Disclaimer: Well.. I obviously don't own Naruto. So.. yeah.

Little Note: I don't have a ton of Fanfiction experience, so forgive me if I make a few mistakes, or if things drag on a little bit long (probably like this little note). This Fanfiction is basically a remake of Naruto Shippuden. I will be changing the plot in many ways, and introducing some new characters as well. Anyways, let's get on with it.

- Cherui

Chapter One: The Haunting of Naruto!

A shadow jumped about, from tree to tree, in the forests near The Hidden Leaf Village. It was followed distantly by a larger shadow. The two shadows hopped down into a clearing to reveal themselves as none other than Naruto Uzumaki, and The Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya.

"God kid, you're just about killing me. At this speed, you just might. Let's rest here for a minute." The white haired Sannin looked around for a way to make himself comfy. He decided to punch down a tree. It tumbled down, making a large thud. Naruto jumped back in surprise, having gazed off into the forest surrounding them.

"Pervy Sage?! What the hell are you doing now?! Ya'know, you talk a whole lot about me never chilling out, but you're one heck of a hypocrite, ya'know?" Naruto felt his bright yellow hair flow in the wind. To anyone from The Leaf who hadn't seen him for a long time, his long hair would seem a bit odd, but with his training, Naruto didn't get time to shave his hair back down to it's normal style. His hair was comparable to that of Sasuke's, he thought. And he caught himself as his thoughts dragged off again to Sasuke. He wondered if Sasuke could have returned to The Leaf while he was gone. He had not been to his home village in over two years, and now he was returning. He had been counting down the days for the past month, and now today was the day. He could hardly wait to see all his friends again.

"You're one to talk," he said as he sat down on the tree trunk he had so gracefully chopped down, "you said you would help me get a camp set up next time we stopped, but look who's the hypocrite, huh?!"

"Did I say that? I guess I said that…" Naruto looked at him confused. "Idiot Naruto. You might have become way stronger, but you definitely didn't become smarter." Naruto sighed as he removed his backpack and pulled out a firestarter.

"I'll be back in a second." Naruto placed his firestarter by his backpack and jumped into the forest to retrieve some stones and twigs for a campfire. It had been awfully cold for the past couple of months, as winter had rolled around for the year. Naruto looked around. He walked around, looking for any twigs that might have fallen from the trees, however, if there were any, they were buried under endless leaves. He readied himself to scatter the leaves with a wind style jutsu. "Wind Style, Cataclysmic Win-" he stopped as he heard another voice, unlike that of his Sensei's chime in.

"Wind Release? Interesting. That's a rare one." Naruto stopped and looked up to the tree where he heard the voice, but no one seemed to be there. He shrugged and went back to weaving the hand signs for his unique jutsu, Cataclysmic Wind, which allowed him to blow a large gust of wind from his mouth. However, the voice spoke up once again.

"I had no idea you had progressed so far with your training." Naruto now glanced around, freaked out. "Who the hell are you? You better show yourself, ya'know!?" Naruto heard a strange warping noise and looked to the source. He saw a strange figure in a cloak emerge from the side of a tree trunk. Naruto gave it no time to explain itself as he formed a Tornado Rasengan. He shot at the figure, only to cut down the tree the figure had been attached to. The cloaked creature had disappeared and had no more to say. Jiraiya rushed to the location where he had heard the tree fall. "Naruto! What's going on?! Did somebody attack you?!"

"No.. But some creepy guy showed up. He had a weird cloak on, but it wasn't an Akatsuki cloak. He had a really raspy voice. I didn't get to see his face. He had this weird.. Aura! I think we should get back to The Hidden Leaf before nightfall, ya'know?"

Jiraiya nodded his head in agreement. "Good idea. Let's get going, no time to set up camp now." The two dashed off quickly on the same route they had been taking.

