A/N: Here's the second chapter. I've had a lot of positive reviews for the first chapter; so far everyone seems to like it. I've had a few questions about Naruto's future love life. About that I'm just going to say… not telling. You'll just have to wait and see, although I will agree with windfox90 that if I pair Naruto with someone, it won't be a quick love-at-first-sight deal. He has emotional baggage and will have a hard time dealing with positive feelings.

I'm also not giving away how he'll deal with his family and Konoha. Like I said in the first chapter, I'm not going to give away anything about where this story is going beforehand. I will say that the second aspect of my story that was by "The Darkest Light" by Halo12094 will be revealed in this chapter.

Also, to address a concern a reviewer brought up, when I said that writing multiple stories keeps me from getting bored too easily I meant that it keeps writing any one of my stories from becoming tedious. If I just write one story at a time, it would start to feel like work, which removes my desire to write. Not only that, but there are times when I will get writer's block for a story, and having another story allows me to continue writing until I get a fresh idea. I have no plans on abandoning any story that I write, although I may take small beaks.

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"Demon/Large Summon Speech"

'Demon/Large Summon Thoughts'

Jutsu/Skills

Chapter 2: That Which is Precious

One month after leaving the city, Naruto found himself in the mountains of Maine. He checked the area for the nearest town or settlement, and after finding it he made sure to put a few mountains between them. Naruto then searched for a good location to make shelter and he eventually found a cave.

The cave was located in a cliff face, and the opening was a wide, but low crack running along the bottom. Inside however, the ceiling rose to a comfortable ten feet on average, with some areas rising to over thirty feet. The inside of the cave was massive, and stretched back over one hundred feet. All in all, it made for a decent camp, and would improve even more after he made some modifications. So he made a list of things to do, some immediately and other to do over time, and then started outfitting the cave for him to use it as shelter.

He first used his Blade to cut down a few trees and then slice them into lumber. This he used to build a proper entrance to the cave, closing the opening except for a small portion he would use as a door, by driving the lumber into the ground and using his Claws to shape the wood and form dovetails to make sure that everything would hold together even without nails.

The actual door for the entrance was a little trickier, but he solved this issue by using his Blade and running chakra through it. This allowed him to cut through stone, which he used to his advantage by shaping a large slab of stone that he fitted into the entrance to use as a door. It was so heavy that he had to use his Musclemass form to be able to move it, but this also meant that nothing else would be sneaking up on him either.

This took him all of his say to do, so he unsealed some rations and had dinner. One thing that he found odd about his new condition was that his storage seal moved from his left shoulder to the center of his chest. Apparently, when the virus had altered his body, it had also absorbed the storage seal he had and incorporated it. The shape and layout was also slightly different than before, the end result being that as far as he knew, he could now store unlimited items, and any excess biomass was now stored in his seal.

This allowed him to store excess biomass that he can use as needed instead of burning it off as fuel immediately. This allowed him to continuously heal wounds on the fly, and it possibly had some other uses that he wasn't aware of but wouldn't be able to use otherwise. Luckily for his stomach, his biomass seemed to be kept separate from everything else that was stored so he didn't have to worry about his food mixing with the flesh of his enemies. The last change he noticed was that his seal no longer produced any smoke when an item was sealed or unsealed.

After eating his dinner, he went to sleep in preparation for the next day.

Six year old Naruto was walking home after a day of self-training. It was a bit late as he had lost track of time, so the sun was beginning to set. Naruto was going at a calm pace, but inside he was nearly frantic. It was around this time that if he was caught outside he would be beaten by the villagers, but if he started hurrying that would only encourage them and guarantee that a "fox hunt" would start.

So he walked calmly and at only a slightly faster pace than normal. Still, he also kept his senses open for any signs of people following him. It was when he was around half way to his house that he started to hear the footsteps. Not turning his head to look back since that would only signal the start of the chase, he kept walking and then looked from the corner of his eye as he turned a corner.

