed him that she would attend to him as per her mistress' instructions. She would be helping him get back to how he was or must have been before he had gotten so grievously injured, and would also help him understand and get to know the world he had originally been intended to be born in.

Knowledge was power, and he intended to be powerful enough to call himself a proper immortal once again.

He knew that it would take time, but he also knew that he now had all the time in the world. This was a new world, with new opportunities, he could even possibly find a way to rule the world, this world. But first he would soak up as much knowledge as he could. There would be time for his megalomaniac tendencies to arise once again later in the future.

In the days and weeks of his return to full health, he learned that taking over the world wasn't all that he had thought it would be. For one thing, there was a strict hierarchy, there was even a real god since immortality was real so why not higher powers that governed the world from a higher plane of existence. So he ruled out conquering the world for his own ends and satisfaction.

But why rule the world when it can be manipulated, he was a shinobi first before some power hungry creep that had already tried and failed and failed again at ruling the world.

Let the Kings and Queens keep their kingdoms, he would carve his own piece of the pie. But in order to do that, he needed to shake things up a little. He'd gather an army worthy of his power once more. Which meant that he'd have to seek out those that would willingly serve him, much like Orochimaru and Danzo had been known to do back in his birth world.

But he would also have to balance out this new need for creating chaos with his need to please and serve and repay the debt he owed to Bunki. It was a bit troublesome, but his pride as a man and his honor as an Uchiha demanded that he saw it through to the end.

He learned much more than just he inability to actually rule the world out in the open like he had originally wished. He learned of how the world worked, and of the differences it had as compared to his birth world. It was a unique world in its own, one where rulers were chosen by holy creatures called kirin. He also learned of how to kill immortals, he found one method rather straight forward: Decapitation. He rather liked that method a lot.

It took him a while to find a comfortable place for himself in the daily routine of the palace, as well as the country. He knew a lot about medicine, unsurprisingly thanks to his various experiments and other side projects over the years. So he helped out with Bunki's thing. It came as a surprise to him that the princess of a country had been his savior, it made him think back on those childhood dreams of protecting a princess.

While rather foolish, he rather enjoyed the thought, that with him always so close by he was ever ready and vigilant to protect her should the need arise. It wasn't that she didn't have other guards, it was just that he still owed her, plus protecting an actual princess was kind of cool.

During his rounds or tours of the cities and provinces, he found it rather hard to believe that there was absolutely no poverty, and there hadn't been for more than a century at the very least. It was still rather hard to believe that the King had been in power for 600 years and counting, it was still so surreal.

What was also hard to believe was that he could find hide nor hair of an underworld. It was as if such a thing was not only not needed, but no one cared for one. Things were rather more prosperous in the light.

While there were some criminals, they weren't the kind that he thought he could use. The justice in the country was also rather swift and sure. There were very few mistakes in the country, although if he counted himself, he was a mistake that had the potential of regret.

He was a relative unknown, coming from a world that was unlike the Hourai that the people of Sou were rather more familiar with. He was truly one of those extremely rare cases. But he was thankful for this second chance at life. Here he would live, learn, and if possible, love.

He just had to play his cards right, and all that he wished, or most of those dreams, would come true.

#

Just as he wasn't so fortunate in his last life, he wasn't so fortunate in this new one. He was supposed to be dead or something. But for some reason, some higher power had decided that he not be. That he still had so much life to live.

So here he found himself. In the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by trees, and a bunch of wolf-like creatures that were looking at him as if he was lunch. He didn't like their look, it was not something that he liked seeing at all, on any animal or person for that matter.

It was a good thing that he wasn't injured at all when he awoke, and that he had everything that he had brought with him to battle, the only thing missing from the battle was Madara. Not much of a loss since he believed the man to be dead.

All of his things had returned to him before he vanished from his birth world, they all had seals on them that he had activated to call back to him. It would not do for others to get their grubby paws on his things. He was rather possessive of them. The only thing he made sure to leave was a letter to his friends, as a precaution in case he died, and some trinkets for all of his loved ones in that life.

He knew that there was no use talking to such creatures out of trying to kill him. Trying, since there was no way that they would ever win, even if there were a hundred of them. Unluckily for them, there were only ten of them, and roughly a near infinite number of Naruto.

Whipping out a pair of kunai, he proceeded to dissect the creatures one by one. He had no need for some clones to help him out since the numbers were not overwhelming, and also since he needed to know where he stood physically in this new world. He was faster than them, that was for sure, he was stronger too. He was more than they could ever hope to be, but the one thing that he had not been expecting was that one of them, probably the strongest one, had this flight ability.

It was probably going off to get some reinforcements, Naruto couldn't have that. So he threw one of his kunai at the fleeing creature. Where once there had been a single metal blade, now flew a hundred.

The creature, that he would later learn was a kiki, didn't stand a chance. It was dead before it even realized that it had been hit.

While he had everything he knew he needed to survive, he was still left somewhere in the middle of nowhere. In a forest, where the potential for more of such creatures lurking about was great. He needed to find some shelter fast, else something else happen to him.

He also needed to meditate as he had a killer headache all of a sudden, it was like receiving the memories of close to a thousand clones all at once, but not as epically bad as that one felt. This one was growing in steam, which was a different kind of bad if he didn't find somewhere safe to rest first.

He didn't know what had happened as he hadn't felt that little bit of transfer of power and memories and all that while he performed his humiliating attack on Madara. He had yet to realize what he had become. It would be a shocker sure, but he would have a clone bop him on the head later since it was to be expected in the life that he lived, or simply just his life after all.

He found a tall tree, and decided that there shouldn't be anything big enough in the skies to find him there. So he set himself up there, and entered his meditative state. It was a state where his body automatically had him enter sage mode. It had become a subconscious thing to him. He almost couldn't help himself.

Once within the confines of his mind he found himself facing multiple people, or the mental representations or replicas of other people. People that he knew in life or knew about. He was on immediate high alert when he spotted Madara of all people, but grew even wearier when he spotted Gaara of all people. There were others of course, and he wondered how they were all in his head.