The sun had just begun to set in The Hidden Leaf Village as Izumo and Kotetsu, who were on guard duty for the day, began to get worried. They had been waiting there for Jiraiya and Naruto to arrive for two hours past their expected arrival time. Izumo looked over to Kotetsu and was about to break the silence, however, he stopped as they heard a loud noise. It sounded as if a stampede was heading right towards their direction. But after a few seconds, the noise revealed itself to be none other than Naruto and Jiraiya rushing frantically to them. Kotetsu and Izumo braced themselves as the two rushed past them at a breakneck speed. They moved so fast that Kotetsu and Izumo were almost blown back. "Hey, wait!" Izumo attempted to yell for them, to no avail.

Jiraiya and Naruto eventually came to a stop in the middle of the village. They had created a huge ruckus as everyone was staring at them. Jiraiya laughed nervously. "Uh, it's alright everybody!" Everyone went back to what they were doing. Jiraiya looked to Naruto. "What now?" He asked him. Naruto reached for the back of his head and grinned. "I'm gonna go cut my hair.. Then I'm gonna go say hi to Granny Tsunade and my friends!" Naruto rushed off to his old apartment. "Uh, okay, bye-", but Naruto was already gone.

Naruto opened up his apartment to find it dusty. He had a lot of cleaning to do. "Yep, this brings back a lot of memories!" Naruto walked to a dusty mirror and wiped it off. He frantically reached for some scissors.

Some time passed and Naruto had cut his hair back down to its normal shape. He gazed in the mirror and smirked. "Awesome!" He turned to go back outside to look for everybody. He opened his door and was greeted by the same cloaked man he saw earlier. His cloak was so thick that he couldn't even see his face inside. Naruto froze in fear. The figure rose a hand. His hand was completely black with no definition. It was like his body wasn't even real.

"Naruto Uzumaki… You're mine." The figure reached its hand through his body. Naruto felt as if his soul was being torn from himself. He instinctively launched a Rasengan at the man. He ended up phasing through him and destroyed the wall across from his hallway with the Rasengan. Naruto stood face to face with a shocked family at their dinner table. Naruto looked back and saw nothing in his apartment. The figure had disappeared. "Um.. Uh, sorry about that! I didn't mean to do that!" Naruto began to dash off as someone stood up from the table and yelled at him. Naruto decided that he would deal with the situation later, but for now, he had some people to catch up with.

Naruto caught sight of Sakura going somewhere. He jumped down from the rooftops he had found himself running across. "Sakura! Long time no see! What's up?!" Sakura was taken back at the sudden appearance of Naruto. "Oh, Naruto! I almost forgot, you got here so late. You'll never learn how to manage your time right, will you? Lady Tsunade was furious earlier when Jiraiya arrived at her office." Naruto put his hands behind his head and grinned. "It was all pervy sage's fault, he wanted to stop and rest! But also.." Naruto stopped to think for a second. "Huh, Naruto, is something wrong?" Sakura was confused as Naruto suddenly stopped being so excited. He seemed frightened in thought almost.

"No.. I was just thinking about something that happened earlier in the forest.. I got into a fight with some creepy guy who was just watching us out there.. But I just can't shake the feeling that he's still around.." Sakura was now even more puzzled. "A.. creepy guy? I have no idea. Nobody can get into the village without proper identification now." Naruto thought for a moment. "Yeah.. Unless they were able to sneak by.. I gotta go Sakura, see you later!" Naruto ran past. "Wait, Naruto! Ugh.." Sakura continued walking back home.

As Naruto was running, he heard something that stopped him dead in his tracks. "Naruto." He recognized the voice and was shocked. He looked to the source of the voice to see none other than one Sasuke Uchiha. "S-Sasuke? I had no idea…" Naruto walked over to Sasuke. "Naruto.. It's been a while… I was able to escape Orochimaru." Sasuke had a Jonin flak on. Naruto acknowledged this. "Welp, it looks like you're already way ahead of me! Well then, I'm gonna have to catch up!" Sasuke didn't grin as Naruto had been.