He saw 10 people walking after him, with more starting to join them. What was worse was that he recognized some of them as the more sadistic of his tormentors. Naruto kept walking, knowing that no matter what they were going to hunt him down tonight. So as soon as he turned the next corner, he took off, hoping to get enough distance between them that by the time they reached the corner and saw that he had run he would be too far ahead of them for them to catch up.

Soon enough, he heard the sounds of pursuit. Apparently he didn't manage to get far enough away. Shuriken suddenly started landing on either side of him. 'Shit, they have ninjas with them!' thought Naruto. Luckily for him they seemed to be only Genin level since they weren't very accurate, at best they were low Chunin. If there were any Jonin among them then he would never manage to get away.

Naruto heard the cries of his pursuers, demanding that he stop and allow them their fun and payback and calling him all kinds of demeaning names. Naruto ignored them as best he could and kept running. He made sure to take as many corners as he could while not heading away from his home. He didn't want to risk any of them running ahead of him and laying a trap, but at the same time he wanted to make sure that they didn't have a clear line of sight.

Their aim may suck, but that didn't mean they couldn't get lucky.

Unfortunately for Naruto, one of the streets he turned down on was under construction and was blocked off until finished. He quickly tried to run back out, but before he could the crowd arrived, now more than thirty strong. Naruto desperately looked around for a way out, but then a kunai suddenly buried itself in his leg.

Howling in shock at the sudden pain, Naruto collapsed, clutching his leg. He looked up to see his tormentors surrounding him. One of the ninjas in the crowd turned to the others and said, "You know, I just learned a useful technique last week, and I've been dying to try it out. I think I just found my chance." Smirking, he turned back to Naruto, and after making a few hand signs, lifted a palm that was laced with electricity.

Naruto shrunk back as the hand slowly descended towards him. He let out a scream as it came in contact with his flesh.

Naruto started awake, his body shivering at the cold, but covered with sweat. It's been a while since his last nightmare, and this one was about one of his more vicious attacks. He had been tortured almost all night, with various small lightning and fire jutsu being used on vulnerable parts of his body. The common villagers used padded weapons to make sure that while they hurt him, they didn't cause any lasting damage. After letting him go, he had barely enough time to get home and change, before his family was up and starting their day.

Eventually, he stopped shivering and his heartbeat returned to normal. He checked the time and saw that it was morning and time to get up anyways. After another few minutes just holding himself, Naruto finally got up and started preparing for the day. After eating breakfast, he unsealed the scrolls he had copied from his clan library and separated them by topic. Once they were divided, he began to think of a training regimen to maximize the benefits he would achieve from training.

First, he would spend the first four hours of his day doing basic physical training. While the virus might give him a boost to his basic stats, but compared to some of the higher level shinobi from the village, he still had a long way to go.

After a quick break for lunch, he would then spend two hours practicing and experimenting with his abilities. After all, it would do no good to allow his greatest strength to get rusty, and there may be other abilities that he has yet to unlock.

After that, he would spend two hours on chakra control exercises, since he was still young and his chakra was still growing. After his chakra control exercises, he would then spend another two hours learning and practicing taijutsu and kenjutsu. These skills would only enhance his abilities and allow him to use them to their fullest.

After his taijutsu and kenjutsu training, he would then have dinner. After dinner, he would spend the next two hours training in ninjutsu, ending his training and giving him the rest of the day to hunt, prepare for the following day, and then free time.

Of course, he was free to modify the schedule as needed. If he felt that he needed to focus on a specific area, or that he was close to a breakthrough and needed to continue he would do so. Not to mention that this schedule didn't include fuinjutsu or genjutsu. He would rotate those two in as he could.

With his training schedule planned out, Naruto went out to start his day of training.

-Three Weeks Later-

It's been three weeks since Naruto has started his training regimen, and he was pleased with his progress. Due to his heritage and circumstances, he found himself making the most progress in fuinjutsu, training his body, and ninjutsu.