It was as if he was suddenly no longer alone, but at the same time knew that it was next to impossible for all of these people to be with him, especially since they were all in his head.

He decided to leave a clone of himself with all these copies, copies that didn't move an inch after he had arrived there. It was his mind, and so if they were hostile, he didn't have to worry about any of them attacking him and succeeding. After all he had accepted and defeated his darkness, and the Kyuubi wasn't that far behind in losing its malevolence.

He entered a deeper state of mediation, something that he wasn't all that sure was possible for himself, but he tried nonetheless, he needed to figure out what was going on, and where better to meditate, than in one's own mind. It was very safe for him there, it was his mind after all.

Viewing and reviewing his own memories would be easier than way too, due to the close proximity to them.

To all of them.

There were so many memories, he found out. He found all of his memories, the whole of his life was laid out before him. Since this was the first time that he would be doing something such as this, he didn't know how he was going to chose a memory and view it. So he did the only thing that came to mind. He would review, or re-live all of them. One by one.

How bad could it be, it was his life after all, and the best way to grow stronger, or one of them anyway, was to know one's self. This was the best way to do so.

It was rather odd that his memories weren't viewed from his own eyes, but from a third person point of view. It was odd and weird, but also gave him new insight on his life, on his world. He saw not only what he wanted to see, which were his strengths, but he also saw the things he didn't really want to see, his weaknesses. He saw everything whether he wanted to or not.

He knew something about his mind, having spent so much time in it, visiting the Kyuubi in the past and organizing the thoughts and memories he gained from his unique training, that was that time flowed differently in his mindscape in comparison with the rest of the world, with the real world, with the outside world.

It was like being in the Uchiha's world of Tsukiyomi, where 72 hours fit into a single second. In his mind it was the same, but longer than a measly 72 hours. It was days, weeks, months, or years, to a second in the outside world.

It was a good thing too since he found out that he would need all the time in the world to view all of the memories that he actually had, after finding out that he had more than he originally started off with. He also found out how it had happened that he had gotten them all.

He didn't think that it was actually possible, but there he was, reliving lives that while not his own were now his own. It was a good thing as these additional memories were integrated into his own, they were made truly his own.

He had become that which Madara and Orochimaru only dreamed of ever becoming, the closest thing to god as possible. The only thing he didn't get was the state of immortality, it was presently out of his reach even though he had the means to be as close to it as possible now that he possessed the truly reincarnated body of the Sage of Six Paths.

He had the Rin'negan in both eyes, as well as the Sharingan. His eyes also remained their cerulean blue. It was weird, but he had acquired a Kekkai Genkai, a bloodline limit. When active his eyes, while keeping some of their cerulean hue, gained the rings of the Rin'negan, the tomoe of the Sharingan, and some parts of his eye transformation while he was in Sage Mode.

Sage Mode, that was another thing that had changed. He didn't really need to remain still for himself to be able to gather nature chakra, he could do it anytime, and even while in motion now that he had the Rin'negan. He could draw on the energies of the world, connect to the world, anytime he wanted to now without having to worry about losing the balance of his energies as his eyes automatically regulated all of his energies.

He had all the abilities of the Rin'negan, the Sharingan, and all of the enhancements that Sage Mode gave him, all at the same time, they were not always turned on though as he could deactivate these things at will if he wished.

He also found that he had a bunch of other additional abilities. He was like an Ark, like Noah's Ark, in that he had a majority of his birth world's abilities in him. He had a sample of them all, and all of them were integrating themselves with himself.

He was Orochimaru's and Madara's dream vessel.

That wasn't even counting what he had gained from absorbing all of the nine bijuu, he was the reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths and the Juubi all rolled into one. He was the best and the worst that his world had to offer, and while frightening to an extent it was also rather exciting.

He found that he was really powerful, and with great power requires great control. Screw responsibility, he already knew that thing. What he knew he needed to work on now was control, while the Rin'negan more or less governed and regulated the balance of his energies, he still needed to be able to control his output when doing things or further enhancing his capabilities.

It was troublesome, as he could already imagine how much work he would need to do before he got to the point that his newly integrated memories would be satisfied with. There were a few perfectionists in him now, and thus that made him want to be the best that he could be.

He came out of his deeper meditation to find that he was alone in his mind for the time being with only his mental clone remaining. Even the seal that had once held the Kyuubi was no longer there. In its place was a single safe door. The kind that had a combination lock on it.

He knew what was behind the thing, since it was within his mind, behind it lay those secondary personalities that he had absorbed into himself, they were remnants of others that he had taken with him through whatever it was that had happened during his fight with Madara. He wouldn't disturb that place, those others could do as they pleased in that part of his mind, that chaotic part of his mind where he assumed was an anything goes place.

He dismissed his mental clone to learn what had transpired within the main chamber of his mindscape while he had delved deeper into himself. He learned that with each other life that he viewed and integrated into himself, the specter like thing willingly walked into the vault. One by one that was what each one did.

Each one walked in without a backwards glance.

He was Legion, in more than one context. He could create a legion of clones to fight alongside him, and had just as many if not more sets of memories or lives in his mind.

Coming out of his meditation and returning fully into the real world, he found himself forcing himself to jump out of the tree as another creature was almost successful in making him into its lunch. Apparently he was wrong in his thought of there being nothing in the skies big enough to make a meal out of him.

This thing also had friends just like the kiki, there were around six of them.

It was time to test out some of the things he had acquired from his last human battle.

His hands flashed through a set of seals, a seal set that was unfamiliar with him since he hadn't really focused on learning that many jutsu in his life for his last battle for his birth world. He had focused on what he had and improved on them. It was better to have a few techniques that were mastered rather than have a thousand but not know what to do with them all.

Now he had more than a thousand and needed to know what to do with them all. But for the time being he would stick with the few that he thought were useful.

'Katon: HousenkanoJutsu!' he mentally called out as he spat out several small balls of fire at the big birds of carnivorous prey.

They knew enough that fire was bad for their collective health, and dodged out of the way instead of trying to bat the balls of flame away with several strong flaps of their wings. The tried to come at him in waves, or one by one since they were so few.

He stood at the top of the tree that was next to the one that he had been sleeping on and had an easy time dodging out of the way as well.

