Yo! A new story this one is and a possible one-shot this might be.

A bit into this story. Naruto will be a Nara with high control of his bloodline. I don't want to say more or else I'll just spoil the story.

So enjoy.

I DO NOT OWN NARUTO

A Promise from the Night

"Big brother?" a timid voice called from the top of the stairs. A four year old black haired child holding a deep blue blanket in his small hands rubbed his eyes with his wrist and called again to the older boy at the bottom of the stairs, a boy that looked to be about fifteen years old with blonde hair and black tips in a deep green jounin flak jacket and dark pants. The older brother looked up and smiled fleetingly at his little brother.

"Shika…I thought you were asleep." He stalked up the stairs and took the young boys hand.

"There's a monster under my bed, big brother Naru." He bawled quietly and the big brother smiled sadly as he stopped and hefted the little boy into his arms.

"No monster would get you when I'm around, Shika." He said to the child and Shikamaru settled his head in the crook of his older brother's neck, his eyes became heavy with sleep and his shoulder slumped.

"Promise?" the child whispered and Naruto's eyes sparkled.

"I promise."

And the monsters never got him. He didn't see his big brother the next morning, or even for the next ten years, but the monsters never got him.

Shikamaru winced when he felt a hard slap to the back of his head and his droopy eyes looked at his female teammate, Ino Yamanaka, as she glared hotly at him.

"Were you even listening to a thing I said?"

"Yeah, something about Sasuke looking at you." He settled his head in his hands and lazily looked at her; Chouji snickered behind her as he chomped on a bag of chicken flavoured crisps.

Ino nodded and continued prattling on about her obsession with the lone Uchiha. His mind couldn't help but wonder to his older brother again, and how he seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth after that night. After waking up he ran to Naruto room to tell him about the dream he had but didn't find the older Nara there, he assumed he was on another mission and waited patiently for him to return but he never did. Their parent became worried and they began making frantic enquiries on their son, but the Sandaime had been tight lipped about the whereabouts of the genius blonde-black Nara, despite the threats the mother piled on him he remained adamant that he too didn't know where the boy was.

Two years passed with nothing and the family still searched and inquired high and low for Naruto's location.

Five years passed and the family were devastated, assuming that Naruto had gone on a long term mission and was gravely injured.

Eight years passed and they thought of the worst for their precious son. Naruto was a genius, even among his clan mates and his father trusted his capabilities but not even him could stay positive after eight years of silence. They began trying to wipe memories of Naruto from their homes and hiding them in the attic; seeing the widely smiling face of their son wasn't helping matters at all.

Ten years and Shikamaru was the only one still trying to find a trace of his brother.

The sleepy Nara hummed in tune to what his female friend was prattling on about, while his mind ran a mile a minute. When he was younger he wasn't too familiar with what his brother could do but the simple fact that he became a genin at age eight was enough for the little boy to idolize him. After digging through the library and interrogating his parents on his brother's abilities, because he only knew that Naruto was a literal force to be reckoned with, he was finally able to piece together what he assumed Naruto had been doing of the past ten years, but not where he was presently.

Naruto Nara was a ninja that highly specialized in espionage, infiltration, burglary, kidnapping and assassination. The high A rank section of the library recorded all the notable ninjas in konoha's history and after getting special permission from the Sandaime to search there for any trace of Naruto he found out that Naruto was a ninja notable enough to be recorded there, even though he was still an unranked jounin, like Jiraiya of the Sannin and Kurama Hime, the current head of the Kurama clan. Officially, Naruto was a hunter ninja but that was just a general term of his specialization, since the Nara was the only handful of his clan mates that was recognized as an assassin of the highest calibre.

To those outside of Konoha he was called Night.

Shikaku Nara spoke fondly of how Naruto's use of the famous Shadow release bloodline was one that had never been seen before and might never be seen again. The councilman had even said that Naruto was able to attack a heavily guarded fortress and kill all occupants cleanly in broad daylight when their kekkai genkai could mostly only be used at night. Yoshino, Shikamaru's mother, puffed out her chest and said that Naruto got his shadow control from her side of the family, specifically from her.

