A bony mask. Glowing, hateful, red eyes. Fur, black as night, and just as menacing. A shape like a wolf but larger, much larger. Naruto held his kunai with trepidation. He'd never heard of anything like this. It seemed like some kind of Tailed Beast, but he knew the One-Tail wasn't a wolf, and it certainly wasn't this animalistic. But he couldn't think of any other explanation. So he exercised caution. He had drawn a kunai, ready to strike, when the pits of red that it called eyes shot over to stare at him. That settled it, in his mind. No mere animal could detect a ninja, and certainly not a ninja like him. Therefore, this was more.

The world seemed to slow, as Naruto took in every minute detail of the beast before him. He noted the teeth, the claws. Natural weapons, certainly potential threats. He debated creating a clone or two to get an idea of how this thing would fight. But he also didn't want to spend the second it would take to make the signs in order to use the jutsu.

That left two, not necessarily plausible paths. He would have to kill this thing in one go or be evasive enough to learn how it fought. He readied himself to throw his kunai, hoping it would be enough to cleave through the creature's skull or neck. As if on cue, the breeze died, just as the wolf-like beast lowered into a pounce. Naruto brought his arm into an upward arc, aiming the kunai for the beast's neck. He released it, and the kunai flew true, plunging itself deep into the creature's neck.

It howled in pain, and Naruto realized: this was just a beast. All at once, his tension left him, as he realized that after being potentially fatally wounded, no doubt it would flee. But to his shock, it didn't. Instead, it lowered back into the pounce, and lunged at him. His second realization was that this thing was only about as fast as a beast. He sidestepped it easily. With these things in mind, he didn't want to kill it. Likely, he had just encroached on its territory, he thought. If he left, it probably wouldn't give chase. Either way, it would have to bleed out soon from the kunai wound.

But then he reached his third realization: the wolf wasn't bleeding. Despite the kunai being lodged in its neck, it showed no signs of being wounded, not even a drop of blood. Something in his mind flipped, like a switch, and he got ready to fight this beast in earnest. Naruto wasn't sure why, but he was sure that this thing wouldn't give up. He drew two more kunai, getting ready to counter its next pounce. When that pounce came, he ducked underneath of it, and just managed to slit the creature's throat in both direction.

It landed in a heap, and summarily dissolved, something that he recoiled at. But before he could question it further, his senses picked something else up. The sounds of more beasts, more of these things probably, coming to aid their packmate. So it was just a beast, he thought. Which meant that there was no need, nor any incentive, for fighting these things. The only thing at stake was his life.

Not to mention, he knew for certain that he wasn't where he should have been. He should be in the forest around the Leaf Village, but he couldn't be. Those woods didn't have wildlife like this. And this forest felt oppressive, dark, deadly. Long story short, he was in the wrong place.

And so these things couldn't be his priority. He had to get back home. He was told that it was in danger. That the Akatsuki were attacking. That Pain was attacking. He had cut his Sage Mode training short in order to get back right then and there. Of all the times for an attack to happen…

Wherever he was, he had no time to deal with a pack of these things. It wouldn't be hard to avoid them anyway. He scaled a tree, a high tree. From the top, he thought, he would be able to see for miles. If he was anywhere near the village, he'd see it from there. Climbing the tree was easy for him. Maybe climbing isn't quite the right word for leaping up from branch to branch, but regardless he reached the top in no time. As he went, he could hear the wolves circling the tree beneath him, obviously searching for their prey.

As he landed on the highest branch that would support his weight, he grabbed onto the trunk, using it and his chakra to balance himself. He was above the trees from here, and his view was extensive. But still, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find the village on the horizon. Not only that, but he couldn't see the Toad Mountain anywhere nearby either. He scratched his head, his brow furrowed, as he scanned the landscape one more time.

It wasn't just that the village and the mountain were missing, he didn't recognize where he was at all. He was confident it was in the Land of Fire, he didn't know of anywhere else with a forest this large. The trees went out for miles and miles.

The obvious explanation was that whatever that pond of the toads' was, it hadn't worked how it should have. But if he was in the Land of Fire, then he should be able to find something he could identify in the distance, right? As quickly as the hope came into his mind, it faded. Navigating wasn't exactly his forte. Ok, so, finding his way out of this forest blindly wouldn't work. But what else was there? The village was in danger; Naruto didn't have time to worry about where he was. No, he would have to pick a direction and hope.

