Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto...

Note: Well, here I am again. Thanks for all the reviews, I really appreciate it. Anyway, I decided not to make this chapter that heavy duty with fighting and angst,(although there still is some angst). I hope you guys like this chapter.

Normal - conversations/narrations

Italics -thoughts, voices in the head

Italic Bold - Jutsus

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"Heh, that was good exercise, ne, Koujiro?"

Koujiro looks at Naruto and smiles. Naruto was improving so quickly that he had almost reached some of the S-ranked criminals' level without invoking the power of Kyuubi. Not only was he a quick learner when it came to jutsus, he also learned more about the opponent that he was fighting the longer that they fought. Naruto's power of insight almost rivaled his now, and he, Koujiro, also known as Akatsuki's Calculator, was known to have "the insight of the Sharingan", mainly because he could calculate the enemy's movements so quickly in his head that he was capable of calculating almost every angle and point of attack that was possible.

Naruto had also improved his taijutsu far beyond what he once possessed. He was already one of the fastest nins in Akatsuki, and with his Shunshin no jutsu, even Itachi had quite a hard time keeping up with his speed.

Koujiro lets out a slight laugh, because he just couldn't connect how the loud, rash, hot-headed Naruto could be so cool, collected, and strategic, in a heated battle. He wasn't expecting this noisy ninja to actually develop and mature so quickly; he remembered as he trained Naruto for only a year, and he was this good already. He could only marvel at how much Naruto could still improve.

Naruto had also changed from the first time he had come to Akatsuki. Back then, he was always depressed during his first few weeks in the headquarters, and he wouldn't even talk to anybody. Koujiro sighed as he remembered how he had talked to Naruto and helped him forget his past.

"And now… although Naruto still has that slight childishness with him, he can now be considered mature… maybe even mature enough to learn the truth…"

The wastelands come to an end and give way to valleys as they begin to enter the western border of the Country of Fire. Naruto stops right on a cliff overlooking the beautiful valleys of the Fire Country, and turns to Koujiro.

"Where's the meeting going to be, anyway?"

Koujiro didn't answer. He seemed to have been thinking rather deeply for the whole trip towards the Fire Country, and Naruto wasn't used to Koujiro being like this. He treated Koujiro just like an older brother, due to the fact that Koujiro seemed to be so familiar to him, and yet he just couldn't put a finger on it…besides, he didn't feel that comfortable with the other Akatsuki members… most especially Uchiha Itachi. He liked to call Itachi 'bastard' behind his back, much like he called Sasuke back then.

Naruto knew that the only instances that Koujiro became this serious was when he had to face a really strong opponent or if he was experiencing a big issue, and he couldn't imagine what could be bothering Koujiro at a time like this.

"Uh, Koujiro? Are you alright? I have no idea where we're going so…"

"Hmm? Oh sorry, I was just thinking of some stuff… anyway, we're going north of here."

Naruto looked puzzled. "To the Hidden Village of Rain? But why are we meeting there? Just a little west of that village is…"

"We won't be going back just yet. We're needed there… so that we can start the operation."

Naruto looked excited. "Is this about the Chuunin exams? Damn, I'd love to join it again!!!"

But Naruto's excitement is short-lived. A dark cloud falls on his face, and a look of loneliness glints in his eyes.

"That's right… I can't take that test anymore. I can't…"

Naruto reaches inside his Akatsuki cloak, taking out his scratched forehead protector, which they only wear in the middle of a mission. He looks at the scratch, and his hand tightens on the protector, trying to fight back the tears in his eyes.

Koujiro looked sympathetic. "You still miss it, don't you? Even after what they did to you, even after what they said to you, you still want to go back? Back to Konoha?"

"I… I don't know what I want. A part of me wants go back, to see the faces of all my friends again, to walk in the streets of that village, even if I am a missing nin to them right now… but the other part doesn't want to go back. It doesn't want to experience what it felt on that day… and I can't bear to face Ero-sennin, Tsunade-baba, Sakura, Hinata, Shikamaru, and all the others again… not after what I did…"

Naruto heard Koujiro sigh. He didn't understand if the sigh was supposed to be for him being a guy who could not forget the past or for him being a guy who had lost his home. Koujiro was strange sometimes.

Naruto puts back his forehead protector into the cloak and look on as they start to move to the north, passing through the rocky cliffs leading to the green grass down below.

A few hours later…

Naruto and Koujro had set-up a camp of sorts in the forests just south of the Rain Village. Both were sitting by the fire, and laughing as they remembered the past year in Akatsuki.

