Welcome. This is a Rinnegan Naruto story. He will be OP. Hope you enjoy regardless :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Chapter One: The Bird's Liberation

"It just never stops. Well over a millennium and it just won't end. Why isn't peace attainable? Why must violence and warfare be the status quo?"

Thoughts of a man that floated several feet above the ground in a lotus position. History books would call this man many names from the Sage of Six Paths to the God of Shinobi. Otsutsuki Hagoromo is his birth name and he is the founder of Shinobi. The first person to be born with chakra in his body. His legend spread through the world as merely a myth due to its absurdity and grandiose feats.

"Fighting off a beast of the Jubi's (Ten-tails) stature before turning it into the moon does seem farfetched old man."

A chuckle escaped Hagoromo's lips before he turned his attention to the deep voice. The voice emanated from a gargantuan fox with nine tails and an ominous pair of red eyes. Though the fox's appearance was downright scary, the Sage had no qualms with being in its presence.

"Hearing it myself would make me not believe it as well, Kurama-kun. Luckily, I was there for it," said Hagoromo looking at the fox. It was just smiling at him which garnered a smile from him also. "What is with the look?"

"You...you're here. I knew you were too great to lose to something like old age."

"But, I did die to old age."

"Your body did. Your spirit is strong and I can feel your chakra. You're not fooling me," spoke Kurama getting a wider smile from Hagoromo. The fox's tails were waving excitedly in anticipation. "So...when are you going to spring me there pops? You've been sitting there going through a monologue in your head for way too long."

"Oh, I can't spring you Kurama-kun because I'm only an apparition," informed the Sage getting Kurama to look shocked. "I wish. But you're stuck here for the foreseeable future."

And spirit crushed. Kurama hoped upon seeing its creator suddenly appear within the confines of the seal that all was great. Hagoromo was here, the seal would unlock, and Kurama would be free of being inside one of these lesser beings called humans. Hagoromo was a human too but really he was more alien than what the other flesh bags were so, he didn't count. Until he said he couldn't spring the fox.

"No. No. No! What?! You're..you're...you! You can do anything!" shouted Kurama in disbelief getting a somber look from Hagoromo. He could see the visible disappointment. "What other reason could you be here for then? To talk about what's been happening?! Huh? Well, I've been stuck inside a human for the better part of a century, old man. Not the best of times."

"I know. I really wish I could free you. But even if I could by trying," said Hagoromo before turning his head. On the other side of the seal, a baby slept peacefully despite the conversation happening currently. Hagoromo smiled at the child as he continued. "I'd kill that boy in the process."

"So? His life means more to you than mine?"

"How I feel is irrelevant because his life still means something to someone. Don't be like that."

"How else am I supposed to be? All I wanted to be was alone and then he came and used those cursed eyes on me. Then it was ginger lady wife of flower boy." rambled Kurama summarizing his more recent memories. "Then she got a baby ginger lady to contain me. Which backfired because another scummy Uchiha, possibly the original one, came and mind fucked me again. Then sunflower guy locked me away, half into the Shinigami and the other half into a chibi clone version of himself." continued Kurama before looking at the Sage. "Let's recap. Mindfuck. Prison. New prison. Mindfuck again. Half my body ripped out and locked away into the Shinigami's tummy. Before prison once again. Said prison happening to be the most helpless thing on Earth. A human baby. So, how am I supposed to be like, old man?!"

Hagoromo watched Kurama huff after its emotive statement and allowed the weight of the fox's words to fully digest. Maybe Kurama had a point. The summary was a pretty bad experience. Entirely not how Hagoromo meant for the beasts to live.

"Alright, I see your point. Maybe there is something I can do for you," said Hagoromo nearly a minute after Kurama finished speaking. Kurama opened his mouth but the sage stopped him. "Not kill this child by freeing you. Seriously, no."

"Fine..." agreed Kurama not pleased its idea wasn't an option. "Take over his body and become the Jinchuriki. Then maybe I'll be fine with this cage."