Naruto was a star at hand-to-hand combat, a quick witted ninjutsu user and an imaginative genjutsu master, a fast learner and a model shinobi to even his seniors. With all these accolades Shikamaru refused to believe his big brother had been killed on a mission. One just didn't perform more than fifty high A rank missions, according to the Hokage's record, and a dozen low to mid S rank missions with distinction and die mysteriously.

That was why Shikamaru summarized that his brother had gone on a long term mission that had been personally requested by the Fire daimyo that even the Hokage was knowledgeable to.

…and he was right.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Thousands of miles away

On the other side of The Western Wall

Kiratsuga

Capital of the Western Empire

There were rumours that the Western Empire was rallying its forces together to take over the other half of the elemental nations. His job was to investigate on these rumours and cut down the forces that threatened the other side of the wall. He requested to do it alone, fearing that if he brought along a team with him he wouldn't be able to bear losing any of them, but the consequence of his decision was the long period away from his family.

The shadow user clenched his hand and shook the thought out of his head; this was the last part of his mission by his calculations, he needed to focus.

Everything he did, every mission he went on and every life he ended…he did for them. He wanted his family safe, and that was more important than anything.

The second part of the mission for the Night was to raise hell in the Western Empire by assassinating major figures in the society, cleaving their army in half and severing major resources from them, either by destroying them or by barring reach from them. This was all to strike fear into the empire that the Eastern side of the wall was a capable force to be reckoned with; the mission was fully sanctioned by an association of all five major countries of the East: Fire country, Water country, Wind country, Earth country and Lightning country. All the daimyos pleaded to the Night to make sure an invasion never occurred; the last thing their world needed was a full scale war on their hands. There was already the threat of the Akatsuki wreaking havoc but he entrusted his comrades to deal with them while he ended the potential western invasion before it even began. At least his family, and Konoha, were being compensated by all five countries at the same time, his contacts made sure of that.

To the Western Empire, the Night was an infamous eastern shinobi that had been crippling them since the moment he set foot on the other side of the wall. Naruto, wearing only a half face mask that hid the bottom part of his face, didn't hide his intentions for the Empire; to cease their plans of invasion.

The assassin first attacked the Mid-western region of the empire, a major producer of food for the whole empire, and effectively ended all life there. The only ones that he allowed to escape were the menial workers', the other unfortunate people had their blood soaked into the soil. After this he razed more than half of the crops to the ground and left a letter in the only intact farm house to the Emperor.

Understandably the Emperor disregarded the threat and placed a million gold coin bounty on the head of the man that called himself Night. The empire had seen more than a millennium of wars and had been unified by the emperor only ten years ago. A ninja was nothing to them.

Except they were wrong.

After hearing of the bounty on his head Naruto continued his shadow campaign; assassinating major figures and sending their heads to the Emperor, a show that there was no wall and no castle he couldn't get passed. This only resulted in his bounty being increased to a billion gold coins and a position of authority in the empires capital.

The Emperors stubborn stand lasted only a week. Naruto had attacked the war monger's residence in the dead of night, his home turf, and effectively forced the man to flee from his palace with his family in only his briefs; fighting in wars didn't encompass fighting in the pitch dark against a demon of the night. Before Naruto knew it ten years had passed and the Emperor had finally caved in and scraped all his plans for invading the east. The last part of the mission was to have a signed agreement between the Emperor and the Night that any act that went contrary to the other side of the wall would be treated as an act of war and the west would be destroyed without hesitation.

The Emperor didn't know that people of the east feared setting foot on the other side of the wall because of the stories being spread around of the sort of humans there, and to an extent the stories were true; Naruto would admit that fighting Empire soldiers was a challenge, with some of these soldiers comprising of species other than humans, and having abilities that passed what humans were meant to perform.

Naruto melted out of the shadows at the top of an abandoned building in the capital of the Empire and blankly looked at the Emperor with empty blue eyes. The Nara was in a black cloak that reached down to his shins, showing black sandals that left his toes exposed. Under the cloak, if anyone ever lived long enough to see, was a solid black long sleeved shirt and gloves with ANBU grade pants that reached the middle of his calf, and a black flak jacket. The Night had a half mask with the lower jaw of a skull painted on it and a hood thrown over his head that was pulled back enough to leave a few tufts of blonde-black hair spilling out. Heavy shadows ringed his eyes and fell down to his cheeks, showing just how tired he was but his posture negated that thought with the way he stood straight and met the glare of the Emperor without flinching; he was way past being afraid at this point.

