DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, Naru talking in her mindscape to Kurama, etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

"...I can't believe you," Shisui said, shaking his head and scolding his apprentice. "Honestly, you are such a pain, Naru-chan."

"I'm - sorry?" Ru asked while smiling. Shisui was such a worrywart and great guy. "I'll make all this up to you, ya know. Dango, or… Well, I WOULD try to give you a hand in courting Hana, but she's a child."

"You're a child," Shisui pouted as he slid down in the chair next to her bed in the Tower's infirmary. "And don't be ridiculous. She's her clan's heiress, and - and can you IMAGINE the reaction of either clan? An Uchiha," he said, sounding purposely pompous, "in the Inuzuka Compound?"

"So you don't think true love can prevail?" she asked almost sarcastically. Ru didn't really think it could either, sadly. Such was clan politics in this world, and Shisui was from what they called the Main Branch of the Uchiha clan. Arranged marriages were actually a thing, and Ru had long ago decided to run and take her chances outside Fire Country if they tried to force her into one at any point. "Not that you need to be planning a marriage and having sex: you're too young."

Shisui gawked at the girl whose lips were, increasingly, twitching as she tried to suppress a laugh at his reaction. "You are eight years younger than me, you menace!" That made the little nuisance break out into an open laugh. Shisui was glad that she didn't seem to be in pain from it; it was amazing how fast she healed, even from something serious. "If you're well enough to laugh, you're well enough to train," Shisui said, shaking his finger twice at her like an old man as he repeated his uncle's near-mantra. Naru scowled at him but closed her eyes, and after several minutes in which he used her silence to read Jiraiya-sama's wonderful newest novel, she finally spoke.

"I can't sense anything interesting," she concluded, scratching her nose. "There are a few dozen people in the Tower, then I can feel some shinobi and animals in the nearby forest, but otherwise, those Hashirama trees are really messing with my abilities."

Shisui asked about the animals she could sense and Ru shivered. "I'm not sure, but," she breathed in and centered herself then quickly rubbed her arms up and down. "Gross. There are a lot more giant bugs out there than I saw."

"Anko-san and the Aburames feed them," Shisui said absently, deeply involved in the tragic love story and just getting to the part where the protagonist's main love interest breaks his bones with an unknown jutsu. Honestly, how this fictional man could still love the fictional woman who continues physically (and unknowingly to her, emotionally) hurting him is a mystery to Shisui, but it's compelling storytelling. "I don't get that woman," he said more to himself than his apprentice regarding Anko. "She's hot, but her love for all things creepy-crawly just scares the crap out of me."

A sultry voice came from the open door. "Someone talking about me?"

Shisui's eyes went wide as he sat up straight and Ru had to hold back a snicker. "I told you," she mouthed to her shishou. Although she'd never been able to find one, Ru was pretty sure Anko put a seal on people so that if they spoke of her, she'd appear like she was summoned or something. "Glad you finally came to visit, Anko-nee."

"Oh please," Anko said, waving her hand around as she strutted in, "I've been here several times when you were asleep, imouto. Isn't that right? Shisui," she said with a smirk that just screamed DANGER.

"Yes ma'am," Shisui said timidly. Ru held back giggles at two of her favorite people. Anko yanked the taller Shisui off his chair and dragged him into the hallway.

"GOOD LUCK," Ru yelled, chuckling when she heard Shisui begging for his life. He was so dramatic, and although Anko liked to teach people lessons for speaking ill of her, it was rare when they expected it. She was a great mentor. Surprisingly, Shisui came back into Naru's room, looking serious. Anko wasn't with him anymore. "Everything okay?"

"Mission, I guess," Shisui said, feeling irritated. He wasn't supposed to have ANBU - either ANBU - duties until one week after the Second Stage of the Chunin Exams ended, but this must be important. He didn't want to leave Naru to the crappy med nins he had to threaten to care for the girl though. "Do you think you're well enough to leave for the hospital now?"

"Yes," Ru answered easily, hopping up from her bed. "See?" she said, bouncing on her toes. "I can walk there, but I don't think I need the hospital: that's just stupid! You know I hate it there."

Shisui nodded, feeling a tickling sensation that he rarely ignored. "Get dressed. Quickly. I'll carry you." He turned to give her some privacy while his little apprentice yelled that he didn't have permission to carry her anywhere. The brat... Getting dressed only took her a minute, and he bent down to carry her as soon as she came out strapping on her weapons pouches. Seeing that he was serious, she didn't disobey in the end.

