He hated the night.
Or rather, he hated everything about the night. The night itself, he supposed, wasn't all that bad. It was just that it encompassed a lot of the things he couldn't stand. The silence was deafening at night in Konohagakure. It was to be expected, of course, being a town filled with ninjas. It didn't mean he had to like it. He hated that he was stuck inside at night. Being caught outside at this hour would do nothing for his already-poor reputation. The old man kept telling him he was one more problem away from being in serious trouble. As of yet, he hadn't gone through on any of those threats, though. He hated that he could lie in bed and think.
He didn't like to think. Thinking kept him from being able to tune out reality. Given that he was almost friendless and hated by most of the town, that was saying something. There were precisely two people he could call his friends, and both were far older than he was. He didn't even know why he was hated so much. But the villagers would only glare at him as he passed, and were all too eager to blame him for anything that went wrong. And while he certainly wasn't entirely blameless - he spent a good deal of time playing pranks, after all - it did get to a point where he was growing sick of it.
But he wouldn't let them see him at his weakest. In his bed, gazing out at the stars, he could just be himself. He wanted to prove himself to the town. He wanted to be a hero to them. He wanted to be the Hokage. They would see then. He would get strong enough to change all of their feelings towards him! The problem was figuring out how to get that strength. To say that his ninjutsu was weak would be an understatement. The old man seemed to think he had untapped potential, but would never go into detail as to why he felt that way.
Uzumaki Naruto, arms crossed under his head, blew out a quiet sigh. This wasn't the life he'd envisioned living. On his own, in a run-down apartment building, with no friends and a grim future as a potential ninja. The villagers hadn't tried any kind of physical violence with him, but the mental half was another matter entirely. Very few spoke directly to him, choosing instead to speak amongst friends in stage whispers that he couldn't help but overhear.
The kids were no better. The Academy was alright, but the parents had passed their hatred of him along to their children. This, combined with his poor showings in class and the pranks he pulled to distract himself from it all, had cemented his place amongst his peers. He didn't especially mind, save for a few very specific cases. His eyes narrowed as he gazed at the moon. What he wouldn't give to get one clean shot on that Uchiha brat...
A sharp, sudden pain in his chest caused Naruto to wince, his vision doubling for a moment. The moon seemed to dissolve and reform in a split-second and, for that brief moment, Naruto could've sworn he saw a giant eye staring back down at him. Blinking rapidly, his vision cleared and the moon was as it always had been. But the pain in his chest... that was new. He sat up, rubbing at the sore spot through his pajamas. What the devil had caused that? He had been feeling perfectly fine all day long, vague feelings of annoyance aside. He couldn't remember eating anything out of the ordinary, either.
The pain slowly began to fade away and, once he was sure it was gone, Naruto tentatively laid back down. As his head hit the pillow, he gave another glance at the moon. The eye he thought he had seen still wasn't there, however. Shrugging, he brushed it off to something bad in the ramen he had eaten for dinner. He went to roll onto his right side, facing away from the window, but couldn't quite complete the maneuver. He found himself violently shoved onto his back again, as though something had slammed into his stomach at a great speed.
Arms clutching his midsection, Naruto started to sit up again when his head erupted in pain. Rapid flashes of light illuminated terrible scenes of death and destruction, each one worse than the one before it. People he had only seen in passing at the Academy were lying broken and bloody Konoha itself had been reduced to rubble, men in red and black cloaks stood in shadow before crumpling one by one, and that eye he thought he had seen on the moon. He could barely process anything through the searing pain coursing through his body. Curling up into a ball, he tried crying out, but his voice died in his throat. It, too, felt like it was on fire. His eyes were squeezed as tightly shut as he could force them, and it still wasn't keeping the light out. The scenes of death were moving by even faster, repeating and picking up even more speed each time.
Then, just as suddenly as it had struck him, it was gone. It didn't fade away, it didn't die down, it simply stopped. He dared to crack an eye open after a minute, and found that he was still lying in bed. His breathing was labored, and his head hurt from keeping his eyes squeezed shut. But the pain in his body had gone away completely.
Slowly, Naruto pushed himself upright again, legs swinging over the edge of the bed. He staggered to his feet and padded towards the bathroom, forced to keep a hand against the wall for support. The room seemed to spin every few seconds, and he didn't entirely trust his feet to stay on the ground. Flipping on the bathroom light, he walked to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror hanging over it. As his eyes attempted to focus on his reflection, he thought he saw someone standing behind him. Jerking his neck, he spun around only to find that he was, in fact, alone.