His cloak rustled in the light wind as he began walking forward but it never blew about enough to expose his arms, or shift his hood back. The red haired Emperor, decked out in his golden armour and having a legion of warriors standing at attention behind him, stomped forward to the Night. They stopped five feet away from each other and the leader subtly began preparing to defend himself if Naruto decided that keeping his life was just a hassle. His eyes widened when he saw the Nights shadow separate from his body and shifted between them, it rose up from the ground like a small geyser and formed a sort of pedestal with a single scroll sitting on it. The man refrained from gawking; he had never seen the Night use his abilities in broad daylight, only hearing stories of what he could do, but he reached the summary that the ninja was just as strong during at night as he was during the day, if not stronger when there was darkness.

The fact that the ninja didn't lift a finger to use his ability also amazed him, but he was brought out of his thoughts when the dreaded Night spoke.

"If you don't mind, Lord Emperor." He nodded to the scroll and the pedestal of darkness shuffled to him and stopped before him. The man looked down at the scroll and carefully read what was written in it. The summary of the whole scroll was that if the West attacked the East in any way, be it physical or psychological, then Naruto would come back with an army and obliterate them.

The simple fact that he believed him was enough to make him sign the scroll.

The agreement, even though it was physical and could easily be disobeyed, was just a formality the association of daimyos wanted him to get before he could say that the mission was complete. Naruto silently regarded the Emperor before he commanded the shadow to return to him, sealing the scroll within itself as it did so. The west watched as the Night walked off the building unopposed and onto the other side of the wall.

'Now…a few well-placed Shadow Chain Teleportation and I'll be back in Konoha. I can send the agreement to the Fire daimyo from there.' His dull blue eyes looked to a tree and his shadow shot there, his body shimmered out of sight after it and from there the shadow pinged from one tree to another, from one stone to another, from one person to another, till he got back to Konoha, where he was greeted by the gawking faces of Izumo and Kotetsu.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nara clan compound

Clan heads residence

Despite moving all his pictures to the attic the Nara family, and the Nara clan, could not simply remove the memory of Naruto from their minds. People went out of their way to meet with the clan heads family and inquire how they were holding up and what they could do to help out.

Presently Yoshino Nara was quietly sobbing as she looked at pictures of her lost son from when he was a new born child to when he became a full jounin. She clutched a picture of her oldest son sleeping in his crib and cried unabashed, only because she was certain that she was the only one in the house; Shikaku was looking after the deer in the clans deer ranch and Shikamaru was spending his day off with his team, instead of usually spending it investigating the whereabouts of his big brother. She had to intimidate him to take a break from the search to have a life of his own; Naruto would have wanted that for all of them.

The Nara woman was known to be a ball of uncontrollable fire but at the moment she mourned for her son. Her heart might not be able to take much more of not knowing where Naruto was-

"I'm…I'm home!"

Her eyes bulged out of her sockets and she shot to her feet before she was even aware of it. "Naruto!?" The woman's whole body moved on autopilot as she ran headlong down the stairs and stopped just at the bottom, where her coal black eyes fell on her long lost son, who was hopping on one foot, taking off his other sandal and placing them in the family shoe rack; years away from home couldn't erase the consequence of wearing shoes inside the house. He grunted and stood up straight, leaving his hands to his side and looking away from his mother.

Yoshino lunged at him and the twenty five year old assassin could barely prepare himself in time to catch her, realizing that she wasn't taller than him anymore. The woman cried into his chest and hugged him with all the strength in her slim body. She then leaned back and looked at his face, tears filming her eyes and flowing down her pale cheeks, and looked at her son; Naruto was paler and had more shadows under his eyes, his face was leaner and his hair looked even more uncontrollable. She looked down and saw that he was wearing a long black cloak but that didn't stop him from catching her in his arms. He was thinner than she remembered but also more leanly muscled, he had obviously seen thing that she would preferably keep away from him. She looked back to his face and a smile wiggled onto her face when his lips curved upwards a little. They shared a silent smile between them for a few short seconds, before she remembered that this was her child that had returned after ten years of silence.

