Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto (unfortunately). I do own all of my own characters.

Thank you to all my reviewers!!! you ppl r so nice :-)

"blah" = speech
'blah' = thoughts

Damn I didn't think EVERYONE would be sad that Itachi died.

Anonymous - Resolution does not mean end.

clicke - I was focusing more on the battle not on how they were saying the jutsus.

Peter Kim - Gaara will appear in the story. (not sure yet whether it will be for a long or short time) Temari as kazekage... i'll consider that angle.
Konohamaru will also be in the story; he'll run into Naruto at... oh let's say a wrong place and a wrong time.

sephynarutocloud - thank you, but that's just too flattering

TimeShifter16 - I'd love to give u a straight answer, but life doesn't work that way (and i dont want to spoil the story). By 'good' do u mean return to the Leaf in peace? or just not kill people for the hell of it? (either way you'll have to read the story and see)

OpposingForce - Calm down w/ the blood (I'll make a darker bloodier fic once I'm finished w/ this one). Don't get ur hopes up on the romance.

Simara - u know ur the only one that noticed the Sasuke angle to this whole thing. I'll talk about that this chapter.

Chapter 13 – Aftermath

Naruto had made it to the Rain Country within several days and was now walking toward the town where he was supposed to meet up with Itachi; a smile naturally formed on Naruto's face. 'The Rain Country is really beautiful when it's not raining,' thought Naruto as he was purposely taking his time getting to the hotel. Never the less, Naruto soon arrived at the hotel and quickly found out which room 'Ichita,' Itachi's cover name, was staying in. Naruto easily found the key that was hidden by genjutsu above the door and calmly walked in.

Once inside the room Naruto was a little surprised when he didn't feel anyone's presence, but shrugged it off thinking that Itachi must have gone somewhere. He took off his jacket and shoes and proceeded into room, 'well that's weird,' thought Naruto as he looked around, 'none of his stuff is here.'

The hotel room, except for the usual hotel stuff, was completely empty. After a bit of looking around his eyes finally landed on the only one foreign object in the entire room, a scroll that was lying on top of the table. He walked over to it and looked at it, "From: Itachi; To: Naruto" it read. 'Couldn't he just leave a simple note telling me where he is?' mused Naruto. He tried to open the scroll, but found that it wouldn't even budge, then shook his head slightly and bit his thumb, 'always the extra careful one Itachi,' chuckled Naruto as he ran his bleeding thumb over the edge of the scroll. Naruto then unrolled the scroll and began reading.

Dear Naruto,

I would usually lead you on a little goose chase before telling you exactly what I had in mind, but this time around I'm going to get straight to the point. If you are reading this, then I am dead. ['What!?' thought Naruto with chills running down his spine.]

I had a feeling, a precursor, that this latest mission would be my last. I hoped of course that I was wrong, but just in case I took the time to write this scroll to you. You must be asking yourself 'how did Itachi die?' well I must have died in battle, as is suitable for warriors such as ourselves. I do not regret my life and I do not regret my death, so I must ask you not to try and avenge my death, if the person was able to kill me then he will also be able to kill you. ['It must have been that bastard Jiraiya!' growled Naruto.] One thing I don't want you to become is an avenger. ["I'm not sure if I can honor that, Itachi," mumbled Naruto.]

While on the avenger subject, I wasn't able to accomplish much with Sasuke, so ask I must ask a favor: could you please make sure that he understands everything?

Now I have to come clean about something I have kept hidden from even you, Kisame never died; in fact he is alive and well. ['Eh?'] During that mission I helped him stage his own death. The reason he did it was because he was tired of the Akatsuki, and also because he wanted to get away from everything in the ninja world; basically he wanted to retire I guess. Forgive me for not telling you, but I thought it best that no one knows the truth; after all the more people that know a secret the less of a secret it becomes. If you ever want to get in contact with him, he said he would be on an island outside of the Water Country, but he demanded that we don't attract unnecessary attention; I'm sure you understand. ['Of course.']