He turned the cold water on, splashing his face a few times to try and rinse out all the cobwebs. When he looked into the mirror again, his own reflection was all that greeted him. Hands on the sides of the sink, Naruto hung his head and blew out a shaky breath. What the hell had that been about? If it happened again, he was going to go and wake up his instructor at the Academy. Iruka wouldn't mind the intrusion, especially if there was something wrong with his student's health. And Naruto certainly didn't feel good. Barring the fact the pain itself had gone away, all of those grim images were still with him, and he felt as though he had just finished running a marathon. He hadn't been this exhausted in a good while, and he couldn't remember that time feeling anywhere near as awful as this one.
Lifting his head, Naruto stared at himself in the mirror for a few minutes more before pushing himself back up and turning to head back to bed. Maybe he just needed a good night's sleep or something. That, he decided, would be the best way to solve his problem. If his problem would give him enough time to actually drift off to sleep, in any case. As he reached the bed, he toppled over forward into it and dragged himself up onto it. He grabbed for a pillow and clutched it tightly, burying his face against it and trying to regulate his breathing. This wasn't how he had wanted to spend his time that day. As the darkness washed over him, one coherent thought kept bouncing around his mind.
He hated the night.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
"Where...am I?"
Naruto had awakened in an abysmally dark hallway. He assumed it to be a hallway, in any case, as it seemed longer than it was wide. There was a faint light coming from the only visible end - the way behind him was just as dark - so he started to slowly walk towards it, keeping a hand on one of the walls, which was freezing cold and felt like stone. There was a very faint rumbling sound coming from just ahead, where the hallway opened onto a room. Eyes narrowing, still uncertain of what was going on, Naruto pressed onward, finally reaching the end of the dark hall.
The found himself standing in a massive room, one with equally massive bars splitting its middle. It looked almost as though it was some sort of jail cell, though what could be kept imprisoned behind such large bars, Naruto didn't want to imagine. He didn't feel uneasy, per se, but something was grating on his nerves and he wasn't entirely sure what it was. The place felt awfully familiar, despite the fact that he had never been there in his life.
"You haven't..." Came a soft voice from behind him. "But I have."
Naruto whirled around, only to find himself looking at what appeared to be an older version of himself. The older Naruto smiled down at him, weariness evident in his eyes. The younger Naruto was about to open his mouth to say something when the older one held up a hand, stopping him.
"Don't. Not enough time. That took a lot more of our energy than we thought it would. We were lucky to make it at all. Took several tries to get in, as it were. Dad made sure the seal was strong, to be sure."
"What are you talking about? Who are you? And where are we?" Asked the younger of the two, looking decidedly confused.
"In your head. Or my head. I guess right now, it's 'our' head. I'm not making much sense, am I?"
The younger Naruto shook his head.
Sighing, the older Naruto glanced beyond his younger self's head and asked, "How much time do you think we have, partner?"
From behind the giant metal bars, somewhere in the darkness beyond, a low, growling voice replied, "Enough to make do. Be quick about it, though. All of us need rest."
Naturally, the younger Naruto had spun around, eyes wide as the disembodied voice spoke. And, before his older self could say anything, he had cried out, "What the heck was that?!"
"This is going to be a lot to swallow." Said the older Naruto, leaning back against a wall of the room. "I'm you. Rather, I'm who you'll eventually be. That guy back there is the nine-tailed demon fox. Yes, the one that attacked the village. The Fourth - our father, by the way - sealed him into us. Apparently he wanted us to be the hero of the village. That turned out well, didn't it?"
"Get on with it." Growled the Kyuubi, sounding just as tired as the older Naruto did.
"Right. Sorry." Apologized the older Naruto, wincing a bit. "Look... I used a forbidden technique to separate my soul - and the Kyuubi's with it - to bring it back through time to just before I graduated from the Academy. A lot happens between your time and mine. A lot of bad things."
"I saw people dying... and the town in ruins..." The younger Naruto said, frowning. "...Wait, what do you mean a technique to separate your soul?"
"From my body. I... killed myself, basically." Admitted the older of the two. "It was necessary. You saw what it was like. The town had been destroyed. My friends had been slaughtered. I'd failed... and I couldn't keep running. So me and the Kyuubi back there began thinking. While we ran, we managed to think up a wild plan. We weren't even one hundred percent sure it would work. Since we're here talking right now, it seems even I managed to get lucky for once. We did it so we can merge with you. We're not taking over, but... you're going to have our memories. Meaning you're going to know everything that happens between now and my time."