Punches rained down on his chest and his head and the trained hunter ninja didn't bother to stop them, only lowering his head and groaning at the curses his mother spat.

"Where the hell have you been?! Why didn't you tell us you were going?! Why didn't you write?! Oh kami Naruto why are you so tall?!" he chuckled a little and the sound made a quick smile flash across her face before she forced a frown back in place. She kept punching and kicking and the son kept trying to lean away, until the frown shook and tears continued flowing from her eyes. Her attacks became weaker until they stopped with two fists to his chest and she fell onto her knees. Naruto got down to his knees and held his mother tightly, allowing her to cry to her content into his shoulder.

"I'm home." He sighed quietly and the blizzard of emotions that was Yoshino bobbed her head frantically.

"Your home."

Just then the door burst open and a gasping clan mate stopped in time before he stumbled over the forms of Naruto and Yoshino, who were having a mother-son moment by the door. The man jumped the fact that the genius of the clan had returned and shouted. "Asuma Sarutobi is in trouble, I was sent by Lady Fifth to request Lord Shikaku to aid him." all the other members of the original Ino-Shika-Cho trio were being called out to help.

"He's in the deer ranch." The woman replied and sharply looked at Naruto when he got to his feet, making sure to keep his arms hidden under his black cloak. Her eyebrows shot into her hairline at the look he sent her, the Nara messenger ran out to look for his clan head. Yoshino shook her head before Naruto could speak. "No, let your father handle it-"

"He needs help-"

"I just got you back!" she yelled, making the assassin Nara lean back slightly at her outburst. "I'm not losing you again." The woman said in a lower, quieter voice as her hands gripped his cloak firmly.

The son smiled wanly at his mother and placed both of his hands on her small shoulders, her fists tightened on his cloak at the action but Naruto still said. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll be back for lunch." She didn't look like she was about to let go of him anytime soon and Naruto sighed tiredly. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes narrowed at his apology and when his shadow darted out of the open door and to another house she yelled. "Damn it-" he winced at the high pitched scream but still fizzled into nothing in her grip. "Naruto!" the almost demon yell of the woman shook the clan compound to the core. There was a small pop to her side and the sandals he kept in the shoe rack disappeared as well. "I'll kill you, Naruto!"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

This wasn't how he planned on spending his day off.

Team Asuma tore towards where the distress signal had been located, where their sensei had relayed that he was in trouble and was in need of immediate assistance. Each chunin team had their own network, and were also connected to the Konoha chunin communication network, so the only ones that had gotten his signal was team Asuma and the Godaime Hokage.

The team bounced from tree to tree, silent but all worried at the state their teacher was in. The wind thrashed against them at the sheer speed and focus they were rushing at the Sarutobi, and few yards away, just as the dense thicket opened up to the magnificent sight of the Fire temple, the resident genius of the team felt a familiar presence waft passed him and his eyes caught a shadow disconnect from a tree then shoot to another tree before it bounded from the tree to a large rock.

Kakuzu removed his fist from inside a monks face and dusted his bloody hand on his cloak, turning his lazy gaze to Hidan as the Jashinist cackled loudly and slashed Asuma across the face, but the Sarutobi crossed his trench knives to block the attack and flared cutting wind chakra from his body, throwing away the frustrated priest. As Hidan landed with a thud far away from him Asuma looked down to Yugao, who was sporting a black eye and two broken arms, and pulled out the katana that Kakuzu had sheathed in her stomach; her own weapon.

"Are you ok?" he asked the off duty ANBU captain and the woman glared at him, then winced.

"What does it look like?"

He looked up when his team landed around him and Ino dutifully started healing the wounded A rank shinobi, trying her best to fix what she could and prepare her for transport back to Konoha. Asuma didn't look all to good either; he had a bad limp in his right leg where he shattered his heel bone and a burn wound that tunnelled through his thick flak jacket and scorched the side of his abdomen. He was on his last legs but his duty as a ninja forced him to keep getting up after each crushing blow and protect the Fire monks, but he had failed there.

