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I enjoy Naruto Fanfiction - including cross-overs. I understand the original author owns his work, however, fans should be able to "play in the sandbox" or even change the "color" of the sand just to see what works. Fans should also expect to inspire other fans. So do not be too surprised if a concept from another story drifts into this playground.

I present my idea for the sandbox as sort of a challenge. Feel free to play here with me.

My version of Naruto is forthcoming. The world will be gritter and darker than the manga and anime that targets younger children. A real ninja world with blood, intrigue, horror, and laughs. A good "bird's eye view" would be a ongoing war story covering both the combat action and the troops down-time antics. Post-tramatic Stress Disorder will define the odd behavior of the elite ninja as they try to cope with the world they live in. However, leaving the gates of the village will "flip the switch" and change the higher ranks from the easy-going folks to killers. Younger ninja will learn to switch also over time and create their own coping mechanisms. This also means the more "basic" humor in the manga and anime will not be present as these people live or die by their skills and attention to detail. Gai may yell in the village, but outside, he will be a deadly serious master at Taijutsu. Kakashi will not read his porn on a mission. Sakura will not yell without her sensi coming down on her for endangering the team. And so on. However, Gai may use his act to get the guard of an opponent down. Anko will flirt to get someone distracted. Kakashi may carry a "book" of explosive tags to fool a lesser ninja.

For cross-overs, I am building the "reasons" behind the power of the ninja. Just "getting chakra" from the sage is too mystical for my tastes, so I am justifying it a bit.

Also, the world will have a logic to it. How the Biju came to be sealed, why they were passed out to other countries, and so on. Some mystical forces will still be present - summoning, seals, etc.

Basis of the story world:

Prototype games begin the creation of the world. The Nuke targeting New York put the world on edge as other powers prepared for the "big one". The second wave of infection in New York covering the Heller arc, resulted in World War III. The virus mutated violently in the radiation of multiple nukes poisoning the biosphere. Everything ends with a planet covered in the virus. The web of intrigue gives the virus a level of intelligence. It understands that it cannot exist alone, so it recreates the biosphere with "changes".

This gives rise to the Marvel version of Earth with Mutants and Venom. Venom is an alien like the Otsutsuki, and is eventually absorbed into the underlaying virus. Scarlet Witch's hex that destroys most mutant powers has a drastically different affect here, as it causes everything to revert back to the base virus again, but with the new memories of the "others" it had created. The virus resets the world again, this time focusing on limiting technology.

Now we are in the basic world of Naruto before the Shinju tree takes root. The tree is affected by the virus which fights to prevent the theft of the planet's life-force. Kaguya is affected by this in that the emotions in the chakra are not filtered when she eats the fruit of the tree, thus driving her insane and infecting her with the virus as well. The virus/Venom cross allows everyone to gain chakra in defense against future "Shinju" thieves.

One location of note is the Citadel where Kaguya gave birth to and raised her children until their late teens. Citadel is one of Kaguya's "pocket planes". She created it and linked it to the Elemental Nations during the period she was known as the Rabbit Goddess. The Sage of the Six Paths raise his own family here. The Citadel passed down Asura's family line to the Uzumaki line. The Citadel was used as the Daimyo Palace. During the fall of Whirlpool, the link to the Palace in Whirlpool was deliberately cut after moving the majority of the treasures and scrolls into the Citadel. The servants, Shadow Guards, and some civilian family members also "fled" the battle by going to the Citadel before the link was broken. This provides a source of original characters to interact with Naruto.

Bloodline:

The Uzumaki bloodline will be directly tied to the virus. The bloodline is not as fixed as the others. "Total Harmony" consists of three paths. Only main branch royal members of the clan tend to fully awaken all three. Most of the clan and "cousins" awaken at least the "Body Harmony" path. Having more than one path awake has additional effects. The three paths are:

"Harmony of Body" - Stamina, deep chakra reserves, minor healing. This is the basis of the longevity of the clan members that fully active this path. The basic level is stamina boost and chakra boost. Medium level provides healing boost and deeper reserves. High level allows healing of others via chakra infusions. Fully awakened provides immunity to disease, poisons, increased life span (500 to 1000 years), and regenerative healing. In short, have chakra, not die. Finally, starting with medium, the bearer can start "advanced" training. Gains of olympic levels in strength, reflexes, gymnastic flexibility, pain threshold levels, and so on. There is not real upper limit if fully awakened. Olympic performance if medium level only. "That which does not kill you, makes you stronger." Think Wolverine without immortality or metal bones. Cannon Naruto has at least medium level. At the Valley of the End, Kyuubi boosted that to Fully Awakended, regenerating from a broken neck and two fatal strikes from Chidori.