He needed something that was sure to hit each bird, either to drive them off or to eliminate them from being a threat to himself.

'Katon: GouryuukanoJutsu!' Naruto flashed through a set of hand seals then spat out several larger balls of fire, these ones were in the shape of dragon heads flying in the direction of the birds. They were deadlier, but were still avoided, but at least they stopped diving his way.

"So katon jutsu are out," Naruto said to no one in particular, "Let's try fuuton.."

'Fuuton: Daitoppa' Naruto flashed through the seals needed for it then exhaled a great amount of wind, these were gale force winds with how much chakra he put into the technique.

While balls of fire were evadable, how were the big birds supposed to dodge the wind it self. They were hit, not matter where they went or tried to go. It temporarily caused them to lose their balance in the air, and so Naruto used it to his advantage.

'Fuuton: Renkuudan' Naruto inhaled a large amount of air, charged it with wind chakra then spat out six large bullets of wind, each one was like a drill which did the job of ending the lives of each of the six large crow like creatures. A clean hole could be seen through each of the downed birds.

Waste not want not. Naruto decided to collect all the salvageable things he could from the 16 creatures whose lives he had ended. He didn't really have a choice in the matter since he needed food, protein, which he would get from the meat of the beasts, and the other things could be used for tools and possibly clothing and such.

He knew how to survive and some of his new memories were of living in the wilderness, scavenging and surviving for years at a time in the wilds of the world.

He knew what to do now, and so did what he had set himself up to do. He skinned the kiki, and as he would later learn that they were called, and did the same with the kochou.

Once he had all these raw materials, he sealed them into one of the remaining empty storage scrolls he had on his person. When he rummaged through his clothes, he learned that he needed a change of clothing since the battle had apparently turned his clothes into a state where just one more fight would turn them to mere threads.

He needed some new clothes, and since all he had at his disposal were the skins and feathers that he had collected, he knew what to do with some of his collected raw materials. He would have to make some clothes and use his old threads to patch up the skins to make suitable clothing for himself.

Once he was done, his new attire consisted of an, actually quite well made, set of pants, long sleeved shirt, gloves, boots, and hooded cloak. The cloak was made out of the feathers and skin of the kochou, which made its coloration dark brown to black. The rest of his clothes ranged in shades of purple from dark to light. He had also managed to fashion himself two masks, as best as he could anyway. One was of the kochou while the other was of the kiki. He resealed everything that he didn't use.

His boots were more like those slippers that some people wore while in the comfort of their homes, specifically their bedrooms, the ones that looked like bunnies. But instead of bunnies, his boots were in the form of the hind paws of the kiki. His gloves were the same. Both pairs still had the claws in them, not only for aesthetic purposes but for combat as well.

From the creation of his outfit he decided to add onto that by turning the bones and other things from the dead animals into other tools and weapons. He didn't really have anything better to do after all.

He spent several months in the wilderness perfecting his crafts as well as getting his chakra control to a level where his additional memories and personalities were satisfied. It was a ton of Kage Bushin style training that filled the forest and all the trees, the numbers also helped in gathering even more raw materials for his arts and crafts projects.

The forest was bountiful not only in creatures that wanted to eat him, but in creatures that didn't want to kill him. He left those ones mostly alone unless he found something from their bodies that could be of use to him and his projects. He also found a weird tree with weird fruit, he dared not eat the fruit for fear that it might be poisonous, there was also something really weird about the trees. Their fruits were not normal at all.

He avoided them at all costs, he didn't allow his curiosity to get the better of him in these cases.

Unknown fruit trees in an unknown world were things that he had no intention of messing with since most things in the world were still mysteries to him. His gut was also telling him not to mess with these weird fruit trees that he found.

All other vegetation was relatively fair game.

He spent his days and night doing relatively the same things, training, training, and training. He had a lot of things to learn, not counting the things he would have to learn in the future once he figured out where he was or at the very least what world he was in for he was sure, dead sure that he was no longer in his birth world.

It was inevitable that he would come across other intelligent life in the world. He knew it as an inevitable truth. He was just caught more or less off guard by the situation in which he met his first natives.

It wasn't the way he was expecting. From one frying pan into another, that was how he decided to compare his life at that moment.

He had gone from one battle, to another, almost constantly, almost every day. Now he found himself in another one. One where once again he knew that he could win.

It was a band of highwaymen, as the term suggested they were thieves that preyed on travelers. The travelers in question were what looked like a caravan of merchants, traveling from one city to another. It looked like the caravan was on the losing side of things.

Naruto decided to step in before things got worse, before innocent lives were lost, like the children that some of his clones had spied.

He became one with the forest that he was in, it was easy with all the practice he had under his belt. He had more than enough experience hiding in the forest, blending in, and attacking instead of just counter attacking. He was the kiki and the kochou that he proudly wore over his own skin. He was a skin walker in a sense.

His chakra smoke was now minimal, as it wasn't realistic to be rid of the temporary obscuring mist whenever he unsealed items from his storage seals and scrolls.

He unsealed a set of bows and quivers of arrows that he had fashioned from the bones of the kochou and gouyu, which was a bull or bison beast.

His clones gathered round and got their own sets from him. He had a team of four clones with him, so the five of them surrounded the battling criminals and the losing merchants.

'KirigakurenoJutsu' Naruto initiated one of Momochi Zabuza's signature techniques, it caused the water vapor to turn into a dense mist in a certain area, the change could be gradual to instant, in this case it was somewhere in between the two.

The fight was forced to a standstill due to the dawning lack of visibility. Not one of the two sides knew of the reason behind the unnatural occurrence. They all couldn't help but feel scared.

There was silence for but a moment, until the first scream of pain rang out across the trail.

It was an unmistakeable sound, one of pain and fear, a lot of fear since they thought that they were being assaulted by some beast, one of the monsters that called the forest their home. Naruto could be considered as a monster of the forest, he looked the part and had powers that were not of this world.

There were around 25 bandits, all built for battle, strength over speed, as knew how to use their surroundings to their advantage.