Not that the Zombie brothers were unscathed; Kakuzu was missing his wind mask and the sleeves of his Akatsuki cloak had been torn off, while Hidan had multiple slashes on his face and body from the last wind attack, his cloak was crumbling by the seams and so was the little sanity he had left.

"Ino, I want you to get Yugao here back to Konoha, Chouji cover them and Shika, I want you to support Chouji." Asuma commanded but the Nara wasn't listening; he was staring at the rising shadow that stood three feet before them, between them and the Zombie brothers. The shadow solidified and gave the person form; a long black cloak that hid most of his body from his neck to his shins, which tempted him to think that the person had no arms, black sandals and, shock overtook him when he saw the colour of the persons head.

Blonde with black tips.

Wind tousled the person's hair and blew against the cloak but despite this Kakuzu and Hidan, the ones he was facing, could see nothing but darkness under it.

Hidan perched his triple bladed scythe on his shoulders and smirked sharply. "And who the hell are you supposed to be, tall, dark and fugly." He chortled at his own joke, given the fact that the newcomer looked more like a shadow than anything else, besides the way his pale skin starkly contrasted the darkness he exuded. The person didn't even crack a smile!

Kakuzu glowered deeply under his nose length cloak and clenched his hands at his sides into tight fists. "No idiot." The person silently looked from the laughing priest to the ruthless bounty hunter with dull, empty eyes. "That's…" he ground his teeth powerfully and raised his fists in a strong combat stance. The person raised an eyebrow and slightly cocked his head to the side in curiosity, interested on how Kakuzu could go from cocky and brutal to nervous and almost even afraid. "That's…the Night."

A corner of Naruto's lips quirked up. "Good. I'm still remembered." the smoke coming from the smouldering temple billowed high into the sky and the debris scattered around now seemed to make Kakuzu even more careful, as he eyed each and every one of them with a critical gaze. He spread his masks around him and made sure that they were ready to attack at a moment's notice, all the while Hidan looked at him, bemused and confused.

"Who the hell is 'the Night', you dick sucking heathen motherfucker?"

Naruto's blue eyes looked back to the priest and they clashed. Kakuzu shot back to the jashinist. "Have you been living under a rock?! The night is a Konoha assassin!"

"Is that all? Geez, I knew you were a piss as fag but I didn't know you were a piss ass, pussy lipped idiot that's afraid of a smut manga reading idiot!" He crowed.

"He's a Nara." Kakuzu grated. Why was Naruto not doing anything?!

"And?"

That was when Naruto finally spoke in a low voice. "I don't mean to brag but…" everyone's shadows, from the injured Yugao to the cautious Kakuzu and his masks, rippled and a darker copy of Naruto rose up and stood behind them. No one could move as the genius among geniuses of the Nara clan caught hold of all. The shadows of those behind him returned to normal and they could move again, but the Zombie brothers could not move. Clones that rose up from the larger debris and the shadows of trees around dully looked at the trapped duo and the original Naruto continued. "I now own your shadows."

Kakuzu strained his muscles to move, his veins bulged and his eyes widened in horror when the clone of the Night threw open his cloak and solid black arms shot out from the darkness, the right hand wielding a standard kunai and the other reached and grabbed hold of his left shoulder, dragging him back. The kunai sliced through his throat with clean precision. The hand withdrew back into the dark cloak, when only black threads spewed out from the neck of the frozen man, and the clone burst on fire; Kakuzu followed suit in a howling ball of rage and pain. Similarly the clones with the masks followed suit and the bounty hunter soon crumbled into nothing more than ash on the ground. Cold sweat flowed Hidan's neck at the sight of his partner quickly combusting with cold efficiency but no matter how hard he tried the clone that used to be his shadow never allowed him to move.

Another clone from a tree disconnected himself and walked over to the clone behind Kakuzu. As he approached he pulled out his arms, in his right hand was a standard issue katana blade, and when he got to Hidan's firmer shadow his hands blurred all over the shadows body, while his face was set in a neutral expression. He stopped abruptly and stepped back; the copy of him crumbled into small chunks of flesh and bone. His scythe clattered to the ground as his head finally hit the ground.