Fuinjutsu just seemed to come naturally to him. With the Uzumaki clan being famous for their mastery of the sealing arts, and his father being a seal master as well, it was almost expected that he would be able to pick up the art with ease. Although, while the practice and calligraphy of fuinjutsu was something that he needed to train in, the theory and understanding of seals and their parts came so easily to him that it was like he already knew the subject and was just refreshing him memory. This brought up again some disturbing thoughts and suspicions that he had, but he shoved them to the back of his mind in an attempt to ignore them.

As for training his body, not only did he have the body based bloodline of the Uzumaki that promoted rapid healing, but also as a carrier of the Blacklight virus his healing has increased to be almost instantaneous. This allowed him to both be able to push himself far harder than a normal person, but also to be able to recover quickly, thereby being able to experience the benefits of his training almost immediately. He now no longer needed his Musclemass ability to move the stone slab that served as a door to his cave, and his speed also greatly increased. When activating his powers, his strength was magnified even further.

As for his ninjutsu, he fully mastered two of the basic three to the point of not needing hand signs, with only the Bushin technique giving him difficulties. While not needing hand signs to perform, he could still only manage to produce a minimum of 20 clones without them appearing as if they were going to die shortly from some gruesome illness. He did manage to cover his weakness however by learning the Kage Bushin technique from one of the scrolls he copied. It was a clone technique that produced solid clones instead of illusionary ones.

This technique actually made clones that were useful in a fight by being able to use ninjutsu, not to mention that everything they learned was passed on to him after they dispelled. This allowed him to greatly speed up his training, by allowing him to train his body, while his clones learned new techniques and studied other areas that a ninja should know. The clones were able to do everything that he could, with the exception of consuming an opponent, so the only area they could not help him in was physical training.

After he mastered the technique to the point where he could produce clones without hand signs, he had started on his nature transformation training. Using a piece of chakra paper he had stolen, he found that his main affinity was wind. So every day he had made three hundred clones for training. He had one hundred and fifty clones train in his main affinity of wind transformation, seventy five clones train in water and lightning transformation each, and then fifty clones train in fire and earth transformation each.

This allowed him to cover all of his bases. While focusing on him main affinity, he also made sure to cover for his weakness of fire by learning water transformation, and then cover for that weakness of earth with lightning transformation. Then he also made sure to train in fire and earth transformation to make sure that he was well rounded. After all, the reason that most Jonins only had at most two types of nature transformation down was due to the fact that they did not have the time it would take to learn more types of nature transformation. An affinity to one type just means that it is easier to learn that type of nature transformation compared to other types. If that wasn't the case, then the sharingan wouldn't have been considered such a strong bloodline.

He was now midway through the point of the second stage of his wind nature transformation, and finishing up the first states for his water and lightning transformations. His earth and fire nature transformations are still around halfway through the first stage.

All in all, he felt that he had made good progress for the past three weeks, and he wanted to test out his results. To that end, he decided to have an all-out fight against a group of clones. Ready to start for the day, he went out to his "training ground", which was a clearing he found less than a mile away from his cave, and created a group of 20 clones. To maximize the difficulty, he made sure to have them only attack him in groups of four. More than that he had learned during his stay in New York, and usually opponents would only get in each other's way. While his clones could attack using more at once without interfering with each other, he still felt that he would get the maximum workout from this layout.

With everything else all set, Naruto shifted his left arm into Claws and he right arm into Blade mode and shouted out "Bring it!"

With that four separate clones dashed forwards, one of them using its Blade form, another using Claws, the third using Hammerfist, and the last hanging back slightly with Whipfist. The clone with Hammerfists flipped over Naruto and as soon as he landed he swung a massive fist at Naruto's back. Naruto leaped forwards out of the Hammerfists range, only to encounter the Blade clone swinging its sword at Naruto's legs while at Claws clone tried to pierce his chest.