"I'm not doing that either. Why would I want to redo life all over again? That-" said Hagoromo lazily pointing to the baby. "-was terrible. I'm not doing it again. Besides, if another 'me' wound up in the world people would..." the Sage stopped himself before thinking of the possibilities of another him. Kurama watched its creator nod slowly before looking at the baby. "Hmm, what was that legend of the Rinnegan? Those who possess it would bring about world peace or world destruction?"

"Yeah. But that's just a legend..." Kurama trailed off when it realized where Hagoromo's thoughts were. "No! Old man."

"Why not?"

"Why not? What if the child grows up and abuses your power as your descendants did? Your eyes are even stronger than the one that's fucked me over all these years."

"You have a point. The boy could do that," said Hagoromo walking over to the slumbering child. "But that's what you're here for. To make sure it doesn't happen." continued Hagoromo standing over the baby boy. "Plus, he's the reincarnation of Ashura. I can feel it. I wonder what it'd have been like if Ashura inherited the full breadth of my powers? Not just my body, my eyes as well."

"No, just no. I decline. I hate humanity. I'll have him destroy the world first chance I get."

"...you're right, it is a bad idea," said Hagoromo shaking his head. "It could end badly."

"Exactly you old-"

"-So be it...have him destroy the world then," said Hagoromo getting Kurama to stare at him with wide eyes.

"Jiji..." warned Kurama. "Don't try to pull some reverse psychology stuff. I'll have him destroy the world. I'll do it!"

"Oh, I believe you."

"This isn't a game-"

"Kurama-kun, I respect your fear and understand your concern. But every reincarnation of Ashura has done wondrous things for the world," spoke the Sage with a smile placing a palm to the baby's forehead. "I aim to jumpstart such things. Watch over this boy for me like I know you will. He holds my very essence."

Kurama said nothing before feeling the chakra transfer. A white light expanded to cover the boy's entire mindscape.

(Real World)

A crib sat neatly in the corner of the room that housed the same baby Hagoromo and Kurama were looking at. The baby was sleeping soundly even as the door to his room was kicked in. An old man well into his fifties stood in the room with his eyes surveying it like the battle-hardened shinobi he was.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was the man's name and he continued looking around the room before realizing nothing was amiss. Everything was as he left it considering the boy still slept soundly. But Hiruzen knew what he felt. And if the only thing in the room was the baby, it meant it had to come from him.

"Is the Kyubi breaking the seal?" questioned Hiruzen to himself walking over to the baby boy. The golden hair and whisker scarred cheeks of the baby brought a smile to his face. "You wouldn't let the Kyubi loose would you, Naruto-kun?"

Maybe he was going senile. He could have sworn he felt a massive chakra spike. And maybe he did. But seeing how everything looked normal, the old shinobi would just pass it off as senility. What else could he do?

(13 Years Later)

"You're not hurt are you...scaredy-cat."

Two kunai stabbed deeply into a snake many times bigger than him, Uzumaki Naruto stood in his orange jumpsuit a few feet from his teammate, Uchiha Sasuke. And Sasuke remembered those exact same words coming from his mouth to Naruto back during their first real mission. A mission that went awry and had them locked against two shinobi set out to kill them.

Throughout their battle, Sasuke was needed to save Naruto. Naruto was unprepared for the true dangers of a ninja and Sasuke made sure to let him know about it. Naruto just happened to return that gesture in magnanimous fashion.

"Oh, you've grown up so interesting." spoke their current enemy, a kunoichi from Kusagakure. Her tongue elongated before snatching Naruto up in an uncompromisingly strong vice grip. The tongue was positioned in a way that showed the boy's belly which had an intricate design on it. "Hmm, and there goes the seal."

The woman's five fingers glowed purple with chakra before she slammed them directly atop the seal. Naruto's eyes bugged out at the powerful strike as a noiseless shout left him. Five markings showed around the seal before Naruto passed out. The woman chuckled before launching Naruto away without care.