It was unfortunate that they had become Naruto's prey, for Naruto did so enjoy the hunt. Be it beast or man, he had learned how to enjoy the thing. Killing, death, it was an eventuality, all are slated to die sometime. He understood the rule of kill or be killed. While he knew that most of the time taking a life was wrong, it was a part of who he was, and in this case it was a necessity.

It all happened so fast, too fast for it to have been human in the minds of those that didn't know what was happening.

Before anyone could try to figure out what happened or even give their fear a voice. The mists began to clear away as if it had never been there in the first place, the trail looked as if nothing had happened, like the merchant caravan had just stopped. The only evidence contradicting that statement were the splotches of blood on the ground and the injured merchants. Other than the merchants and their families, there was no one else on the trail.

Not one of them knew what had happened to their assailants or what exactly it was that had attacked them. They believed that the bandits were all dead, since they were all alive and not a single one of the bad men were there.

There was nothing to prove otherwise.

It would be weeks later that the merchants would know what happened to the bandits when they passed through another part of the forest, deciding to avoid their tried and tested route due to the unknown dangers that particular route presented.

It was when they were deep in the forest in the other carved trail that they chose to pass through that they stumbled upon what looked to be the piled remains of the bandits that had assaulted them earlier in the year.

It was just the rags that they wore and decayed matter that Naruto had not found worth anything. He treated them like the animals they were. He thought of them as such after using a Yamanaka clan jutsu on each of them that allowed him to absorb all of their memories and sift through them, while also allowing him to throw away the useless things.

It was how he finally learned about the world he was in. The knowledge might have been limited, but it was enough for the meantime.

Their memories also showed just how base they were, and thus gave him enough reason to treat them without any respect at all and like the animals that he stripped to the bone and sometimes used even those bones, for his use.

It might have been a bit cruel of them, the merchants, but they decided to get rid of some dead weight in the forms of children. The children of the men that had failed to recover from their injuries that day, the ones that didn't have wives to take care of the children they had left behind.

There were, in reality, only three children that were left by the caravan, that was one child for each of the three men that had lost their lives so carelessly that they had not made sure that there would be someone to care for their children and that those children would not have been burdens.

It was as shame really, that these humans would show such carelessness of their own. One act would lead to more troubles in the future should they ever cross paths with highwaymen again. Naruto would not swoop in and save them a second time due to abandoning other human beings. Had they no hearts?

Well Naruto had a heart, a heart big enough to save a world risking life, limb, and dream for it too. So he did so for the three children, children that couldn't be any older than five years old each.

They hadn't been left with anything, just the clothes on their backs for modesty's sake. That was it, that was all.

Naruto could work with that.

He walked out of the forest, disengaging his illusion of being a part of nature in the process just after the last cart vanished round the bend.

The children were frightened, but relaxed in his presence as he didn't seem hostile in the least. He meant them no harm even though in his garb he looked quite intimidating since he wore the skin of the defeated.

He had three clones come out from the forest, wearing the exact same thing that he was and had them carry the children who allowed themselves to be carried without protest.

He brought them to his camp, his base of operations. It wasn't much, just a tree house, a perimeter fence patrolled by clones, and a fire pit, and a well. That was it. It was home.

He handed them some clothes, ones that he had made from the skins of other beasts. He actually had some of his clones make them as he was returning with the children. They were young but they knew how to dress themselves, and did so when he wasn't looking.

The clothes of the children were made out of the hides of hiso, which were creatures that were like rabbits or weasels rolled into one, as well as the hides of sanki, which were weasel and ferret hybrids.

Two of the children were boys, while the remaining one was obviously a girl. The boys were dressed in the browns of the sanki while the girl was in the white of the hiso. He didn't fashion them masks, as he didn't think that the children were ready to wear the faces of animals yet, even not so scary ones.

"Since it looks like you'll be living with me from now on, we might as well get to know each other," Naruto said to them, the looks on their faces led him to believe that they were surprised to realize that he was human or close enough to being human, "I'll start," he removed the kiki mask he wore, "I'm Naruto. I like noodles, training, and my precious people. I dislike...a number of things really, and I don't really have a dream anymore. Your turn, any of you can go first."

They were seated around the fire pit where some soup was being heated over the fire in a pot.

Naruto was making a lot of soup, since he had three more mouths to feed added to all the clones he had. He found that he could strengthen and extend the lifespans of the clones with food, it was a side effect of using the combined energies that he did when he created them.

"I..I'm Kenta..I..ah...I'm Kenta," the first boy said. He had dark brown hair, dark brown eyes.

"I'm Michio," the second boy said, he didn't have anything to add either. He was the opposite in looks to Kenta, down to the colors of his hair and eyes.

"And you little miss," he said to the little girl before him that came with the two boys.

"I'm Ran," she said shyly, "I..."

She had light blond hair and light blue eyes.

"That's alright," Naruto said, "I'm sure you'll find something you like, dislike, and maybe even a dream for the future. Now, I'm sure that you three have had a trying day, what with being left in the forest like you were.."

"Yeah," the children all shyly said.

"Well," Naruto said, then waved one of his clones over.

"Hai," the clone said as it stood at attention before the still sitting Naruto, it awaited its orders, "Whatcha need boss?"

"I want you to show these kids where they'll be staying for now," Naruto ordered, "Have some of the others begin construction on a kind of barracks for them. Inform the orders to up the alert level, we've got children to look out for now."

"Hai," the clone said, then turned to face the children and motioned for them to follow after him.

The three children didn't have any choice in the matter really and thus followed the clone to an area within the walls that had some camping supplies strewn about. Clones needed rest too which was why there were such supplies.

The Clone, who introduced himself as Ichi to the kids, set up one of the larger tents for the three children's use, then he went about gathering some of the loitering clones and had them begin construction of a second tree house, as well as extending the wall.

The children settled in, they knew each other and were the closest thing to being siblings now that they only had each other and a camp or base worth of people that wore the skins of youma to call a family, or what they hoped could become one.

They found that they were indeed tired, it was an emotionally and mentally tiring experience, being abandoned all of a sudden like that. But they now knew that they would survive, unlike what those merchants hoped would happen to them. They had help, they knew that they could trust Naruto.