"Harmony of Mind" - Eidetic memory, genetic memory, fast mental processing, total recall. This is the basis of the clan's skill in Fuinjutsu. Memorizing seals, sealing script, and analyzing how the scripts interact drives their abilities. Those that awaken fully, have access to ALL of the sealing knowledge of the clan. Basic level is eidetic memory. Medium level boosts mental processing and raises the difficulty in sealing memories or mind-diving techniques. High level brings in total recall, boosts mental reaction time and prevents memory sealing. Fully awakened gains genetic memories and cannot be mind-dived without the diver becoming insane. Genetic memory is recovered based on the chakra levels of the bearer when the level awakens. Death-like experience after puberty is the normal path to awakening this level. This can be a near-death, or sexual orgasm. However, this level has awakened early if the situation is dire. Chakra Level traces back how many "generations" of ancestors are covered in the genetic memories. Genin yields parents' memories. Chunin yields grandparents and great grandparents. Jonin yields 4 to 6 genrations back. Kage yields 6 to 10 generations. Kyuubi level yields all memories in the Web of Intrigue. Needless to say, Naruto can potentially become god-like with just a fully awakened Harmony of Mind.

"Harmony of Soul" - Chakra basic enhancements, solid chakra constructs, similar powers to mutants with "psy-blades" or other "energy" weapons. Basic level gains higher chakra control to match their reserves, allowing Genjutsu and Medical Ninjutsu. Medium level provides chakra constructs like Kushina's chains. High level allows chakra throwing weapons or "psy-blades". Fully awakened can be wild. The user can literially turn their chakra into any imaginable weapon or form. Cyclops' eye blasts, Gambit's cards, and so on. In the Valley of the End battle, the chakra claws and arms could be an example of this in the medium to high levels.

Soul & Body - A fully awakened mind and body could reverse the healing effect of their chakra to be a chakra vampire. Full Wolverine regeneration and immortality if the vampire path is taken.

Mind & Body - Duplicate the gates or the boost from the Sharingan without the damage/drain.

Mind & Soul - Telepathy & telekinesis manipulation like Professor X and Jean Grey.

Mind & Body & Soul (Total Harmony) - Fully awakened would duplicate the full power of the Sage of Six Paths without needing the eyes. Only the "royal" line of the Uzumaki have experienced this combination. Ageless, death is possible due to physical damage.

One interesting side note about the bloodline. It prevents the bearer from EVER using Genjitsu. Kitsune Illusions or Ninjitsu that emulates a Genjitsu substitute for this limitation, at a significant chakra cost. Of course, most Uzumaki have chakra to burn, so it is a minor difficulty for them. Naruto cannot perform Henge or the standard Clone as both are genjitsu techniques.

Naruto's Henge is the Kage Henge which creates a "puppet shell" of chakra around the caster that acts as a seal and shadow clone combination. The caster's body is sealed inside the shadow clone construct. When the clone is dispelled, the seal fails and ejects the caster. The caster can dispell the technique at any time. The chakra shell can be hardened to take more than one hit. Since the caster is "inside the seal", no damage to the clone is transfered to the caster. This can be used to escape major damage from techniques if the attack is momentary, like a lightening bolt or Fireball. Some damage can still be avoided by using chakra to extend the durability of the clone. With the right timing, it can look like the caster simply tanked the attacked without harm.

Another technique of this type is the Shadow Clone technique, itself. These clones were created as a training aid and to give young Uzumaki a clone technique they could use.

Seals Of Interest:

Blood Sanctuary Seal: An example of the height of Uzumaki sealing skills, this artifical bloodline protects the secrets of the clan and those the clan accepted as guardians of Whirlpool. This seal is an array of several individual seals that are linked to the DNA of the bearer. Using the "junk" DNA area, the seal is actually encoded into every cell in the body.

Seal Sections: Chakra reserves. The seal provides three additional copies of the bearer's chakra reserve pool. The first is locked to the seal itself and powers the other functions. The other two provide quick refreshes to the user like a soldier pill without the side-effects. The third pool also is used by the seal to provide Genjitsu defense - periodically pulsing chakra to disrupt Genjitsu. The second pool can be used by the Life Support section. If the "soldier pill" funtion is used, the second pool drains first, then the third refills it until the third is drained. If the third is drained, the Genjitsu defense stops. When both the second and third are drained, the Life Support section must be run by the bearer willfully. If the bearer is knocked out in this state, the Life Support stops.

Seal Sections: Training Support. The seal provides resistance seals to build speed, agility, and strength.

Seal Sections: Life Support. The seal provides a fixed conversion seal to produce medical chakra from the third reserve pool. Minor healing techniques and diagnostic techniques are available for the bearer to use on others or the bearer. Minor healing is automatic for the bearer as long as charka is available in the second pool.