"Naruto!" shouted Naruto's other teammate, Haruno Sakura. She managed to launch a kunai that pinned him to a tree. "Sasuke-kun, Naruto might not be the best, but at least he's no coward."

Those words from Sakura got the Uchiha to finally snap himself out of it. She was right. And more importantly, Naruto was right. He needed to stop being a punk.

Sadly, they would find out later that they were facing Orochimaru of the three Sannin. The Sannin being a trio of three of Konoha's most legendary shinobi. They were no match at all. But while all this happened, a certain Bijuu was internally panicking within its Jinchuriki.

(Naruto's Mindscape)

Kurama was a wreck. The fox sat shaking its head at its current predicament.

"The second seal cut me off from the boy..."

Normally, this would be a problem. Naruto himself wasn't all that impressive a shinobi. In any real danger, Naruto relied heavily on Kurama's power to stay alive and survive the dire circumstances he found himself in. Kurama stopped all of the boy's near-deaths.

But, that wasn't the only thing Kurama stopped. Located just outside the fox's cage was a black and white chakra settled in a yin-yang pattern. Hagoromo's 'essence' given to Naruto all those years ago. Kurama had kept the powerful chakra away from Naruto since that moment thirteen years ago.

The Bijuu didn't want Naruto to ever garner access to it. However, the seal Orochimaru placed on Naruto cut him off from his Jinchuriki and that chakra was finally free to flow. And flow it did.

"Seems you finally got your wish Jiji..." said Kurama as the chakra slowly filtered into Naruto and melded with the boy's own. "If he destroys the world you so wished to protect, it is on you."

Kurama watched the chakra began to work its way into Naruto's chakra pathway. The Bijuu could already feel Naruto's body beginning to adapt to it. And the fox didn't care to keep watching the metamorphosis.

Kurama would deal with this when the time came.

(12 hours later)

Pain, definitively, is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. Naruto had felt pain from the battles he found himself in or even during training. Most of those pains were physical and Naruto always shrugged those off in a matter of minutes or after a night's rest.

Mental pain, such as the migraine he had, was something Naruto was not used to. He couldn't remember having a headache, let alone an ailment of any kind. The pounding in his head and the pulsating pain behind his eyes were extremely painful to the boy who'd never experienced such stimuli.

Throughout the pain, Naruto's mind was assaulted by images of another life. They were fleeting but Naruto managed to catch them all despite the speed they were moving through his mind.

Some of those images were of him looking at a goddess-like woman and calling her mother. Watching his 'mother' merge with a tree that then turned into a beast with ten-tails. Fighting alongside his 'brother', sealing the woman into the moon, and the beast itself into himself. Sharing his chakra with the world and searching for peace and stability. Finding love. Having children. Approaching death. Separating the beast's chakra into 9 beings.

An entire lifetime showed itself to Naruto in the span of several seconds before it ended. When it ended, so did the pain in his head and the pain behind his eyes. Now over, Naruto found his other senses and took in his surroundings with his eyes still closed.

His sense of hearing was first as he heard voices that didn't belong to his Genin team.

"Someone should really wake him up...this is embarrassing," said a boy with a bored look on his face and black hair that stuck up in a ponytail.

"Shikamaru..." thought Naruto recognizing the voice before hearing another.

"We could kick him. Can I kick him first?" asked a portly boy with reddish-brown hair.

"Ha, that's definitely Choji."

"Stop it, you idiots. Maybe he has their scroll. We could take it while he is out," said the girl of the trio with platinum blonde hair.

"Ino, how opportunistic..." thought Naruto feeling the person kneel next to him before reaching a hand toward him. Naruto nabbed her wrist without opening his eyes as Ino's eyes widened hearing him speak. "Stealing our scroll? You could have at least asked first."

"Huh? Oh! Naruto-kun...hi! When did you wake up?" questioned Ino nervously. Her hand was held in Naruto's grip as she sighed. Cranking her seduction up to 11, Ino prepared to weasel her way out of this until Naruto opened his eyes. "Your...your eyes..."