Naruto jumped up over the sword of the Blade clone, and blocked the Claws with his own Blade. Then he used his Claws to catch the whip that was sent to his head by the Whipfist clone. Without stopping, Naruto spun in midair using the Claws clone as leverage and threw the Whipfist clone right into the path of a Hammerfist that the first clone swung at his back again. This caused the Whipfist clone to pop, and surprised the Hammerfist clone long enough that Naruto was able to finish his midair rotation and bring his Blade down on him, causing him to pop as well.

At the same time, Naruto used his Claws to catch the sword of his Blade clone and prevent himself from being bisected. The Claws clone then tried to decapitate him, and he ducked under the swing and returned the favor with his Blade. Still holding onto the Blade clones sword, Naruto jerked him forward, causing the clone to stumble, and then jumped up and kneed him in the face. As soon as the clone landed Naruto was on top of him and pierced his head with his Claws.

The next four clones ran forward; the first one with Musclemass activated, another with Hammerfists, the third with Claws, and the last with Shields on both arms. Seeing this arrangement, Naruto shifted his left arm to a Shield. It was just in time as well, seeing as the instant the Hammerfist clone closed in he launched an attack that would have caved in his chest. Naruto blocked it in time, but was launched backwards and he slammed into a tree. Even though he was slightly disoriented, he still had the presence of mind to duck under a swing from his Musclemass clone, which shattered the tree behind him.

His head now clear again, Naruto leaped forward, intending to bisect the Claws clone in front of him, only to have his Blade bounce off and to end up falling back. Naruto looked again and saw that his Shield clone had protected his comrade, and had a superior smirk that irked Naruto to no end, never mind that it was his own clone. Naruto dodged the Musclemass and Claws clones, and then jumped on top of his second clone's Hammerfist, using it as a launching pad to throw himself at the Shield clone.

The Shield clone saw this and raised his Shield to protect himself. This time, Naruto was the one with a superior smirk as he charged his Blade with wind chakra. This time, the Blade sliced cleanly through the Shield and the clone as well. Seeing this, the Claws clone channeled wind chakra and attacked Naruto. However, instead of cutting through Naruto the Claws only partially cut through his Shield. Unknown to the clone, Naruto saw what he was doing and charged his shield with earth chakra. While Naruto wasn't proficient enough in earth transformation to truly use it in battle, he was able to use it enough to partially charge his Shield, preventing his death.

Naruto then swung his Blade upwards, cutting the clone in two from groin to head. His Shield now fully regenerated, Naruto used it to block a Hammerfist, which also served the purpose of launching him out of the Musclemass clone's range. As soon as he landed, he dashed forwards and thrust his Blade ahead of himself, impaling the Hammerfist clone. Then he jumped back as he shifted his left arm into a Whipfist and used it to pierce the Musclemass clone through the heart.

As the next group of clones leaped forwards, they all got a sudden influx of memories. One of the sentry clones that he had posted around the clearing dispelled itself, reporting that there were a group of hikers heading in his direction. Cursing softly, Naruto dispelled the rest of his clones and took a break. He sat down at the foot of a tree, making sure to shift his clothes from his training gear to hiking gear.

Within a half an hour, a small family of three approached the clearing. The father of the group looked to be in his late thirties, early forties. He was fairly tall at 6' 4", and had short brown hair that parted to the left. He had nut brown eyes that seemed to always be alert, but was calm at the same time. He was fairly muscled, but with an athletic build instead of being thick like a body builder, and had a confident grace to his movements.

The mother of the group was also tall at 5' 11", and seemed to be the same age as her husband. She had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes like his, although not quite as bright. Her stride was not as confident as her husband's, but still had an air of elegance about it. She had a slim, but well-rounded figure, not as much as some of the kunoichi of the village, but definitely womanly. She was a fairly attractive woman overall, and her cheerful demeanor only seemed to increase it.

The daughter of the group seemed to be a carbon copy of her mother, although she did have her father's eyes and a slightly stronger jawline than her mother. She seemed to be about 4 years older than Naruto, and has the slim figure that comes from athletic competition. She seemed a bit more serious than her mother, but still carried an air of happiness around her.