Seal Sections: Personal Security Storage. The seal contains one storage seal with a special purpose. A linked chest that is one cubic foot in volume is stored here. The chest can be tagged with the blood/DNA of a child or relative. Once tagged, if the bearer dies, the chest is summoned to the tagged individual's storage. The summons will ripple through the tags until the last box is sent to the Whirlpool Archives at Citadel.

Seal Sections: Bloodline lock. The seal destroyes any cell that no longer receives chakra from the bearer's chakra core. Blood seals can still be used as the chakra of the bearer still reaches the sample while in contact via the blood or direct skin contact. This also allows summoning to still work. Once contact is broken, the sample burns up from the first chakra pool stored in the sample. being converted to fire elemental chakra. The cell and its DNA is destroyed, but the energy is not strong enough to weaponize. Semen, ova, blood samples, organs, and so on are destroyed when removed from the body. This also prevents theft by rape. To conceive children or take part in certain medical tests, the seal must be disabled first. A specific set of hand seals is defined by default, but the bearer can reset the "key" as needed. The seal will not disable if foreign chakra is present in the body (i.e. Genjitsu, Shadow Binding, Mind control, etc), certain drugs and poisons, or if the chakra pulse molded by the "key" hand seals is not the correct pattern. The seal can be reactivated at any time, but will automatically reactivate in about 20 days. This allows for an ova to embed in the womb after fertilization. Signing summoning contracts will require the seal to be disabled. Creating a blood seal will also require the Bloodline lock to be disabled.

Seal Sections: Seal lock. The blood sanctuary seal will not allow any other seal to set in the body unless the new seal is made using ink containing the blood of the bearer. Since the Bloodline lock prevents blood from being taken without permission, this prevents unwanted seals from being placed on the bearer. Seal tags, or any other external seals with work without interference.

When Kyuubi is sealed, Kushina is forced to disable Naruto's Blood Sanctuary Seal to allow the Eight Trigrams seal to be applied using Naruto's and her blood. Her seal was already disabled to prevent complications during child birth. Since she does not survive after the sealing, Naruto's security is disabled for the default 20 days.

History:

World history will begin as the original author created it up to where Kaguya eats the chakra fruit. From there things change. When the Sage of Six Paths "awakens" chakra in people, he actives parts of the virus that allows the use of bioenergy from the Marvel period. Chakra coils and the rest were present in that period, but not recognized.

At the Valley of the End, Mito and the first Hokage will figure out Madara did not die. They will assume he has the other Biju tied into the summoning contract he used with Kyuubi. This leads to the sealing of the others to prevent Madara from controlling them. Madara being alive is confirmed when the other clans and villages accuse Konoha of building super weapons from the sealed Biju. Since no one outside of the Uzumaki knew the Biju had been sealed, the heroes assume Madara tried to summon them and failed. To prevent war and not show an aggressive face, the First and the Uzumaki agree to allow "diplomats" to travel to the various villages, thus distributing the Biju. Of course, the diplomats were attacked, tortured, and killed after information about how the seals were performed was extracted. The Biju were then sealed into "loyal" members of the village, then mistreated.

As time passes, the Biju feel like slaves. Mistreated, and trapped; they lash out every chance they get. The cycle of hate has begun.

Sandboxes in planning stages:

Shattered Seals: During the 20 day period the blood sanctuary seal is not active, a bloodline suppression seal is put on Naruto the locks the security is the disabled state. This was done to hide any bloodline that would give away his parentage before the Hokage was ready. The Hokage did not know about the security seal, as Kushina did not tell anyone about it. Naruto has multiple seals placed on him over time to impair his abilities. The Third Hokage is not aware of all of them, but a tracking seal linked to his crystal ball, a loyalty seal to Konoha, and a compulsion seal to forgive people are placed on his order by Jiraiya. the total number of seals is large. Borrowing from Thundereaper, the main seal array for Kyuubi contains at least 70 seals, one of which hides Naruto's red hair. The other seals will be detailed in the story.

The trigger point is the Forest of Death encounter with the snake sannin. When he applies the 5 elements seal over Naruto's 8 trigram seal, ALL of the seals collapse due to imbalance and interference. Kurama and Naruto are subject to the memories of both Minato's and Kushina's shadow clones. They may also have picked up memories from each other - Kurama will definately get all of Naruto's memories. In the instant all the seals fail, Kyuubi acts to save both of them. A sample of Naruto's genetic material (blood, heart, brain, or whatever) is saved in a personal storage dimension in stasis. The rest of Nartuo's body becomes a living chakra construct like the Biju. The snake may or may not survive what comes next.