"That's right, Naruto. You have a lot of catching up to do." His voice suddenly shifted as his appearance did as well. He revealed himself to be the cloaked figure again. Naruto now noticed a terrifying grin under the figure's hood. "I wish I could take you right now, but the Chakra needed to cast this jutsu is immense. We will meet again soon.. When that happens, I will test if you are really strong enough, to defeat the Akatsuki." The figure suddenly faded again, leaving his cloak on the ground. Naruto was stunned in place. He reached down and picked up the cloak. It was rough and looked like it had been patched back together hundreds of times. Naruto squeezed it in disappointment.

"I should have known. There's no way Sasuke could've come back to the village.. Sakura would have mentioned it.." Naruto turned to walk to the Hokage's Office, still gripping the cloak. As he walked back the way he came, an angry man caught sight of Naruto. Naruto recognized him as his neighbor, whose apartment he had accidentally punched a giant hole through earlier.

"Hey kid! Come here! You're not getting away from me! You have to pay for this!" Naruto squeaked in fear as he frantically took out his frog wallet and emptied it all over the street. Except nothing was emptied from the wallet as nothing was inside. Naruto remembered that Jiraiya had spent the last of his money to go to a peeping show. "Uh.. um… I'll make it up to you some other time!" Naruto dashed off as the man still waved and shouted angrily at him.

Naruto found himself in front of the Hokage, next two a frustrated Sakura and Kakashi. Tsunade sat at her desk, judgmentally staring down Naruto. "Your first day back in the Leaf Village, and you've already destroyed personal property?!" She sighed as she stood up. Shizune watched the situation worryingly. Tsunade spoke up. "Well then, you've also landed the rest of your team in a bad situation, because for the next two weeks, Team Seven is going to have to go on double the missions to pay off the property damage." Sakura punched Naruto in the back of the head hearing this. "Look what you did, you idiot!" Sakura yelled in anger. She had thought Naruto would have at least matured a little bit since the last time she saw him, but that just wasn't the case.

"Well.. If that's all, then we better get to what I was going to talk to you guys about. Since Naruto has just returned, I thought it would be a good idea to set up a little test for you guys. Just to assess how skilled you guys are." Kakashi said, trying to switch the subject. "Oh man.. Now a test? This day just keeps getting worse." Naruto said as he laid on the ground in pain. Sakura chimed in. "A test? What kind of test? Some kind of written test?" Sakura was confused, because she had not heard of any test beforehand.

Kakashi shook his head. "Nope. You guys are gonna retake the bell test. This time it's two against one instead of three." Naruto shot up. "Oh, cool! If it involves showing off all the awesome Jutsu I learned, then I'm all for it! Let's go!" Kakashi groaned, Naruto was as energetic as ever, almost too energetic. "If you're that excited, then we can go ahead and get started, let's just head over to the training field.

They eventually made it to the training field. Kakashi held two bells in his hand. "I guess I'll have to change the rules a bit in order to accommodate two team members instead of three." Naruto smirked. "Yeah, this time, it'll be way easier!" Kakashi sighed. "That's what you're getting out of this? You haven't changed a bit, Naruto. The rules are simple. Both of you must get one bell each in order to pass the test. If either of you are taken out of battle, you both automatically fail the test. You have until tomorrow morning to get the bells from me."

Kakashi began slowly walking off. He turned his head back at them. "And remember, come at me with the intent to kill. Because I'm not gonna make this easy for you guys." Kakashi vanished in a burst of smoke. Naruto shrugged at Sakura. "Just like I said, this is gonna be way easy!" He put his hands behind his head and grinned. Sakura just sighed. "Kakashi-sensei just said he isn't going to go easy on us Naruto, try to put some effort in, okay?" Naruto shook the comment off. "Hah, don't worry, I could probably take him on myself!" Naruto created the hand-sign for a Shadow Clone Jutsu. Two clones appeared behind him. "Alright, Sakura, let's go!" Sakura balled up a fist. "Yeah!" The four rushed off towards the direction Kakashi walked.

That's the end of Chapter One! Let me know if it's a little too long, or if it's too short. I plan on continuing the next chapter with the bell test, as well as the introduction of Sasuke, beginning the first arc.

- Cherui