The group stopped at the clearing to take a small break and they spotted Naruto who was sitting nearby. The father nodded in his direction and greeted him. "Hey there, we don't normally meet people in this part of the area. Most people prefer the trails closer to town."

"Hello." Naruto cautiously replied. His people skills were nonexistent, due to his childhood, or rather lack of one, and also due to the fact that when he finally stopped traveling he became infected and thus a target. Neither situation lends much to ease of conversing with strangers.

The man narrowed his eyes slightly at the terse answer. He looked around but did not find what he expected to see. "Hey kid, where's your parents? You're not here by yourself are you?"

Naruto narrowed his own eyes at the man's question. "…Yes, I'm here by myself." He replied after a few moments.

The mother of the group looked surprised. "What? Where are your parents? Why are you out here?"

Naruto began to get angry at all of the questions, but kept it mostly in, only showing a mild irritation. "I don't have parents." He answered truthfully, since he did not consider Minato and Kushina to be his parents. "As for why I'm here, it's because I like to be alone." And with that he got up and began to walk away.

"Hold on there squirt. We can't just leave you here by yourself; it gets cold out here at night, not to mention that there are sometimes bears and other animals out here. What will you do about food and shelter? What if you get hurt and there's no one around?" the man stated with concern in his voice.

Unused to hearing someone taking any sort of concern for him, Naruto was confused on how he should react. In the end, he just scowled and said, "I've been fine out here on my own for almost a month here. I can hunt and gather food just fine. I can take care of myself."

With that, Naruto turned away and quickly left the clearing. 'Just leave me alone. I don't know what you want, but leave me out of it.'

The mother made as if she was going to go after him, but the father held her back. "Leave him for now, Mary. If he's been here as long as he's said he has, then he should be fine."

"But Jim," she replied, "he's just a child. How can we just leave him here?"

"We leave him here because he's not just a child." was his response. "I've seen people like him before, back in Afghanistan. I don't know what happened to him, but he's been hurt badly and doesn't trust anyone. And with the way he moves, I can tell that he's been trained to fight. He's seen too much to be called a child, no matter how old he is."

The other two looked surprised at his statement. The girl looked worriedly in the direction that the boy went in. "but Dad, we still can't leave him here by himself. He's younger than I am!" she yelled.

"If we try to take him anywhere with us he'll just try to fight us. And he'll just be put into a home where he'll just escape again." Jim replied. "Don't worry you two, we can come back to check on him and make sure that he's alright. We just need to make sure that he has all the space he need, or he'll run somewhere else and we won't be able to help him."

"Alright dear, but I want to come back soon. I just can't leave a child out here on his own." Mary replied, and with that the group continued on their way.

-Six Months Later-

It's been six months since Naruto first met the Raven family. Since then, they made sure to visit him at least once a week to make sure that he was all right and didn't need anything. Whenever they would visit they would bring something for him, like a first aid kit, blankets, and some small meals. Every gift they brought him would produce a strange feeling in his chest, one that he had never felt before.

Of course, not knowing what that felling was, at first he would become defensive. But every time they came to check in on him, he would react less and less negatively. After some time he began to just accept the gifts and the feelings that they produced, and the strange warmth that seemed to fill him when he did. After feeling cold inside for so long, this warmth was pleasant.

This didn't mean that he was stupid about them. After their third visit, he made sure to follow them home and spy on them. He wanted to find out exactly why they kept coming to see him, even after he had made it clear that they were unwelcome. After shadowing them for a while, he realized that they were truly worried about him, not that he may be dangerous, but that he may be in danger by being by himself.

After that, he had slowly started to open up to them, seeing that they had no ulterior motive except his wellbeing. It was unusual to say the least, all of his life he had been hated, feared, or ignored. Having others that seemed to want to make sure that he was alright made him feel… happy. He finally began to understand that feeling that he had, as well as the warmth that he felt. He started to enjoy the feeling, since it was all too fleeting in his life previously. He began to relax around them, spending more and more time speaking to them during their frequent visits.