Naruto was laughing loudly as he was eating a fish that they had roasted by the fire.

"… And do you remember what we used to tease Kisame with whenever we went camping back then?" Naruto's face was red from all that laughing, and it looked like he had no plans to eat the fish on the stake because of his laughter.

Koujiro would not stop laughing either. "Ahahaha, yeah I remember!!!" He holds up his roasted fish and says with a laugh, "Hey Kisame! Your relatives taste really good!!!"

"Yeah, yeah! And I also remember Girachi saying 'What do you get when Itachi uses Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu on Kisame? …Roasted Kisame!!! And what do you get when Itachi uses Katon Karyuudan on an angry Kisame?' "

"Oh wait, wait, I'll answer this one... a Deep-fried Puffed-up Kisame!" laughs Koujiro. "But really, we should stop picking on Kisame when we get together… he's always the main target for jokes, and he gets angry so quickly… maybe we should pick on Meimi next?"

"Meimi? That mood-swinging paper-loving tomboy? Heh, I would rather not… you remember what happened to Yomi the last he made a joke about her…" Naruto shudders.

"Hmmm… oh yeah, now I remember. She placed a bunch of exploding tag traps, exploding paper needle traps, and wire traps which triggered a flurry of kunai, a flood of shuriken, and a bunch of katanas poking from the floor right inside Yomi's residence back in the village… haha, when he got back from a mission, he got so pissed at her for placing all those traps all over the place. I remember him dumping a sack full of kunai, shuriken, and katanas rightin front ofMeimi while they arguing." Koujiro laughs out loud. "Hmmm… maybe she is a bad idea to make jokes about."

Naruto laughs, and looks at the fire. He thought about the year he was with the Akatsuki, and he had discovered something that no other ninja had discovered from Akatsuki: they weren't cold-blooded killers who had no life and only lived like a bunch of pissed off hermits. They also had lives of their own, and they were just like any shinobi out there.

Naruto looks up from the fire and takes out his forehead protector. Seeing the Leaf's symbol made him remember the past, but he knew that his path was now set before him.

"Kyuubi…" mumbles Naruto.

"Hmm? Did you say something, Naruto?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing." Naruto smiles and then suddenly confused. "By the way, I've been wondering this for the longest time…why don't you have a forehead protector? From what village did you come from? Don't they have a forehead protector?"

It was now Koujiro's time to look into the fire, clearly being reminded of something long past. "I… I'm an orphan, you see. I was picked up by a village during the war, and I was taken care by the village leader. I was not permitted to become a shinobi of that village because they thought that I was from the enemy village, I was hated because they learned that I was from the enemy village, and they decided to even place ANBU guards around because if I went back to my home village, they were afraid I would spill their secrets." Koujiro sighed.

"But the village leader didn't believe what the vast majority believed and taught me a lot of his techniques, some of which were not even taught to his own students. He became like a father to me… and then he adopted another child when I was 10.

He assigned me to take care of the baby, because he would go somewhere and he knew that there was a possibility that he wasn't coming back. He never did, and without his protection, I was kicked out of the village, with the ANBU sent to kill me once I had reached the border. They never found me... I guess I was just lucky back then. The child was left behind in that village."

Koujiro looks away from the fire and stares at the night sky above. "I never got a forehead protector."

Naruto looked sympathetically at Koujiro. "Sorry if I reminded you of your past. I didn't know…"

"That's ok, Naruto-kun." Koujiro smiles, starts walking toward a tree. "We should be getting some sleep. We have another mission ahead of us in the Rain Village."

"Ok!" Naruto shouts in reprisal. "Tomorrow, we get another good exercise!!" He was grinning, and he suddenly felt excited at the prospect of finally being able to visit a new shinobi village. "Good night!!"

Koujiro looked at Naruto as he slept.

"So, he does not suspect one bit. But when the truth is revealed to him, I wonder how he will react? He already knows that he will become a weapon for Akatsuki when the time comes, but he doesn't seem too bothered. But what will happen if I tell him…"

Koujiro felt a pang of guilt as he thought about what he did to Naruto just to get him on their side.

"I wonder if this was all necessary? But you told me to watch over him and protect him, so that the Kyuubi would not be unsealed before Naruto would learn how to fully control him, and this was the only way I knew of bringing him closer to me. The blood pact keeps Kyuubi close to Naruto, and as long as the pact exists, Kyuubi will continue helping Naruto. Besides, less lives will be lost with my decision… but I wonder if I did the right thing, ne, Yondaime Hokage-sama?"

Darkness. Complete darkness.