"Uchiha-san," a med nin grabbed him - tightly - by the shoulder. "Uzumaki-san isn't ready to be transferred."

"Maa, I've been summoned to Lord Hokage," he lied. It was clearly Danzo that was calling through a series of pulses into his ANBU tattoo. "I'm not leaving her here."

Ru snuggled into his curly locks, pretending to be sleepy. "There's something wrong with that woman. Ill-intent, man, and uhh- it's like she's otherwise not there." She felt Shisui go stiff before he began to run.

"UCHIHA-SAN," the woman yelled.

"What's the deal with that woman?" Ru asked, holding on tightly as Shisui ran through repeated flickers. He was so damn fast!. They cruised through the horrible forest with a speed that made her close her eyes so she didn't get sick.

"Doesn't matter," he mumbled. As soon as they were out of the Forest of Death, Naru began hyperventilating. He put her down, clearly concerned. "Are you hurt? More, I mean?" He pulled up the back of her top and pulled her shorts down a bit to see her wound, which wasn't there anymore, at least superficially. Grabbing her whiskered little face, he used what she always called his manly voice. "Genin Uzumaki, BREATHE. In... Out. In... Report."

Still panting but trying to get her emotions in check, Ru's training kicked in. "Multiple deaths in Sector 12: there's a... f- fierce battle. Oh... Shisui!" Naru felt the tears falling down her cheeks as her sensory ability began to overwhelm her. Shisui grabbed her and moved even faster, depositing her at the hospital.

"Stay here," he ordered before taking off.

Sector 12 was the Uchiha district, his home. He and Itachi had done everything they could think of to avoid any of the animated bullshit he'd witnessed in the mind of Nara Shikamaru. They had been successful, he thought! The Elders still complained about the Uchiha not getting their dues, but Uncle Fugaku, the clan head, turned any nonsense they came up with down, flat! The geezers had calmed down a lot since rumors began spreading that Itachi might, in the future, be groomed for the Hokage position.

He arrived to the scene of a bloodbath, flying into action.

In the meantime, Ru got a hold of herself, feeling little but fury as she sensed the perfectly decent civilians in the Uchiha district she knew that were dropping like flies. Uchiha shinobi were dying, too, and they were some of the best. But they were the closest thing she had to family, outside of Lady Ichika! The hospital staff was ignoring her, fortunately, so she took off in a flurry of body flickers. She heaved at the setting she arrived at.

Kakashi had pushed his team like mad to get back to the village early - something absolutely no one would expect at this point. Imagining what the Hokage's reaction would be, he decided to do this more often - but not too much. He had a reputation to uphold! Sadly, his team looked like they needed more training: they were exhausted. Well, he could fix that. "Maa, I'm going to check on Naru-chan. I trust you to write the report, Tenzo," he said, offering his eager puppy-like kohai a thumbs up. As expected, the young man agreed, looking almost lovesick with what he thought was praise.

Kakashi snickered to himself about it as he made his way toward the Forest of Death, while his clone took off to the Hokage Tower to mess with the Hokage. His clone felt it first: something sickening he hadn't felt in years.

The Kyuubi's chakra.

Dispelling to alert his original, the real Kakashi stopped in his tracks and took off after a beat. He found his beloved little sister, his sensei's only child - or MANY clones of his little sister - in the middle of a bloody Uchiha district, a whirling dervish of demonic and wind chakra, slicing through fake ANBU agents with both kunais and claws. They all had blood-red, slitted eyes and dark, dark whisker marks, but it seemed like Naruto was in control of herself...

Maybe?

She was avoiding civilians and Uchiha shinobi, so she had to be!

Making another clone to grab a ROOT agent: he'd bet his entire savings account that this was ROOT, he pulled his headband up, determined to find the original Naruto and stop the carnage around him.

Slammed into the wall after eliminating those in the cat cafe, 313 found himself unable to move his body as he stared into a Sharingan eye. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Says who?" Kakashi's clone asked darkly. "Let me guess: Danzo." The operative all but confirmed it by not saying anything - but his eyes turned sharper. "You've killed Konoha civilians. Allow me to pass judgment for Lord Hokage," he said before slitting the man's throat and taking off.

"Let them die."

Parry, slash, jump, substitute, duck, sweep...

"Let them die!"

Kidney. Heart.

Dive!