Moving on, after what you just did to the Leaf you're gonna need some desolate place to pass the time. I happen to own a house in the Snow Country that I am leaving to you, take care of the place. ['To me?' asked Naruto incredulously.] Further on in the scroll there will be a map and directions for getting there. You should spend at least six months hiding out. Don't worry no one knows that it's there except for me and the guy who build it, but I already got rid of that liability. ["Why am I not surprised?" said Naruto with a smirk.]

Also, about the Akatsuki I have a premonition that it's not going to last very long. If I hadn't died on this mission I would have left that organization soon after. I realize that you have only stayed in the Akatsuki because of me, so now that those binds are broken you can be free. So just disappear from the chaos of the world for several months.

Whatever I own I pass on to you, do with it as you please, but always take care. Goodbye Uzumaki Naruto, I wish you the best of luck in your future, but you don't need it.

Forever honorable,
Your Onii-chan
Itachi
(A/N: it wouldn't let me put it on the right hand side)

PS: Thank you beforehand for the favor.

Naruto's eyes watered up while reading Itachi's last words. 'Onii-chan isn't coming back…' and for the first time in a decade Naruto openly cried, holding the scroll close to his chest. After several minutes he stopped crying and wiped his eyes and cheeks free of tears.

"I'm sorry onii-chan, but I can't let your death go unpunished. Jiraiya will pay for what he has done and he will pay dearly," said Naruto in an ominous tone. 'I still can't believe this is real,' mused Naruto while unrolling the scroll further, 'it just seems like a some sort of bad dream; a nightmare. But sadly I must face the fact that he's not here anymore and that I'm on my own. But I WILL get my revenge on Jiraiya,' vowed Naruto. However he also realized that there was no way he could go back to the Leaf right now, not after what had happened. "Their security right now will be very high. So, no I'll wait it out… just like Itachi wrote I need to disappear and also if Jiraiya was able to beat Itachi then I wouldn't stand a chance against him," mused Naruto trying to decide on his next course of action.

"Hmm… to think that he was able to keep the secret of Kisame's death or rather life a secret from me,' said Naruto in a more cheerful tone. "Nice to know that I haven't lost everyone…" Naruto had now come across the map that Itachi left him. 'So his house is in the far north, well the farther from civilization the better right now. Except that I'm gonna have to carry A LOT of food there.' Naruto chuckled at the mental image of himself carrying a mountain of food, most of it being ramen. "This is actually perfect, I'll be able to train there in complete privacy, then after a few months I'll come back and kill that prevented bastard of Sennin."

He then put away the scroll into his pocket and walked out of the hotel room. Not even bothering to check out of the hotel, Naruto went to the nearest restaurant had lunch and immediately afterwards left for the Snow Country.

'Just my luck, I had to come here during the early winter,' Naruto cursed his luck as he looked over the snow-covered fields and mountains. "I gotta say though this country really is beautiful." Naruto was now half way into the Snow Country and was now village hoping since he really didn't want to camp outside. This of course slowed his progress, but he didn't mind it too much, especially since he was now nearing his destination. Naruto was eating dinner at the local pub as he looked at his newly acquired map of the Snow Country and compared it to Itachi's map, 'from the looks of it I have to go tangent to the main road about a half a mile out of town and cross this wilderness here. Then… I guess I'll just see it… hopefully.'

The next morning Naruto filled his backpack and bag with food and started his slow track through the forest. The forest soon stopped and instead tuned into a completely white snow-covered field, after which Naruto could clearly see his route taking him up a mountain. 'At least I can walk on top of the snow instead of falling through it and climbing will be easier with chakra.' After a ten minutes break Naruto resumed his journey and after about six hours was up on the mountain.

"WOW! This is a killer view," said Naruto in a dreamy voice, "now let's see if can spot the house." Naruto looked around, but unfortunately everything was covered in snow and it was very hard to decipher one thing from another. "Well by the looks of the map it should be right to the north-east of me. I guess I'll just have to go down that way and see if it become more apparent."