They woke from their rest an hour or two later to the smell of food, there was more than soup. They weren't dragged out of their tent, but they were called out. They were each handed a bowl and told to get in line like everyone else while Naruto dished out the soup and handed over some wrapped food.

"Finish it all up, ya hear," Naruto told the three children.

"Yes sir," they replied and went and found themselves somewhere to eat.

It was the best meal they had ever had. Things weren't so strict at the camp, as they heard the adults, all of whom were clones not that they knew save for Naruto, were all quite noisy. Naruto was actually experimenting with planting parts of the personalities that he had in the vault into his clones, mixing and matching them up to give his clones some kind of personality of their own.

He didn't really fancy having to deal with bland clones all his life, even with the addition of three children into his ranks.

Once they were done with their meals, they brought the bowls to the well area of the place where one of the clones, who introduced himself to them as Sho was cleaning all the other used things. Once they were done with that they didn't know what to do, or what there was that they could do. They didn't want to be freeloaders, and even at such young an age they wanted to earn their keep.

"So you want to help out huh," Sho said, "Go back to the boss and ask him about what you can do."

"Ok," they said and trotted over to where Naruto was meditating by the still burning fire.

They approached Naruto but didn't know whether to wake him or not, they didn't know that he was meditating. He was also keeping watch for any youma that wanted to make a meal out of him, his clones, or the three children.

"Yes? How can I help you?" Naruto asked, his eyes still closed and his body in a state of perfect relaxation.

"We want to help," Kenta said, "Not be burdens.."

"Ok," Naruto said, his eyes still closed, "What do you want to do?"

"I want to help with the food," Ran said, she had a feeling that the two boys wouldn't volunteer for that, she also wanted to know how to cook for the future, she knew how important food was.

"Alright," Naruto said, "Go to Sho, I know you know who he is, tell him you want to help, he's the one in charge of domestic things."

"Hai," the little girl cheerfully said and skipped back to Sho who was finished with his washing.

"What else is there to do?" Kenta asked.

"Think of something," Naruto said, "Cooking and cleaning is what Ran has decided on, but there are still other areas you can help out in."

"The men on the walls, what do they do?" Kenta asked.

"They keep watch for trouble," Naruto replied, "They are our sentries."

"I wanna do that," the boy said.

"Go find Ichi and tell him you want to help with the patrol," Naruto told the boy, so the boy walked off in search for Ichi who could be found on the wall.

"If someone gets hurt...does anyone help them get better?" Michio asked.

"We have someone that does that here," Naruto said, "But its not your usual herbal treatment, but other methods as well. Why?"

"I wanna do that," Michio said, "My dad was a medicine man...before that happened."

"Alright," Naruto said, "Go find Orochi, he's out healer, tell him you want to help."

"Ok...but where is he here?" Michio asked, instead of asking anyone else.

"Good, good, you know how to ask and not be too shy," Naruto said, "He is currently overseeing the construction team that is building where you, Kenta, and Ran, are going to be staying. To tell him apart from the others, he is the only one that wears the scales of a snake or lizard creature."

"Alright, thank you sir," Michio said and went off to where he could hear hammers and saws.

A few hours later it was evening, the most dangerous part of any day. It was night, the time that the only lights were the moon, the stars, and the fire. It was a time when beasts, when youman, chose to attack.

Warning bells and shouts sounded off from the distance. Fire light roared to life courtesy of the sentries, one of which was Kenta who had been told what to lookout for and what things meant what. The kid was the first one down from the wall and the one rushing to Naruto's still meditating form to inform him of what was coming.

"The outer patrols report of an incoming raid," Kenta said, he was a bit worried, it was youma, fellow humans he was used to, but youma were another story altogether.

"Do not worry," Naruto said as he opened his eyes and stood up, stretching a bit in preparation for the battle that was to be fought. He had seen the numbers, there were several packs of kiki on the prowl this night, "Go find Ran and Michio, I want you to stay with them. Sho and Orochi will make sure nothing happens to you in the coming fight."

He knew that the children were scared, they had all the right and reason to be. There was a fight that was about to commence, one not between man and man, but between man and monster. They had heard stories in their short lives of men fighting against youma and never returning alive. They didn't want to lose these people that seemed to care for them after just getting them.

Kenta ran off in search for his two other companions as well as those two adults that would be protecting them.

Sho wore a bear's skin, while Orochi wore a lizard's or a snake's. The two of them and their charges were already together by the time Kenta came across them. They had just reentered the base and were about to go looking for him.

"Stay close to us," Orochi ordered firmely, "We'll make sure nothing happens to the three of you."

"We'll be heading for the tree house," Sho stated and motioned for the kids to start heading for the tree which was near the center of the base. It was a large tree with the tree house up in its branches.

"Hopefully the kiki haven't brought any aerial help with them, though it is rare for the youma to cooperate with one another," Orochi said once they got to the base of the tree.

"How do we get up?" Kenta asked, "There's no ladder."

"Climb of course," Orochi said, "Now start climbing."

The three children didn't need to be told twice once they heard the distinct howl of the kiki, there it was a loud reverberating sound as a whole mess of them howled into the night, announcing or calling out their charge.

The gate of the base was firmly shut, the walls were solid and steady awaiting the attack. The sentries were ready with their bows and arrow. The lights of the wall were all lit, and on the ground Naruto was surrounded by his soldiers, armed to the teeth and ready for battle.

Inside the tree house, the children found a desk, a bed, and a number of scrolls..

"The Boss lives here," Orochi replied to their unanswered question, "Which makes this house the heart of the base."

"So why isn't he here?" Michio asked.

"For the subjects to follow, the king must lead," Sho stated as he kept watch over the battle that was about to begin below them, "Now please be quiet, we don't want to attract any unwanted attention."

Wild howls broke the silence of the night, the children huddled close together while Orochi and Sho kept watch from the entrances into the house. Down below them Naruto and the other clones prepared themselves for the fight ahead, it was going to be one unlike any other that they had encountered before in this world.