Kick, sweep, punch: focus! One of her clones jumped her, stopping the blow that would've taken her head off, offering up just a millisecond of time that she could use to roll. She stabbed the unknown man, the threat, in the balls from below him, making the shinobi crumple to the ground. The Kyuubi laughed darkly in her mind and Ru felt So. Much. Satisfaction. She pulled his mask down and pulled her claws down his pale face while he screamed, slowly slitting his throat with her index finger.

"Get back you," Ru hissed at the Kyuubi who almost seemed as if he'd gotten out of his cage! He was... everywhere! "I'm in charge of me, not you!"

"Oh, this?" the Kyuubi asked innocently while moving closer to his cage door. "This is all you... Darling," he emphasized the term of endearment in Rachel's native English sarcastically.

"Will you... Help me! Please!"

PUNCH! MOVE! Flicker, substitute, flicker. KILL!

"I am Worm. And I plan to help a lot more," the Kyuubi said with a strange glint in his eye.

Indeed, he planned to use Naruto's Uzumaki Bloodlust to kill more of this fucking accursed clan if she'd Just. Stop. Fighting Him!

"Thank you!"

Kurama rolled his eyes. This human was a real piece of work.

Ru continued chanting to herself. Wind cuts, wind cuts, wind cuts...

Sharp and... Left-right-left. Flip, kick: YES!

Slash - stab stab stab stab

You motherfucker!

C-L-A-W

Disgusted with what she'd just done - again - and sick from the smell of blood and her clones "dying" around her, Ru used her damn head to kick up a dust storm. It made the blood in the air smell even worse, but it also blinded anyone that wasn't a sensor or had the Sharingan to see through it.

"Naruto!" a voice she knew very well yelled from a short distance away. She body-flickered next to Mikota-oba's chakra signature immediately. "Listen to me: I need you to get to the main house! And no more dust storms," she ordered as she covered her eyes with one hand. Her goddaughter was leaking Kyuubi chakra and on sensory high-alert, bordering on overload from what she could tell, and she wanted to say that she shouldn't be here, but Naru was trained, and...

The little blonde jumped in front of her, stabbing one of these masked shinobi attacker's straight through his mask as she hooked her legs around his head. "Oh, Naru-chan," Mikoto said in a broken whimper, feeling the absolute misery she hadn't felt since learning that her husband had taken her sweet, sweet Itachi into a battlefield, forcing him to kill at the age of four.

...Since the Kyuubi attack, when she knew her best friend was dead or dying. "Please get Sasuke to safety if there are intruders," she all but begged, feeling incredible guilt for focusing only on her Academy-aged son when so many other members of her family were dying. She was a mother, first, she realized: reactivated Jonin status or not. As Naru disappeared into the dust storm she'd created, Mikoto pulled up her sword and began running. "I'm so sorry, Naru, Kushina," she said to no one as she sliced off another attacker's head.

Where is the Hokage?!

Ru knew there were protective seals on Mikoto-oba's house, (courtesy of her mother, she recently learned.) She was keyed in, however, and having a moment in this sheer insanity to do it, she bit her thumb and pressed it into the ground. A man appeared out of nowhere and slammed her into the ground.

"Little Uzumaki, look what you've gotten yourself into!"

"MADARA!"

Ru's head was swimming, it felt like the back of it had been smashed to bits. "Gonna... gonna kill you," she said in English.

The big orange mask above her tilted as if the guy didn't understand, as did the ground - or so it felt. Ru struggled to breathe. This guy was gonna kill her first, wasn't he? And she'd promised the Kyuubi... "Sorry," she mumbled to the enraged fox who was begging her to let him out of his cage. She couldn't move to do it and was giving up as her world turned dark.

"I'll be taking that Kyuubi soon, brat," he said as he pressed his orange mask against her face - his Sharingan spinning into her eye. "I took it from your mother, and I'll take it from you. He looked up sharply as the fox quieted. "Bakashi," he sneered with venom in his voice before disappearing again.

The taicho who smelled enough like the dogs she'd seen in the Forest of Death to get through the blood in the air picked her up and began running. "No," she whispered painfully, wondering if her trachea had been fractured or something. Her vocal cords were definitely injured, but at least she could breathe now - although it hurt. "Sas-suke," she got out before beginning to beat on the shinobi's back she'd been tossed over. Thankfully, he stopped just outside of the compound and laid her down. He looked a little panicked, which was understandable: it was a fucking mess! She tried to tell him to go as she shakily sat up, gesturing obviously but found that vocalizing anything else was beyond her. The shinobi made two clones and took off running into the Uchiha district with his tanto drawn while Clone 1 took off in the opposite direction. Clone 2 picked her up again and ran a short distance before he used a huge earth jutsu - with dog faces on it, no less - to try to close her in. She stabbed the clone and began making her way back to Sasuke.