Naruto had to journey almost all the way down the mountain before he finally spotted the chimney sticking out of the snow. Sighing in relied that he had finally found it, Naruto quickly made his way to the house and stood outside looking at it. The house was a lot bigger than Naruto had expected, "Itachi should have said mansion instead of house." Naruto then took out the key that had popped out of the scroll and went inside.

"Whoa, it seems even bigger on the inside than it does on the outside," said Naruto. He dropped his bags near the door and went to look around. First he walked into the living room, it had a large couch, a fireplace and a table with a Go board on top of it. 'Hmm… the house had such a warm atmosphere.' Naruto continued looking around the house finding the kitchen, a dining room, three bedrooms each complete with a personal bathroom and shower, and a training room. The training room was however completely bare, 'no way, Itachi would have some weapons at least,' thought Naruto and activated his Demon Eyes. He instantly saw through the genjutsu that was placed over the far wall, walking over to it, he easily undid it and revealed a door. Naruto opened it and stepped into a completely dark room.

He fumbled around a bit looking for the light switch, but found it soon enough and was amazed at what he saw inside. There were weapons of all kinds, Naruto could not find one single weapon style missing from the selection, and it even had some that he was unfamiliar with. 'Well I've got my work cut out for me in the weapons department,' thought Naruto as he continued observing the room. On the right wall he saw a closet and walked over to it opening it up, inside were many scrolls large and small, several even had 'forbidden' written on them. 'A scroll collection, huh Itachi? I wonder if there are some in here that you didn't teach me already.' Naruto picked out a random scroll and looked at the name of the technique, "Walk of Shadows; well I don't know that one." After glancing at half a dozen more scrolls Naruto found that he didn't know a single technique. 'Well more work cut out for me.'

The sun was quickly setting, so Naruto decided to go to the kitchen make himself dinner and go to bed. Tomorrow he would start training himself. His last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep were of Itachi and his newly found source of training.

)))))Leaf Village(((((

Tsunade was in her office busily working through the mountain of paperwork on her desk. Things had been rough since the Hyuga assassination, the civilians easily bought the lie about Itachi being the assassin, but some of the Hyuga that had survived the attack weren't so willing to believe. The Hokage then had to personally explain it to them and make them swear a blood oath not to tell anyone else. Still most of the Hyuga were unhappy that the Hokage had covered up the incident like that; this of course created tension within the village. However, the now small portion that made up the Main Family was satisfied with the cover up since they did not want the village to know that the heiress had been in love with the assassin and had actually let him into the Hyuga Manor.

Hyuga Hinata, she was a whole other issue just by herself. Completely heart broken over Naruto, she woke up in the hospital thinking that she just passed out during training and then the events of the previous night came flooding back and she thought that she would finally have her happiness, but then the news came. She was told that half of the clan leaders were murdered, along with her father and her sister. She was told to report to the Hokage immediately and once she came there she was told the full story behind the Hyuga assassination, she even found out the true assassin's identity.

She was in an emotional turmoil for a week, she simply could not believe that her 'precious Naruto-kun' could do such a thing. She finally came out of it after a week and said that she was ready to learn her duties as the head of the family, but everyone noticed that she had greatly changed. Gone was the indecisiveness and shyness, and out came the confident independent young woman that her father would have been proud of. But she was not like her father, she still had her sweet side present and because of that did not oppress the branch family and instead kept several of her close friends by her side as advisors. 'I may as well keep the promise Naruto had made to Neji, before the dark side swallowed him up,' concluded Hinata. Several of the other clan leaders tried to challenge her, but she shut them up instantaneously and with the kind of force that made the others afraid to even disagree with her on small matters.

It had been six months since that day and bit-by-bit the peace was returning to the Leaf Village, much to the delight of the Hokage. In that amount of time no one had even heard of Naruto, Tsunade understood that he must have gone into hiding and guessed that they probably wouldn't see him for several years to come.