Naruto went straight ahead, into the darkness, and finally came upon that door he knew so well.

He opens those extremely large doors and enters a cold, damp chamber, lighted up by torches which encircled the room. In front of him are extremely large vertical bars with a small seal placed right in the middle of the bars. Behind the prison bars, he could feel the breath of a fearsome creature, a creature that was sealed inside his own body.

A youma.

Kyuubi.

"Hey, damn fox!!! Why the heck did you interrupt my beautiful dream?!? What did I do this time?"

Large eyes suddenly open, and menacing jaws suddenly shine behind the iron bars.

"Stupid kid… I just brought you here because I wanted to talk to you again."

"What do you want know, damn fox? Will you finally teach me a new jutsu again?"

"Hmph, you sure are arrogant kid… but I guess you've earned a little of my respect. You were able to learn the hijutsus and the tenjutsus that I taught you exceptionally quickly… hehe, you're even capable of using one-handed seals whenever you release my chakra to meld with yours. You are one amazing idiotic kid," laughs the Kyuubi.

"However," states the Kyuubi in a dangerous tone, "I would not get too close to that Arashi Koujiro, if I were you. I sense something… different about him."

Naruto takes on a serious face, and takes a step forward toward Kyuubi. "I trust him, you damn fox. He's taught me a lot of stuff as well, and I believe in him."

"Hmph. Stupid, naïve kid… they're just using you, you know. And that means they're also using me. Damn, I HATE being used by others. Besides, he smells like the red-head from the Sand Village who has Shukaku inside him… Gaara, was it? I'm just telling you to be careful, kid. You're far too trusting."

"Heh, I know that they're just using me, fox. They're goals aren't all that bad, you know."

"So for you, destroying all the shinobi villages so that Akatsuki can achieve absolute supremacy isn't bad? The Cleansing, isn't it? Ahahaha, I like their idea, but I would like it better if I would be the one doing the cleansing." The demon fox smiles evilly, clearly looking forward to the idea.

"To create a whole new world, to achieve a new dawn, blood must flow throughout the lands. Supreme power is reserved to those who can give birth to Akatsuki, the Red Dawn," recites Naruto.

"I don't care if I'm just a tool, as long as there aren't any more people like me, Haku, and Gaara… people who live in loneliness throughout their lives because of society's hate. I don't want people to experience that same thing that I experienced, and with the new society, maybe that can happen…"

Kyuubi looks at Naruto, clearly surprised that a rowdy young man like him could think of such things. "You really are a naïve, innocent kid… I've seen this world countless times, and I have always seen hate, anger, war, and loneliness. The world changes, people change, but emotions remain the same. Giving birth to a new dawn will not change that."

It was Naruto's to be surprised at Kyuubi's words. It was the first time he had heard the demon fox say any words of wisdom to him.

"Wow, this fox can actually be decent sometimes. I thought youmas didn't care for anything but death and destruction."

Kyuubi seemed to have sensed Naruto's thoughts and suddenly retreats into the darkness of his cell. "Hmph, go do whatever you want. I'm happy as long as I get to move out of this hellhole, and finally go to your world to destroy it."

Naruto smiled. It was the first time he had actually smiled in the presence of the demon fox. Somewhere deep within him, he felt a newfound respect for the youma, even if he knew that someday it would eventually come out to destroy everything.

Naruto turns around and heads out of the room, slowly closing the doors behind him.

Kyuubi smiled. "The kid is much more mature than I was expecting. He's very interesting, for a human. I'll try helping him out more often. Yes, I'll do that." Kyuubi closes its eyes, and prepares for its sleep. However, sleep would not come.

"As long as there are people in the world that fight to protect something, you will never be able fully unleash your terror. We have always sealed you, and we will seal you again for ages to come."

"Why do try stopping me, yellow one? This village is worthless, and yet you would risk your life for it?"

"I have something to protect, damn fox. All my family, all my friends, all the people who are looking up to me as someone who will be able to save them… I am the 4th Hokage, and the will of Konoha is set upon my shoulders!! Even if I die, other people will inherit my will, and Konoha will continue to stand!!!"

Kyuubi opens his eyes once again, remembering the 4th's words in their battle.

"Hehe, 4th, this kid has inherited your will of fire, that will which can change even the course of destiny. But has he chosen the right path to live his life?" Kyuubi finally closes its eyes and continues its slumber, dreaming of the events that are to come.

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Author's Note: Hmmm, the plot thickens! Well, I hope you liked this chapter. It's getting pretty hard to write while I have school. I'm doing my best though.