"I'll need to do something about your immortality…" the real Naruto, still standing without moving and observing as his Hiden art: Shadow Clone technique converged on the ashes of Kakuzu and the disassembled body of Hidan, ignoring the vile curses that the priest poured on them. They all silently looked at each other before they began covering the ashes with an earth shifting jutsu and storing parts of the priest in different scrolls, even his scythe, and each different scroll was stored in a single scroll. The clones then instinctively began erasing the presence of the summoner in the environment before their forms warped and they fell apart into solid shadows on the ground, each one shot back to their original locations. The real Naruto allowed a small smile to come to him. "That's that, I guess." He turned around to the Konoha ninjas he had just protected and halted from approaching when he saw they were all gawking at him. "What? Have-have I got something on my face?"

Their jaws were on the ground and their eyes were bugged when Naruto turned to the side and opened his cloak, his arms came out of the black abyss of under his cloak with a mirror. He searched his face for anything that would make them stare, because as far as he knew he was an unassuming guy, and when he found none his arms returned into his cloak and he faced them again.

"He-he…he just took out two S ranks." Chouji swallowed and perspiration gathered on his face at that fact.

"And he didn't even lift a finger…" Ino added as her hands froze with glowing green chakra, hovering over the stomach wound of the fallen ANBU captain, not that the woman noticed either. Her coal black eyes stayed on the long lost Nara in pure, unfiltered shock at the display and because he had come back after ten long years in the most spectacular way possible.

Meanwhile, when Shikamaru got over the jolt of watching his assassin big brother destroy two S ranks, he was again reminded that this was his big brother who vanished into thin air for the past ten years. His body shook with fury and he got to his feet, Ino looked at him curiously and watched as he slowly approached the familiar Nara. Naruto laughed quietly, nervously, and closed his eyes.

"Now Shika…" his younger brother's expression cleaned and he resembled him when he was on a mission or a job; Shikamaru walked around his injured teacher and towards Naruto, while the older Nara brother brought out his solid black clothed arms and made a placating motion to him, pleading for him not to do something rash. "Let's not do anything crazy…"

"Ten motherfucking years..." Shikamaru growled under his breathe as he slowly walked to Naruto, his eyes cast in a shadow, much to similar to Naruto's battle shadows.

"Shika…let's-let's-let's all just calm down now." Naruto chuckled nervously again and began hesitantly walking backwards, his feet taking tiny steps away from his obviously infuriated brother.

"You left…for ten whole motherfucking years…" the irate Nara whispered, the wind took his words to Naruto and the older brother grimaced at the venom laced in the words. "No goodbye, no letter, not even a fucking word from you for ten motherfucking years!" his unhurried walk turned into a jog, before it turned into a blur of movement as the chunin tore to his brother.

Asuma watched on with ever growing surprise that his usually sleepy, calm student was on fire with pent up rage, built from years of silence from his big brother, but his eyes grew to saucers when he saw his genius student cock his leg back. The teacher tried to reach for him but couldn't move from his weak kneeling position. "Shikamaru, no!"

Shikamaru's right leg carved a path of fire upwards with the strength of ten years old withheld emotional pain and turmoil and connected with the crotch of his older brother.

Crunch!

"Aiiiyeeeeeeeeeee!"

The scream of the Night echoed far and wide, and all men winced and instinctively held their crotches in pain, and turned to the general direction they felt the almighty disturbance in the universe. Back in Konoha, an angry Nara mother, who was washing the dishes in preparation for lunch, paused when the air vibrated with the pained squeal of her long lost son. A bright smile came to her and the world suddenly seemed brighter.

Her son was back and he had gotten his deserved punishment for leaving.

All was right in the world.

For now…

Authors note

…oof…

That's it, I guess. Don't forget to tell me what you think about this story. Whether or not I should end it here or continue. If it's any good or not or if there are any ways to better how I write.

Check out my stories and you will most definitely find more crazy stuff.

How the heck did Kakuzu even know about Naruto? He isn't even ranked, that means he isn't in any bingo book. Matter of fact he isn't really even famous outside of Konoha as an assassin.

I'll list this as complete, because I've got no problem ending the story here, but if you guys want me to go one then kindly tell me in the reviews and how or where you want me to go from.

Well, drop a review, would you so kindly, follow me on Tumblr at ghost-of-foy and I will see you when I see you.

Foy.