Packs upon packs of kiki were descending upon the base, Naruto hoped that the walls would be able to keep the majority of them from getting in. He could also hear the distinctive flapping of wings, large ones. It appeared that in a rare show of inter-species cooperation there were some kochou joining in the charge. It was probably the large concentration of potential food that they knew was located there, or it could also be some form of vengeance they sought for those that had fallen to Naruto and his clone forces.

Once the first kiki barreled into the wall, blades were drawn, and the battle was on.

Howls, blades clashing, scratching, tearing of flesh, growls, snarls, and the shouts and battle cries of men, were the sounds that were heard from all around the ground. The children couldn't help but sate their curiosity and so chose to see what they could see by the light of fires of the base.

They saw chaos, and it was only thanks to the honed reflexes of the clones that were protecting them that they were able to survive their first encounter with a kochou.

Orochi pulled the three of them backward while Sho thrust out both palms slamming into the claws of the kochou that had tried to grab onto the children.

"From now on stay away from the walls," Orochi ordered them, "It looks like the youma are working together. But not to worry, we'll survive this, like we have survived countless battles before."

He handed each child a tri-pronged kunai, ones with a certain seal etched onto them.

"If we somehow fail in our duty to protect you, use those," Orochi told them, "Help will come for you."

"Hai," the children said, they were frightened beyond belief and felt as helpless as they would ever feel such.

"Good," Orochi said, as he pulled out a katana from below the bed in the room, it was unsheathed already, "Hopefully you won't need to use that."

By the light provided by the fires from down below, Ran could have sworn that she saw Orochi's face and it reminded her of a snake, one whose eyes promised pain to any that dared harm her and her fellow children.

"SHO! Bring out the big guns!" Orochi shouted as he noticed that three kochou were diving for the house.

"Right!" Sho said and stepped out of the house, the children dared not voice their protest at the action.

He prepared himself for what was to come while Orochi covered him from within the house.

"Kazekiri!" Sho shouted as he swung his hands in slicing motions, from them blades of wind sliced their way toward the kochou cutting off wings and other parts from the incoming birds, halting the first wave in their tracks and actually killing them as they fell from the sky helpless.

"What was that?" Kenta couldn't help but ask.

"An attack," Orochi replied, "One of our special skills."

"Oh," Kenta said and continued to huddle with his companions in the middle of the room.

Three more kochou decided to brave the dangers that Sho presented, but instead of swooping in from one direction, they swooped in from three different directions.

"Shit! Orochi! Help!" Sho shouted as he prepared to take on two direction.

"Coming!" Orochi shouted, then reminded the kids to stay in the house.

Once outside, Orochi pulled out a small fan from a pocket, then prepared to bring send a cutting whirlwind at the incoming bird.

"Kamaitachi!" Orochi called out as he swung his small fan, but the whirlwind that he released was one that looked to have come from a larger fan. The whirling vortex of cutting winds ensnared the kochou and treated it like a piece of meat that had been dropped into an active blender.

"Fuuton: Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Sho called out as he infused some shuriken that he pulled out of seemingly no where and hurled them at the incoming kochou, the original six that he hurled turned into sixty, all of them powered by wind, and wind was the one element that cut.

Orochi and Sho used wind attacks to take care of the attackers from in the sky. While the children tried to watch from the safety of the tree house. It was an amazing sight, how two people could just take on several youma at the same time and keep them at a desirable distance too.

What none of them had been expecting was for one of the kochou to managed to maneuver itself finally away from an attack that was meant for it. It got the chance to smash into the house and grab hold of one of the children, Ran, and took off with her.

"Use it!" Orochi shouted, a bit panicked at the turn of events.

"Ran!" Kenta and Michio shouted, wishing it was one of them instead that had been taken.

Ran in her panicked and in pain state hurled the kunai upward in the hopes of hitting the bird, she didn't think that if it let her go she would plummet several feet before hitting the ground and turning into paste.

"Rasengan!" Naruto shouted as he slammed into the kochou, then used Bansho Tenin to get a hold of Ran, followed by using Shinra Tensei to keep himself, and Ran, afloat.

"Time to end this skirmish," Naruto said, his eyes morphed signaling his activation of his bloodline, his limitless potential one. He said it in such a grave voice that Ran and the other two children could hardly believe that he was the same nice guy that took them to where they were now.

"Revised: Chibaku Tensei," he intoned, and threw up a black ball of gravitational force, it was a revised technique due to the fact that instead of pulling everything into it, it just pulled in whatever Naruto intended to suck in, and instead of just being some black hole, it served as a gateway to a pocket dimension, the very same one that anyone with a sharingan had a potential of having. It was something like Kamui, but on a larger and different scale.

When it had done it's job, it simply returned to Naruto's palm before vanishing, or looking like it had dissipated when in reality it had been sealed away into a storage seal somewhere in the base.

He floated back down and into the tree house that had a gaping hole in one of its walls and slowly put Ran back down as well. Orochi and Sho bowed in apology, but their apologies were waved off as it really couldn't be helped and it wasn't like Naruto was just going to have them dispel themselves. They still had a purpose after all.

"How did you do that?" the three children asked enthusiastically once they got out of their shock at what had happened right before their very eyes, Ran had even forgotten about nearly dying for the moment.

"Training," Naruto replied, "Lots and lots of training. Why?"

"Teach me!" all three children said at the exact same time with the exact same volume.

"Why should I?" Naruto asked.

Ran remembered what had happened just a few moments before, while the two boys remembered their feeling of helplessness with the situation. They were useless when it came to what almost happened to Ran and didn't want to feel that way ever again.

They told Naruto this, but not using such intelligent sounding words.

"Alright, fine," Naruto said, "You each already chose a route to take with your training. They will be the ones to teach you, along with some additional skills you will each have your specialties."

"Hai," the children said, still a tad bit enthusiastically.

From there the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years. Before any of them knew it ten years had passed since that day. The skins that the three children wore also changed as the years passed by, from the coats of the smallest of youma to the ones of kiki and others closer in range to that size and deadliness.

Though that didn't mean that they had masks like the ones that Naruto and all his clones sported, all of them wore different masks so that the children could tell them apart.