He paused here, seeing a grin beginning to form on his younger self's face. He shook his head slowly, though, and continued, "It won't be fun. And we can't let too much change. That's the problem, see..."
"What? Why not, why not? If I know what's going to happen..."
"...Then you have to let it play out. Look, I only have one branch of this story, you know. If you change too much, things are going to play out differently and I don't know where anything will go. My sacrifice will be in vain if that happens because I'm banking on things playing out the same way they did the first time around. Get it now? There's a cut-off, certainly. And I'm willing to take risks here and there, but... if we mess up anywhere along the way, things could turn out even worse than before. One of the most important things I need to tell you is that you cannot tell anyone about this, do you understand? You can't let anyone even think that you can see into the future!"
"But why? Wouldn't we be able to save everyone that way?" Asked the younger Naruto, looking even more confused.
"We haven't fully merged yet. It should finish by morning. There won't be any 'you' or 'I' after that. We'll just be Uzumaki Naruto. We'll be the jinchuuriki containing the nine-tails. I want you to break the Kyuubi's seal immediately after waking, by the way. When you wake up, you'll understand everything you need to. I'm sorry I'm not making much sense. I'm asking you to believe a lot, and you probably think this is just some wild dream. Listen... if anyone knows about this 'power' you're being given, they'll want to use it. Everyone knows you've got the Kyuubi in you - why do you think they hate you as much as they do? They don't see you as Namikaze Minato's son, they see you as just a monster bearer that the Fourth died to save. They're good people, but we have to earn their trust first. That won't be a problem, but we have to choose when and where to risk changing things. The Kyuubi will help you out, since my presence will be gone after tonight. I've barely got the strength to stand here and chat with you like this."
"What if I don't believe you? What if this is just some nightmare?"
"The real nightmare will start when you wake up. I'm placing a horrible burden on you. And for that, I apologize. But I couldn't let it end with Madara winning. I couldn't let him enslave the entire planet. There are so many things I wanted a chance to do over. To act a little different, to be a bit more understanding, to try and stop Sasuke from leaving, to try and stop Sakura from being killed, to try and keep Jiraiya from willingly going to his death... there are so many things we need to stop from happening this time... I'm just not sure all of them can be." Naruto explained, slipping down the wall until he was sitting, his head lolling forward slightly. "Che... already? Damn it all, there's still..."
"It's time to let go." Said the Kyuubi's voice. "You've done enough. It's his time to take control now. Believe in him - in yourself - and rest. I'll guide him through what needs to be done. I'm not going anywhere."
Eyes slipping shut, the older Naruto grit his teeth. "One last thing, you old bastard..."
"And what might that be?" Asked the Kyuubi.
A weak grin split the older Naruto's face. "Win."
A pair of large eyes snapped open behind the bars as the older Naruto's body crumpled to the side and faded away, the first visible sign of something living being there. The Kyuubi was silent until his companion had vanished completely. The younger Naruto was the only one there now, and he had rushed to his older self's side to try and do something. Having been unable, he had stood and slowly turned to look up at the demon fox's eyes. A grin, not unlike the one the older Naruto had worn as he left, rose on the Kyuubi's face as he stared down at the uncertain boy before him.
"After we arrived here, but before you showed up in this place, he asked me a question. Do you know what that question was?"
Naruto shook his head slowly.
"He asked 'when did we arrive?' And do you know what I replied?"
Again, Naruto shook his head.
"'In time to fix everything.'"
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
Naruto's eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright in bed. His vision was blurred and for a moment, he wasn't sure why. His breathing was coming in short, shallow bursts and he had a splitting headache. Bringing a hand up to his face, he froze. The last thing he remembered was the Kyuubi telling him that it and his older self had arrived in time to fix things. After that, everything had gone black. So why was he crying? Throwing the blankets off of his, Naruto shakily got to his feet and headed for the bathroom.
Midway there, he felt something threaten to rise in his throat. At once, his mind began replaying the deaths of those who he would become friends with, in even greater detail than before. Slapping a hand over his mouth, Naruto dug into the cold floor and ran into the bathroom, barely making it to the sink before he was sick. Coughing violently, his eyes stinging from the tears, Naruto emptied what little was in his stomach from the previous night.