The masked man appeared again as she collapsed, laughing maniacally.

The Kyuubi was already healing her: making it easier to breathe, but more difficult to think clearly as the fox began losing his fucking mind!

"You're so much like them!" this masked man shouted insanely. His Killing Intent then became sharp and his voice changed dramatically. "I hate them."

Later, Naru would think upon those words of his and not believe him, but that, she figured, was because part of her mind and soul had been broken today.

Just as the man moved to take her - his hand dramatically coming down at her from the air like a vicious claw - Lady Ichika's voice rang out.

"Don't you touch my grand-niece."

The masked man let out a loud whoop and released some kind of chain as he turned, but Lady Ichika's were faster. He was wrapped in big chains before he could get to Ru or the elderly Uzumaki. The unknown shinobi couldn't get out of them and was screaming in pain, clearly panicking. Ru weakly stood up, approaching him with a kunai to end his murderous, insane life just as Lady Ichika fell. She was breathing hard and clearly in pain, the chains she manifest having disappeared, but she'd obviously done something to really hurt the man in the mask. His chakra had fallen dramatically, then vanished as he did in a swirl: it was insane; it was like he just disappeared from the entire world!

"Ich..." Ru shook her head, rubbing her tender throat. She was lucky to get that much out as she tried to pick the old woman up to take her back into the main house. She had to drag her from under her arms instead.

God, how she wished she could use medical ninjutsu! Her wonderful, crazy grandmother figure was going to die! As Ru struggled to speak, to tell her that she loved her, wanting to thank her for dramatically improving her life, the woman pulled a seal out and thrust it at her.

"Chakra... Naruto," Ichika panted as she tried to get her last words out. Probably. She'd nearly died so many times, she didn't really reflect on it anymore. Sadly, she'd probably end up seeing that damn Senju ex of hers again when she finally kicked the bucket, she figured, and Ichika wasn't sure if she was looking forward to seeing Tobirama or not. "You're a good kid, Naru," she said, closing her eyes with a smile. Her little heiress was trying to tell her that she cared for her, and wasn't that nice?

"Lead the clan well, Maelstrom," she said with what she thought were her last breaths. Naru was crying, and so was Sasuke. She worried for a moment because Sasuke-chan was appropriately afraid, but Naru wasn't. "Brat," she muttered, shaking her head and trying to ensure that wasn't her last word. "Push chakra into the seal. Dammit: I've been carrying it around for..."

"Ichika?" Naruto cried, "Lady Ichika?! Please?"

"Too loud," the woman muttered even after Naru thought her chakra had disappeared. She looked at the two children in clear exhaustion, but without pain at last, and smiled. She glared at her blonde-haired heiress - a blonde Uzumaki heiress; who would've thought? "Now, Naruto. Push the seal nextta... Sasuke." Naru, though, was in shock: that was clear. "NOW, GENIN!"

The Uzumaki's entire demeanor changed. Ichika's eyes closed after seeing Naruto push chakra into the barrier seal she'd given her charge.

"Naru-nee?" Sasuke asked in a small voice. That old lady just died in front of them! To him, Naruto seemed to have turned into a robot before her eyes turned almost entirely red. "N- Naruto?"

Now he was scared.

"Stay here... Sasuke: don't move, or I'll know." Naru turned, struggling to think clearly as she felt Shisui's chakra - it was always a bright beacon to her after being together for so long - dramatically change. The barrier around Sasuke was holding, so she moved toward her shishou. "Stay," she repeated in a shaky voice to the boy her same age. The Kyuubi wanted her to kill him, but there was no flippin' way she'd do that. Seeing one of Mikoto's backup swords sitting on the open closet shelf, she grabbed it and used most of her remaining chakra to flicker to him.

He had been attacked and was missing an eye, but was otherwise alone with the man who'd done it. Everybody else was dead. Naruto felt the Kyuubi take over, and found that she didn't give a fuck if he did! Wind and the Kyuubi's chakra pulsed through her arms and sword as she swung it at the man who'd hurt her shishou.

Naruto's last thoughts were of rage beyond reason as the Sharingan swirled to life in front of her.