The children were fifteen each, and were the only none clones in the base so far, not that they really minded as they each had each other. Though Kenta could have sworn that he felt like a third wheel whenever he and his two other companions were alone together in their barracks. They were very close being the only children in the base, a base that looked somewhat like a small village hidden in the leaves of the trees.

It wasn't that hard for Naruto to notice the signs, while he had been clueless in his younger years, he had relived far too many lives for him to remain the clueless buffon that he had been for the first seventeen years of his life. Now at 27, he knew better, he was loads smarter than he was back them.

This was why he decided that perhaps it was time to act like an orphanage when he believed that he had what it took to take care of children that had no one else to turn to. It was a startling prospect, he felt like he was emulating Danzo, minus the emotionless part. It had always been a good feeling, helping people, and now he was about to set out to do just that, but on a larger scale.

It was a large undertaking, but he knew that he had enough clones to accomplish that and perform just as well as with three children under his indirect care.

"Ichi, Orochi, Sho!" Naruto called out, and the three clones who answered to those names appeared before him leaving some leaves where they had been previously.

"Assemble your teams," Naruto ordered, "We're going hunting, but for something different this time," the only real reason he talked to his clones was so that they all appeared more human than they were, it gave a sort of normalcy feel to it while still being abnormal since he could just talk to the clones through their chakra-mental link, "We're going on an adoption spree."

"About time," Orochi said, "The kids haven't really said anything for years, but they want more interaction with their own generation," Orochi knew more about these things being the chief medic of the base.

"Whatever, just go gather your teams," Naruto said, "So we can head on out."

Orochi was the one to fetch the three teens, they made up his team after all even though he only trained one of them.

"Gather your gear, we're going on a mission, possibly long term," Orochi told them as he appeared in their midst all of a sudden.

"Don't you ever knock!" Kenta asked, "What if we were doing something disturbing in here?"

"Then I would still be here giving you orders," Orochi said, "Now get a move on, we haven't got all day. Boss has ordered three teams to form. So move it!"

They moved it, once the thought of finally going on an official mission sunk in they moved like their lives depended on it. They had only ever really seen the forest, but now they were going on one of the things that the other adults talked about. Going further than the trees.

They met up with the other teams by the gates of the still small village, the walls had been upgraded over the years, adding stone to the wood, and metal in some parts.

"Good, glad of you three to make it," Naruto said, he was a bit sarcastic though, "I guess we can start on the briefing now," he paused as the teens straightened up, "We'll be heading out to the closest city and once there shall be on the look out for those that have no one else to turn to, finding none we shall move on, and if we still can't find any potential new recruits we'll find ourselves some transport and head on out to somewhere that we can find some."

"So..basically we're adopting into the ranks?" Ran asked, she was a sharp one.

"Basically, yes," Naruto said, "Even in a perfect world, there will always be that minority that don't fit in. That's where we come in."

"Understood," Ran said.

#

Naruto wasn't the only one with a budding village. Maadara had one as well, though his was based in the kingdom of Sou while Naruto's was based in the kingdom of Ren. Madara's version of a hidden village was based in the red light district of the capital of Sou, every place needed such a district without it there would be no sign of there being a balance.

It wasn't really a village like Naruto's own, just a number of connected buildings ranging from a hot springs inn to a brothel or two and a gambling hall. Just three businesses that were fronts for Madara's actual organization. He had actual people under him and not more clones than people like Naruto. He easily found people to recruit from the district and other places around the country as he had enough contacts and pull to do so easily.

He wasn't isolated like Naruto was in his forested home. He was a high ranking medical officer in the country and a trusted friend of one of the children of the king. He had friends in many places, and his numbers were steadily growing every day.

His people were more mercenaries and spies, rather than what Naruto trained his three kids into becoming which were the almost jack-of-all-trades that they were. Madara had numerous actual people who were comparable to Chunin, while Naruto had a village full of jounin, including those three teens under his command.

Madara knew nothing of Naruto's own budding organization. He had spent the last ten years focusing on his own organization and the country that he had found himself living in, along with the continued protection of his princess. How he liked calling her his, and his main responsibility.

He had successfully been able to locate the minority of the country of peace and prosperity and recruited from there as well as waged secret wars there. He was the dark side of his world, keeping the peace in the shadows for the king that he indirectly served. Things were good enough for him and he dared not allow anything to destroy what he already had.

"Trouble brewing," a passing operative of his whispered while discreetly handing him a note from the organization's spy network.

He both liked and disliked such things happening in his happy life. He was just walking to work when such news reached his unfortunate ears. He scanned the note before turning the paper into ash, scowling he walked faster. He would be seeing his people under the guise of his patients.

He gave them instructions, specific ones, they each were given missions separately where each one was vital to a clean completion of the operation he was orchestrating on behalf of the continued peace and prosperity of the country.

There were always and would always be people in power that wanted more power and people without power that wanted power. These self important people were a danger to society, these greedy people, these people that Madara could understand due to having walked down such paths before.

It was another big business merchant, a high rolling player of one of the merchant guilds. He was planning a coup, one that would be participated by some dissatisfied sectors and groups. He had incited them to rebellion. Madara would have none of that.

He sent out his people to sabotage the plans, and if that didn't work in stopping the merchant's momentum then he would declare war on the man and have him and his whole power structure removed from the picture.

It took a whole week for the latest incident to be put down quietly, the court didn't even hear of what had happened under everyone's noses. Things were resolved quietly and with as little use of Madara's personal talents as possible.

The man's businesses were divided amongst Madara's people, the ones that had performed quite well during the operation. The ones that had contributed the most to the success of the operation.

No one bothered to question what had befallen the man's family, since they too had slipped into obscurity.

Madara was quite thorough in his dealings and operations, just as he was thorough when dealing with an illness or injury. He did not accept defeat so well, unless his foe was someone to respect like Naruto had been in the end. It was a grudging respect. So if he ever lost to someone that was of Naruto's caliber he would accept it. He had learned how keeping unnecessary grudges was bad for his health.

He found that he was running low on potential recruits and found that it was time to branch out. He decided to form an outpost in another country. One of the neighboring ones, he was sure that there wasn't anything like his organization to stop him from succeeding in that endeavor.