With Jim, he would talk about nature and survival training. They would speak about the different plants that were edible, as well as different medicinal uses various herbs that grew in the area had. They would speak about hunting tips, and about fishing. Naruto also let Jim know that he was training himself out here, and Jim spoke about his training in the Navy SEALs, from which Naruto took ideas to help his own training. Jim would also keep him abreast of what was going on in the world outside of the mountains, and made sure that he was ready for the change in seasons.

With Mary he would speak about cooking and gardening, two activities which he enjoyed as they allowed him to focus on things other than his life. He would also speak about the different places he's been, and the sights that he's seen, although he made sure to keep out anything that would lead to his past. She would try to get him to open up, as after a while she sensed that his gruff front that he put up was mostly a mask he used to protect himself. While she had little success, she did get bits and pieces enough to know that he had been abused terribly in his life. This knowledge nearly brought her to tears, and made her determined to help him as much as she could.

With the daughter of the group, whose name was May, he would mostly talk about track. After she learned that he could run for miles without breaking a sweat, she began to talk with him animatedly about long distance running, including her favorite athletes and her dreams of being an Olympian. They exchanged training tips to build up stamina, and then she would speak about her school track team. Otherwise, they would talk about small things, and she would let him know about what was going on among their age group. She spoke about different movies that were out, and what music was popular.

All in all, they began to earn a place for themselves in his heart, becoming the first of his precious people. He found himself becoming despondent when they left, and looking forwards to their next visit.

During all this time, he continued his training, and made sure that they did not find out what he could do. Now it was no longer a matter of mistrust, but of fear that they would see him as different, as inhuman. He finally had people who saw him as him, and was afraid that he would lose that. So he hid that aspect of himself while he was around them.

Now however, he was finally going to face what he's been putting off for a while. Those nagging thoughts and memories that he kept having were finally something that he could no longer ignore. Tonight, he was going to check on something that he never thought that he would see. He was going to try to speak with the fox in his gut to confirm his suspicions.

That night, after making sure that all of the preparations were complete, Naruto laid down on his makeshift bed. Focusing his mind and chakra, he concentrated on his seal and tried to go into his mindscape. After a few minutes of concentrating, his body went completely limp as his consciousness went elsewhere.

-Mindscape-

Naruto suddenly found himself standing in a sewer. Looking around, he saw cracks everywhere, although it looked like some of them were being repaired. He could see multiple pipes leading down the tunnel he was in, and they were leaking water into the 6 inches of water he was standing in. Besides that, the walls were also covered in red and black tendrils. Naruto was unsure if his mindscape would also contain his new condition, but with it being so integral to what he is now, he wasn't surprised.

Sighing at the state of his mindscape, Naruto started down the tunnel. Eventually, he came across a large cavern. It was larger than anything that should have been physically possible in nature, and extremely difficult to do by man if not impossible as well. An entire city could have fit inside the cavern and had room left over. The other thing that he noticed was that this cavern was also covered in red and black tendrils, which did not bode well in his mind.

Partway down the cavern, huge bars were standing in a line going across the entire room. These were the bars to the cage that the Kyuubi was sealed in. Naruto confirmed that he was in the right place by seeing a sealing tag that was placed across the gate to the cage. He looked into the cage, trying to make out the form of the fox within the murky darkness.

"Kyuubi no Kitsune?" shouted Naruto, attempting to call out the strongest of the biju. All he heard in return was nothing. In a slight panic now, he tried again, "Kyuubi no Kitsune?"

Again nothing.

In panic mode now, Naruto ran to the bars, desperate to see something to disprove the thoughts that had been running through his mind. His eyes not penetrating the darkness, he growled in frustration and wished for better lighting so that he could see. All of a sudden, in accordance with his will, the entire cavern was illuminated in a bright light. After giving his eyes a few moments to adjust, he looked inside the cage and gasped.

The cage was empty.

The Kyuubi had been consumed.

A/N: And there is the second aspect of my story that was by "The Darkest Light" by Halo12094. Please leave a review and let me know what you think.