Naruto's eyes had always been nice to look at. A shade of blue that matched the bluest of ocean water. They were very emotive and you could tell everything Naruto was thinking or feeling if you looked at them.

Now though, Naruto's eyes were the exact opposite. Cold and emotionless. Purple eyes with a tiny pupil surrounded by concentric circles. They were staring at Ino and she could feel the unbridled power within them. It was like they were looking at her very soul and she was finding it hard to breathe.

"What about Naruto's eyes?"

Ino blinked hearing the question from her teammate. Upon blinking, Ino saw Naruto's eyes were their regular blue. There was a dopey look on his face as Ino shook her head wondering what happened.

"Was I..." thought Ino not sure of what she saw. Her teammates both looked away to assess the current situation as Ino looked back at Naruto. There wasn't a dopey look to his face anymore. "I wasn't..."

Naruto's blue eyes were the exact same but they held something different. The infinite brightness was there but there was something else that Ino couldn't describe.

And having seen what Sasuke did earlier, Ino couldn't help but wonder.

"What happened to you all in here?"

(Two days later)

Ino was livid. 48 hours had passed and she'd found out little to nothing about Naruto. The fact she'd been spending 48 hours trying to find out something about the dead last in her class irked her to no end.

"Those eyes...and the way he looked..." thought Ino remembering the look. Naruto hadn't shown either again since that moment. He was just the same dopey Naruto she'd always known. "I know what I saw. Is he trying to hide it?"

And there she went again thinking about him. She was supposed to be spending her time thinking of how to get Sasuke to marry her. None of her focus should be on the dead last of her class. But the gossip in her, her clan's nature in being adept at information gathering, kept her hooked on Naruto. And it would until she figured out what it was all about.

Sasuke's freaky power had apparently been given to him by Orochimaru. The same could be said for Naruto all things considered. But Naruto's power wasn't as evil or tainted as Sasuke's.

"It felt as if he was staring into my soul." thought Ino looking at the blonde-haired Genin. "What were those-"

"Kick his ass Naruto! Shannaro!"

"Kami, Forehead is so loud." thought Ino looking at her rival/best friend cheer for her Team 7 teammate. The same teammate Ino herself was thinking so hard about was currently in a fight. "Maybe this fight with Kiba will shed some light. Even if he'll lose."

Naruto stood on the arena floor with a far-off look on his face. He didn't even acknowledge Sakura's cheer for him from the balcony overlooking the arena floor designated for the preliminary fights. His mind was elsewhere shifting through the memories he now had.

"Hagoromo...or Naruto." thought Naruto having a mental crisis. Memories were what made you, you. Having another man's memories gave Naruto some pause. "Am I Hagoromo...am I Naruto? Who I am?"

This was what was plaguing Naruto during the past 48 hours since awakening. He hadn't told anyone about the eyes he held. The Rinnegan as his new memories told him. Eyes a step up from the Sharingan his teammate and sensei had.

He would have told someone about them but he himself didn't fully comprehend yet. It wouldn't do any good to show the world something he couldn't explain. So, Naruto kept trying to shift through Hagoromo's memories to find a way to-

"Oi! Pay attention while I kick your ass Naruto!"

"Oh right, I'm in a fight..." thought Naruto dodging Kiba and his dog partner, Akamaru. The two had come at him in a flurry of claws that wouldn't do well to get hit by. "I don't have time for this."

"You won't escape me this time. Gatsuga (Fang over Fang)" said Kiba launching at Naruto once more in a tornado.

Naruto closed his eyes before his Rinnegan came to life. He could feel the chakra within him and he marveled at its potency. Picking an ability he could remember Hagoromo using, Naruto felt his body augment substantially. Ducking the tornado, Naruto rose immediately as Kiba passed halfway over him.

"Shurado (Asura Path)." thought Naruto throwing a punch that hit Kiba in the stomach.

Kiba's spin stopped cold as he hunched over Naruto's fist. Kiba felt like he got hit by a rhino before he simply blacked out at the intense shock of pain. Naruto dropped the out of it Inuzuka and he didn't get back up.