Just then the door burst open loudly and an ANBU ran into the Hokage office, "Hokage-sama, I have some urgent news!" he said panting.

"What is it? What's happened?" said Tsunade jumping up.

"We just received reports from both the Sand and the Stone, that they have successfully raided and taken over the Akatsuki."

"WHAT!?" yelled Tsunade, "Are you serious? How did they even know where to go?"

"Very serious, Hokage-sama. It seems that the Stone were anonymously tipped off about it and had sent two teams to check it out. The strike team was exterminated by a well known Missing-nin from the Stone, but the other team escaped," explained the ANBU member.

"So the Stone and Sand formed an alliance and took down the Akatsuki?" asked Tsunade already knowing the answer.

"That's right, Hokage-sama," confirmed the ANBU.

"Where is the Akatsuki lair?" questioned Tsunade calmly sitting back down.

"In the Mountain Country," he replied. "It seems to have been inside of a mountain, the door of which was concealed by genjutsu."

"Alright I want an ANBU team sent to investigate the Akatsuki lair and try to find information about our own Missing-nin," ordered Tsunade.

"It will be done Hokage-sama," the ANBU bowed and disappeared.

"We might have finally found you Naruto," mused Tsunade, "or at least clues of where you are."

Every single country that had a Missing-nin sent their own teams to investigate. So the Akatsuki lair was crawling with ANBU from all different countries. While this created much tension and apprehension, it also made sure that no corner of the Akatsuki headquarters was left un-searched.

However the search for Naruto had proved futile. The Leaf ANBU found nothing about where the boy could be. There were only mission reports showing what he had done in the past and how well he performed. It seemed that he was the most valuable shinobi to the leaders of the Akatsuki and they were monitoring his growth with a hawk's eye. Judging by the records Naruto had gone into hiding six months ago, but even the Akatsuki had no idea where he went.

Luckily, documents weren't the only source of information. During the attack the leaders, Roeto and Kane, had been killed, but not Hajeko. He had survived and was now under heavy interrogation. The interrogation revealed a lot of information about the members of the Akatsuki. It seemed that there were only two members left, Raiko and Miya. The Akatsuki had concluded that Naruto had left the organization and gone into hiding from both them and the Leaf. So the only remaining team was sent to find him and kill him no less than two weeks ago, but they hadn't reported in since they left.

The Leaf interrogation team found that Naruto had actually come to the Akatsuki willingly and was freely utilizing his power to help their cause. They also uncovered that he had gotten training from a Cloud-nin, Grass-nin, Mist-nin, and of course Itachi. Hajeko was also forced to admit that Naruto was the centerpiece for all their plans. Plans like killing off all the advanced bloodlines to weaken the villages and make them a lot more susceptible to attack. They also uncovered that the Hyuga assassination had only gone through the first phase, there was going to be another attack once things had calmed down.

"So the actual mission only required Naruto to kill the five clan leaders and Hiashi?" questioned Tsunade as she read the report.

"That's right Hokage-sama, the youngest heiress was seen as a bonus in the Akatsuki's eyes and Naruto was well paid for her head," explained Ibiki.

"But why attack only half the Hyuga? Isn't it better to destroy them all at once?" asked Tsunade.

"I asked him the same question; and he said that they wanted to disrupt the flow of the clan by killing off half of the council and the head of the Main Family. But the biggest reason was to show off the Kyuubi's power to the world," replied Ibiki.

"And that they did that well enough," mumbled Tsunade, Ibiki just nodded.

"Well if even the Akatsuki doesn't know where Naruto is then we probably don't even have a chance of finding him," said Tsunade throwing the report down on her desk.

"We don't have to call off the search though," said Ibiki.

"No, no I'm not saying that." countered Tsunade. "It's just that we can't put him on high priority."

"Agreed."

"Alright then, you're dismissed," Ibiki bowed slightly and vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Not a minute later a medic-nin came rushing into Tsunade's office, "Hokage-sama, I have wonderful news!"