But an hour spent hopping tree to tree drained that hope fast. Not once did he spot civilization, not even just an inn along the road. All he could find was more of those strange black beasts. They seemed to be everywhere. But it wasn't just the wolf-like ones. He spotted some that looked like great bears, too, and he could have sworn that he saw one flying off in the distance. But he shook that one off, since it would have had to have been huge if he had seen it. Or just a lot closer than he thought.

Nevertheless, Naruto continued. At some point, he figured, he'd either find a building, or a town, or even just the coast. It didn't take long for a glint to catch his eye. It was distant, so far off that he could've easily missed it, but for his desperate scanning of the horizon. With the sun setting, he managed to spot the reflection of the sunlight off of what had to be glass, or a mirror, or water, or something that could guide him home.

He sped towards it, barely noticing that as he got closer, the forest around him thinned. But he did notice, certainly, when the buildings came into view. It was some sort of village, built vertically. Huge buildings, stretching into the sky, built from concrete. But they were broken, desolate even. The roads were cracked and uneven. And everything felt… dead. But more than that, it felt as though he wasn't welcome, like his presence was offensive to the village itself.

He noticed, quickly, that there were some of those wolf things here, too. Evidently, they had moved in after the people abandoned it. But he couldn't tell why the people would have left. It didn't look like this was a ninja village, so it probably wasn't attacked by enemy ninja. And it looked like a lot of people lived here. So it would have been hard to move the entire town.

As he mulled these thoughts over, Naruto failed to notice the wolf-like creature creeping up behind him. That is, until it barked as it leapt at him. Only his reflexes saved him, as he dropped to the ground, narrowly avoiding the beast's near-sneak attack. He whipped out a kunai, hurling it at the animal. Once again, the attack hit its mark, but the beast didn't back down. On the contrary, it instead immediately swiped at him, missing its mark, but only narrowly. Unused to fighting animals and against their instincts, Naruto elected to fall back on what worked before. Drawing another kunai, he lowered his stance, ready to duck if it pounced again.

However, it instead slashed at him again, an attack that even if he didn't counter, he was still ready for. He blocked it with his free arm, noting that the beast had little strength, and stabbed upwards through its head. It fell limp, and began to dissolve into mist. Once again, he recoiled as it happened. He'd already determined that this wasn't like a normal animal. But even still, he didn't know of anything that simply dissolved or vanished when killed, besides summons.

And as he thought that, an idea smacked him in the face. He felt unbelievably stupid for not thinking of it sooner: the summoning jutsu! Shaking his head at his completely stupidity, he bit into his thumb, made the sign, slammed his thumb onto the ground, and yelled, "SUMMONING JUTSU!"

A second passed, then two, and then three. Nothing happened. Not a poof of smoke, not any markings on the ground, and worst of all, no toad of any kind appeared. Naruto stared, dumbfounded, at the spot where his thumb rested, as if waiting for anything. After another second, he shook it off, telling himself that he just messed it up. He bit his thumb again, even though it still had blood on it, and repeated the process. But again, nothing.

As the moon reached its apex in the sky, and another wolf dissolved next to him, Naruto once again slammed his torn-apart thumb into the ground, and once again yelled out the same words, his voice hoarse. The ground beneath him had no marking on it besides the blood, and the tears. He fell onto his back, staring upwards, the pain in his thumb not even registering to him. His mouth was still moving, mouthing the same two words over and over again. His eyes closed, like they were moving on their own, his mouth still moving, still stuck on one simple idea that would never work.

Ho

Ly

FUCK.

It has been quite a long time hasn't it? I promised, back a long time ago, that I would rewrite The Shinobi of Beacon. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that there were some glaring issues with that piece. Pacing was all over the place, the characters were all one-note, a lot of the scenes pre-chapter 18 were ripped directly from RWBY… And that's hardly scratching the surface. Naruto himself was everywhere power-wise.

Basically, it was a number of issues with consistency and characterization. My hope is that, since that time, I have learned to write better than those olden days. You'll all have to let me know.

As for all of my other stories, consider them dead. With the possible exception of Unprepared, I have no interest in continuing any of them, or in the case of Light, I lost all of my notes for the story, as well as 3 completed chapters. So, that story is cancelled until I feel less lazy.

EDIT: After re-reading The Adopted Uchiha, I've decided that I'm going to continue it. I like the premise, and I feel like I've got a good starting point. Look forward to that as well.