I am Legion: Naruto is subjected to the near-death requirements to fully awaken total harmony during the sealing of Kyuubi. With the chakra of the fox, the Web of Intrigue and an understanding of how to use the powers of the virus, Venom, and his other ancestors is now his. The shadow clones of his parents provide the anchor needed to keep from losing himself to the memories, since his personal sense of self is only an hour or so old. Kurama is shocked out of the genjitsu due to the memory flood. Agreeing to work together, Naruto and Kurama plan how to train his body to match his mind and soul. Abilities in this story can include full Prototype powers or anything in the Marvel-verse, short of the identified aliens like Thanos, the Asguardians, Skrulls, and so on. Aliens the lived on Earth, ate Earth foods, and generally interacted / mated with Earth species will contract the virus and become a part of the reset performed by Scarlet Witch. So their powers and abilities are in the menu.

The Deathless Shadows: The Uzumaki were feared for a very good reason. The Daimyo of Whirlpool commanded a deathless legion of shadow guards. Tireless, indestructable, powerful and totally loyal, these creations of the sealing arts terrified the other clans and nations. However, no one had seen a shadow guard in over a century, so most thought them to be mere legends. The Legends are awake, and Naruto is their master and heir. Kushina is now a shadow guard and will do anything to protect her lord.

Shadow Guards are a combination of puppetry, metal work, seals, and shadow clones. A chakra-metal and titanium-coltan alloy skeleton with a chakra-metal polyalloy liquid metal sheath allows the puppet to shape-shift into virtually any humanoid form. A shadow clone is sealed into the puppet and powered by chakra gathering and absorbing seals. This allows the clone to use chakra at constant Kage levels for weeks without rest. Chakra from attacks below B rank or without high control is simply absorbed to power the guard. The final step involves summoning the Shinigami to reverse the memory flow of the shadow clone jutsu. When the caster dies, the clone gains the memories of the caster and the technique continues as long as the clone wishes and has chakra from the seals. Other seals enforce loyalty to the Whirlpool Daimyo to prevent rogue guards from becoming threats. After 10 years of service, the clone can disspell if it wishes, but must obey the Daimyo otherwise. The process completes with the puppet "asleep" until the caster dies. Kushina, Mikoto Uchiha and Hitomi Huuyga were a team in the Third Shinobi War. Kushina invited her teamates to become "shadow recruits" after returning from the war and before their marriages. The number of guards can be very large, since every person who did a grand service for Whirlpool, the Daimyo of Whirlpool, or the Uzumaki clan could be invited to become "recruits". The usual reward was to be allow to watch over their loved ones for the first decade, folowed by a decade of service to the clan or Whirlpool. In story terms, this means that Hitomi and Mikoto may not die as they did in cannon, since Kushina is active and would intervene to save her friends.

Note that not all shadow guards chose to be humaniod. Some rare custom shells were made, also for "Zoid-like" machines, Transformers, etc. Mecha will be limited in size to a maximum of 40 meters or so due to the power required to move that much mass. The seals are good, but in general, the larger the body, the less chakra for anything other than movement. This encourages the "big robots with guns" that most mecha anime love. No jutsu for big robots. The "Assaults" as the large guards are called are basically armored transports that inspired Snow Country's chakra armor due to legends about the massive machines ignoring attacks.

Assaults move at high Chunin, low Jonin speed on the ground. No tree hopping, or flight. Swimming is also possible for some models, as is walking on the bottom of a moderately deep river or lake. Deep oceans, not so much. The chakra expense of just moving and stay active limits the mecha. Shields and other energy expenditures run off seprate chakra seals that are limited in capacity to a few hours of heavy use at most. Any "signature attacks" are usually powered by the pilot and are thus limited to what the pilot can channel. The Liger's laser claws would count as a B rank attack, and the cutting tail would be A rank, and so on. The rest of the weapons are limited to what puppets normally use: kunai launchers, senbon launchers, poison gas, poisoned weapons, explosive tags, trap jutsu tags and so on. The occasional mecha has chinese rockets from the Mongol period (really big bottle rockets) and mortars.

Kageboushi: Naruto Shadow Clones Puppets - A saner version of Deathless where Naruto uses Henged Shadow Clones to power semi-standard ninja puppets. The clones use chakra strings to manage the puppet and perform any jutsu. Naruto prepares a statis scroll with puppets that can act independently and take serious hits before "powering down". His favorite puppet is Cerberus. The puppet is operated by three clones Henged into Chipmunks. The Center Head contains the Taijutsu clone the manages the body movement, named Alvin. The Left Head has Simon, who uses chakra strings to throw missle weapons, exploding tags, and tangle opponents to throw or choke. The Right Head is operated by Theodore. This head focuses on defense. Prepared Substitutions, hardening the body with chakra, or absorbing chakra via seals to recharge the clones are all tasks for the Right Head.

More to come.