"What is it?" asked Tsunade lazily.

"Uchiha Sasuke is awake!" cried the medic-nin.

Tsunade instantly jumped up and quickly made her way to the hospital. There she found a groggy but awake Uchiha, who wondered how long he was out. Before answering Tsunade gave him a check-up and found him in perfect health. 'Physically he's perfectly fine, but how is mentally?' she wondered.

"Sasuke, how do you feel?" she asked him.

"Fine," came the monotonous answer. "How long was I out?"

"Six and a half months now," replied Tsunade as if it was nothing.

"WHAT!?" yelled Sasuke. "That damn bastard put me out for that long?"

"Calm down!" ordered Tsunade. "You know who did this to you?"

"Yea, only one person could possible have those eyes," replied Sasuke in a bit calmer tone.

"What eyes?" asked Tsunade.

"Those blood-red eyes with a black slit down the middle," answered Sasuke.

'The Kyuubi's eyes… so Naruto was posing as the Grass-nin… not that we had much to go against that belief,' thought Tsunade. "So you know who you were really fighting against then?"

Sasuke gave her a suspicious look saying, 'so you knew about it too?' "yea, I know. I was fighting with Naruto."

"Yes," Tsunade answered sadly. "What technique did he use against you?"

"He called it 'Hell Level 2' but it felt too much like Tsukuyomi," said Sasuke rubbing his temples. "Except instead of him torturing me, it was some demons in hell. It felt like I was being tortured for all the sins in my life, just relentless beating." Sasuke shuddered just remembering and rubbed some of his long healed wounds.

"Huh? How come I have some scars here?" he asked.

"It seems that Naruto's attack somehow made your own body inflict these wounds upon you," answered Tsunade.

"How is that possible?" asked Sasuke in a confused tone, "How can that 'dobe' do that?" Then another thought crossed his mind, "why was Naruto disguised as a Grass-nin?"

"Well he is a Class S Missing-nin after all," said Tsunade, "he can't just come here openly."

"Class S? Since when?" asked Sasuke; Tsunade cursed mentally at that slip of the tongue.

"We'll tell you when you recover fully," she said.

"NO, damn it! Tell me NOW!" he yelled.

Tsunade sighed, "He wasn't actually here for the Jounin Exam. He had an entirely different purpose."

"A different purpose?" wondered Sasuke. "What else could he want?"

"He's changed a lot since we all knew him, Sasuke, he wasn't here for peaceful purposes."

"Did he… attack the village?"

"In a way…" Tsunade then told all him about the Hyuga assassination. Saying that Naruto was Itachi's accomplice in this act.

"Itachi…" Sasuke's sharingan instantly flared up. "Naruto is allied with that bastard," said Sasuke in a low angry tone.

"There's something you should know about Itachi…" said Tsunade calmly; Sasuke narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Itachi was killed right after the assassination."

Sasuke's eyes widened, "What? How did that happen?" he asked.

"Jiraiya killed him after chasing him down on his retreat from the village."

"Damn it! Damn it, he was supposed to be mine!" Sasuke slammed his fist into the bed.

"You should be happy that he is finally gone and focus on more important things," countered Tsunade.

She could easily see that Sasuke was fuming on the inside, 'that damn bastard Jiraiya, how could he take this away from me? It was supposed to be MY revenge, mine and no one else's.'

Tsunade's face suddenly hardened, "Sasuke, not very many people know that Naruto was also there with Itachi. For political purposes we have to keep that a secret. So now I'm ordering you to never speak about this again. You got that!?" said Tsunade in a commanding forceful tone.

"Yes," said Sasuke somewhat reluctantly, but knew that crossing the Hokage wasn't a smart things to do.

Tsunade stood up and moved to the door, "you are in pretty good physical condition, but still need to stay in the hospital for further tests." Sasuke scoffed at this, "I need to go now and as for you, I order you to stay here! If you disobey there will be harsh punishment!" said Tsunade menacingly. 'That damn spoiled kid, thinks he can do anything…' thought Tsunade as she walked out of the hospital and back to her office, 'at least he's finally awake.'