Akamaru whimpered by his out cold owner as Naruto turned his Rinnegan off and opened his eyes to look at his right hand. Scratches were all across it as Kiba managed to catch him still.

"I'm not as good as Hagoromo...this body needs work." thought Naruto with a new plan of action to get better.

"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto," said the proctor of the prelims before he turned to Naruto. "Hell of a counter kid. Didn't know you could do that."

"Guess I got lucky is all. Thanks," said Naruto goofily before heading back up the steps. Naruto stepped back on to the balcony before seeing another one of his classmates standing before him. Seeing her though, Naruto couldn't help but acknowledge what he knew. "Hinata-hime?"

"Hime?!" thought Hinata looking wide-eyed at Naruto while a blush immediately rose to her cheeks.

"Hmm, Hagoromo's little brother, Hamura, calls her hime because she holds his power. Doesn't mean I should have...mah, oh well." thought Naruto seeing the container held in her hands. "Is this for me?"

"...Hai Naruto-kun...nice...nice fight," spoke Hinata with furiously red cheeks. Naruto smiled at her before accepting the gift with a hug and thank you. "Naruto-kun is hugging me..."

Hinata held up for the most part, throughout the entire hug, as she felt the warmth from her crush. Naruto let go of her and walked off as Hinata finally passed out from the close proximity with the apple of her eye. Her sensei caught her as she smiled at the girl.

"Way to go Hinata. That was good." thought Kurenai, Hinata's sensei, before she looked at Naruto amble his way to his team. "I thought he was a dunce? He beat Kiba with one move. A Taijutsu strike at that and that's Kiba's best art..."

Kurenai couldn't fathom Naruto growing so much in the months since graduating from the Academy. But he just beat arguably her best fighting student with minimal effort and minimal damage. How intriguing. Maybe this was what her female student saw that no one else did?

Naruto arrived back to his team and looked at all of them. Sasuke was giving him a smirk. Sakura was fist-pumping his success. And Kakashi was giving him an eye smile. Those three reactions got Naruto to smile to see them happy with his win.

"See you in the finals. Don't lose until you face me," said Sasuke nodding to his teammate.

"Hell yeah Naruto! You beat him in one move. It was like WHOOSH and then WHAM POW!" exclaimed Sakura continuing her fist pump and cheerleading.

"Congratulations Naruto. Very impressive," said Kakashi looking at the blonde. While cordial outside, Kakashi was curious internally. "That counter should be impossible for someone like Naruto. But it wasn't. When did he learn it? And the chakra I felt..."

Kakashi would be left stuck wondering about his student as well. Something had happened to Naruto, that much he knew, and the sensei would find out later.

For now, he'd let his student bask in his success of passing. All his questions could be answered at a later time. Currently, he was the sensei of two Genin who both reached the final stages of the Chunin Exam.

"Oh, my cute little Genin. They grow up so fast don't they." thought Kakashi before giving Naruto and Sasuke patronizing pats on the head. Pats the latter didn't too much like and the former didn't pay much attention too. "Just so...fast."

While Kakashi was messing with Sasuke and Naruto, sharp eyes were looking at Naruto. Sarutobi Hiruzen looked even older as he donned red robes and a red hat to watch the preliminary fights. The last one catching his eye.

"I remember that chakra. It was the same one I felt over 13 years ago." thought Hiruzen seeing the far-off look on Naruto's face as Kakashi ruffled his hair. "My boy...what happened to you in that forest?"

For now, Hiruzen would continue to watch the prelims. But he'd definitely be finding out what happened to Naruto. Something changed within Konoha's Jinchuriki. What change? Hiruzen aimed to find out as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading

A/N: This story is merely an attempt to write from the perspective of a demi-god. Naruto is OP. I won't say it again. None of his fights will be much of anything...at least for now. I hope you stay around but, if not, thank you for at least getting this far. Chapters will be longer starting with the next.