So he set about doing it, but only after acquiring some guards for his princess as well as filing for paid leave. He did most things by the book, the things that didn't really call for being avoided. Simple things like requesting paid time off.

His request was granted and he was permitted to go on his vacation, a much needed one as he had only taken a vacation only once in his history in this world.

Such a hard working person was he, that no one questioned his reasons for wanting a vacation. They had all seen how tirelessly he worked, and agreed that he deserved some rest.

It wasn't fishy that a number of people left the capital in intervals while heading in the same direction, which was one of the borders. They were headed in the direction of the kingdom of Kou, a kingdom that had no protection in the form of a ruler from all the bad things that had begun happening before the last ruler had passed away.

It was there that Madara set up his second base of operation, he set up in the capital of the country, the center of the country where all operations would be based in. He believed that he would have to take a leaf from Naruto's book and try the helping people approach. He would be overseeing the country in his own way and providing whatever medical aid he could for the people of the country without seeming too suspicious.

He would be further building up his forces.

It wasn't against any law of heaven if what he was doing was for the general benefit of the people.

He worked tirelessly until his vacation time was almost spent. When he left he left people that he could trust in charge of the operation and the division in Kou.

He would receive reports of their continued progress and successes in that kingdom. It was a new challenge, keeping the people relatively well when the heavens themselves were pushing for the gradually increasing decline of the country as a whole.

After returning to his home for the past ten years he returned to his practice and continued his day to day oblivious to the effects of his actions for the past ten years on the suddenly growing underworld. While there had been limited opposition to the evils of the world, with his involvement people started thinking of the possibilities of rising up against the norm.

His actions, visible actions, had a cascading effect, be they good or bad, within the country. Smaller organizations began cropping up out of nowhere. New guilds were being formed, and life became more complicated once more.

There were people that realized that the way to power wasn't entering into official politics, but by ruling from the shadows. It was he who controlled the shadows that controlled the world, or at the very least the country.

After ten short years, the shadow wars had begun, and it was only then that Madara began to feel truly alive again. All it had taken was some showy actions on how his organization managed to control the flow of events, and now there were copy cats everywhere trying to gain the same results.

Things were getting interesting, and as long as people kept their quarrels to the shadows, then there would be no problems.

The Kingdom of Sou was slowly turning into something close to the way the elemental nations were. But instead of one country having a hidden village of their own, it was every province growing a kind of shadow power structure, the capital's own having Madara solidly at the top.

Madara's organization formed the backbone and starting point of the Sou Kingdom's Underworld.

"Have you heard?" Bunki barged into his office one day, she seemed rather excited in a sense.

"About what?" he asked her as he looked up from some patient files he had been looking over.

"A warehouse of medical supplies was found in one of the provinces," she told him, "They were in the process of being shipped off to Kou, no one would have been the wiser had a patrol not accidentally stumbled upon the operation."

"Oh? Is that so bad?" Madara asked, he hadn't heard anything from his own people and thus knew that it wasn't any of his operations.

"Of course it is," she said, "Especially when the use of the supplies were going to be sold to the suffering people of Kou with high prices. Someone organized a group of people to over price needed services in an already suffering country."

"I take it you are appalled at this turn of events," he said calmly.

"Of course I am," she told him, "We are medical professionals, our vow is to aid those in need and not add onto their suffering, mental or physical."

"I know that," he said, which was why his own operations were almost free when it came to the people of Kou, "So what's happened to the supplies."

"They're to be distributed to our people first, and any surplus will be delivered as aid to Kou's present government," she told him, "I just had to tell someone. Sorry for disturbing you."

"S'alright," Madara said, "I know some people that could look into this matter and see about having the same thing avoided, if you want."

"Please," she said, "Anything to alleviate the cause of more problems in the world."'

"Erm...if for some reason monetary compensation is requested by these contacts of mine, what am I to do?" he asked her, he was trying to implement the mission system into his organization, so he might as well be the first one to use the payment system.

"Well, it had better be just the right amount," she said to him, "I'm hoping you're not requesting to bribe someone."

"I'm not," he said, "Just a token of thanks is all. Its not really a payment but a token of thanks for helping out, you know."

"I guess," she said, "While I don't think it would be a good idea to have it viewed as a donation or something from my father, I guess we could pull some funds from the allotment to the Health Department."

"Well, I'll get to speaking to those contacts of mine about this problem," he told her, "I already have a sum in mind for the just compensation if they manage to do something about the situation."

"Thanks Madara," she said and gave him a brief hug, it wasn't awkward, but it was short. She then left with a smile after that, now that she was assured that one of the problems on her mind was sure to be taken care of.

After hospital hours were over, the regular working hours had passed, Madara made his way to the red light district, specifically to one of the most frequented tea houses there. Once there he met with his captains, the ones in charge of his many operations, one of them being an accountant and another being a lawyer of sorts.

He discussed with them their first official job, which was either providing adequate security for such processes or making sure that such processes are either stopped or hidden better, or such a business is taken over by their organization.

The discussion was a short one, where no tarrying or bullshitting was spoken. Business was business and they treated their little meeting as such. When all details were penned, orders were given, and decisions were made. The little get together split up with Madara heading for his apartment in the residential district, but one the side closest to his place of work.

From just another one of many acts that he himself started or orchestrated, others began to form, others began to follow in his footsteps. It started from odd jobs that members of his organization was being hired for. Payment was in the form of donations or tokens of thanks for voluntary work, the payment for jobs was significantly lower compared to such things being done by more professional persons.

As his mission and payment system was slowly incorporated, it eventually reached a point where it was like he was back in his birth world, but instead of being just another soldier, he was a Kage, a finally legitimate one, and not some copycat poser like he had been as the Shodaime Mizukage.

Madara had a more organized feel for doing things, while Naruto was more of a riding by the seat of his pants kind of person.

Madara planned, while Naruto just did things, but for both men, this time around, things would just fall into place for the both of them.

It would be a long time before their paths crossed once again. So in the mean time both of them would walk their own paths their own way. Living their lives to be the best that they could with what they had on hand.