Sasuke recovered very fast and began training within a week of waking up. Everyone was very happy to see that he was up again, especially Sakura, but she was then saddened when she realized that he had woken even colder than before. He was quickly brought up to speed on what had happened while he was asleep, however he didn't seem much interested. He never did forgive Jiraiya for killing Itachi, but continued training harder and harder for the new goal in his life. 'If Naruto was Itachi's accomplice then he will have to do for my revenge. I will definitely get the Mangekyou Sharingan and show those eyes of his who is the true master in mind torture.'

)))))Snow Country(((((

Meanwhile Naruto had absolutely no idea what was going on in the outside world and didn't care either. He was happily living in Itachi's mansion, 'well now I guess it's my mansion, but I just can't get used that,' thought Naruto during one of his training intermissions. The reason for his obliviousness to the outside world was of course his training, he was hell bent on learning all the techniques that were in those scrolls Itachi had saved from his travels.

It turns out that during all his travels Itachi constantly kept a look out for jutsus that he either couldn't copy or ones so powerful that even his sharingan was able to see through. He would then acquire the scrolls for these techniques, often times forcefully, and stash them in that closet. Many of the techniques that Naruto found in there were ninjutsus, but there were a few genjutsus, these were very powerful and neither the byakugan nor the sharingan couldn't see through them.

Naruto did not neglect his physical training and would go for a run up the mountain every morning and night. Soon thought that became too easy and he started venturing farther and farther. During one of these times he found a lake not too far, by his standards, from his house. Since it was winter the lake was completely frozen, except for several places where the ice was thin and Naruto could see some fish swimming under the surface. Naruto instantly decided to melt off a little bit of the ice and catch himself a fish for dinner, 'may as well not come home empty handed,' he concluded.

Melting a small portion of the ice was rather easy, but it wasn't nearly enough for Naruto to be able to catch a fish. 'Man I wish I could melt the entire lake…' then an idea occurred to him. He had seen a scroll back at the house that would let him make fire appear out of nowhere, but he hadn't paid much attention to it since he didn't have any jutsus that worked like that, 'that could work… a giant fire spreading out from the middle of the lake, all the way out to the edges and melting all the ice. I think I could make that work.' Naruto then rushed back to the house to study the scroll intently.

After many tries and several months Naruto had finally created his very own Kinjutsu. He could now make the fire burst out from anywhere he wanted and spread out over as big an area as he wanted. He named the jutsu "Lake of Fire" and would later on work on it to increase its power and spread rate.

Time seems to just fly by when you're busy working on the things you love, and so it happened with Naruto. For him it seemed way too early, but summer had already come. Since the Snow Country doesn't really have spring, the only way you can tell the summer apart is that the snow actually starts melting. 'Nine months of winter and only three months of summer,' mused Naruto, 'it is really a remarkable place. But the coming of summer means that I have already been here for nine months. I hadn't planned to stay this long, especially since I have "business" to take care of down south…'

Naruto decided to stay there until the summer's end and then leave the safety of his house and venture back into the world that he had so successfully disappeared from a nine months ago. Naruto knew that during his re-emergence into the ninja world he would have to avoid the Hidden Villages at all cost and travel under a disguise. A part of him did not want to leave this place, but Naruto knew that he couldn't leave his unfinished business hanging any longer. 'Jiraiya will pay for what he has done and then my mind will finally be able to rest.'

At the summer's end and before any of the snow storms could roll in, Naruto left the bastion of his mansion and cautiously journeyed into the outside world.

A/N: A mellower chapter, huh? Well it's the calm after the storm... or is it b4...? I'll leave u to ponder that.

Walk of Shadows... yes Naruto will be using that technique later on.
Lake of Fire - I thought i'd entertain you ppl and show off one of naruto's self-made kinjutsus.

next chapter: will have a better cliffhanger