Swallowing weakly when he was sure the dry heaving had stopped, Naruto ran some water to clean both the sink and himself. He felt hideous now, as though his older self's ungodly exhaustion had also made the trip back through the years. How his older self hadn't gone crazy from having to deal with all of those things, he wasn't sure. After swishing some water around his mouth and swallowing a second bit to try and remove the taste of ramen and bile, he put a hand over his stomach. He paused then, staring down at himself, remembering he still needed to do something. He knew how to remove the Kyuubi's seal.
Taking a slow, deep breath just to check to see if he would throw up again, Naruto turned and left the room. As he walked to the edge of his bed, he unbuttoned his pajama top, removing it and tossing it over into a pile of clothes that needed washing.
"Gerotora... won't see him for awhile." Naruto murmured to himself as he touched the seal on his stomach. "Man, I hope he wasn't lying."
Flexing the fingers on his right hand, Naruto made a face. "Pressure points, huh? Damn it, I'm going to hit him in the gut this time, see how he likes it..." Taking a deep breath, he slammed the fingers on his hand into the seal and growled, "Gogyou Kaiin!"
Scowling as he glared up at the ceiling, his stomach hurting both from getting sick and from the self-inflicted impact, he grumbled, "Please tell me that worked..."
And, from somewhere that seemed to be just behind his ears, came the familiar, rumbling voice of the imprisoned demon fox. "It worked."
Sitting up slowly, Naruto asked, "So now what?"
"Now we begin working. We fix the problems we ran into during our original run through while doing our best to keep things from changing too much."
Making a face, Naruto griped, "That makes no sense! How can we change things if we're worried about changing things?!"
"We have to choose when and where. And we have to choose very, very carefully. Like he told you, it's dangerous and if we do too much, we lose our advantage. We'll need to begin practice to get your body into shape as soon as we can. The sooner we can start to appear as though we were naturally getting stronger, the better." The Kyuubi explained.
"Naturally?"
"Since the seal was broken, I can cycle my chakra into you and you can fuel your techniques with it. If need comes to it, we can... merge, shall we say. Your older half made it quite far. Trying for all nine tails is suicide and would most likely trigger my release. Seven or eight are highly dangerous and put both of our lives in danger. Below that and we should be relatively fine. Merging aside, you should have his knowledge of techniques, yes?"
Naruto frowned, closing his eyes and thinking. Brief flickers of techniques he had never seen before entered his mind. "I... see something. It's kinda fuzzy, though."
"Likely a side effect of the two of us fusing with the two of you, if that makes sense. They should become clearer once we're whole." Explained the Kyuubi. "It's still early in the day, from the looks of it. Let's go outside. It has been a long time since the two of us have seen Konoha in one piece, and I'm sure he would appreciate seeing it once last time before he completely fades away."
Nodding, Naruto quickly changed into his usual orange and blue outfit, something that caused an odd sort of buzzing in the back of his head. Unable to place why, he shrugged the feeling off and, grabbing the goggles on the table beside his bed, Naruto opened his window and hopped out, bounding up and onto the roof of the old apartment he lived in. The sun was just starting to rise, and it was still relatively cool outside.
After spending awhile surveying the town, Naruto dropped into a crouch. "It was hard, huh? All that stuff you two went through?"
"More than I could put into words, yes. Your older self became very depressed towards the end, though he always hid it well. He smiled the widest when he hurt the most. He wasn't able to keep it secret from me, however. And the two of us, towards the end, began to speak far more than we ever had prior. I won't fade like he did. His chakra reached an end, but mine will live on. I will be guiding you as we go along. Heed my advice, no matter how strange it might seem, or we might miss the precious few chances we'll have at changing things." Said the Kyuubi.
"What should we change first?" Asked Naruto, glancing up toward the Hokage Monument. "Keeping the old man alive?"
"No. The Third's death needs to play out, unfortunately. We need Tsunade here to help protect the town and to help your would-be girlfriend train." Stated the Kyuubi. "Thinking about that, however... we may not need to leave this time around. The dealings with the Uchiha I will largely leave up to you, however. Obviously, we cannot simply go and execute him. But we need to try to get through to him before Orochimaru sinks his fangs into him. If we can convince him not to leave - if we can convince him to stay and train with us - we might stand a far better chance at changing the outcome of the war."
As the Kyuubi talked, memories began floating up from the fuzziness in Naruto's mind. Images of a funeral, a blond woman, and many, many battles against Uchiha Sasuke flickered to life. Wincing, Naruto murmured, "Hey..."
"Yes?"
"Will she... y'know?"
"She?"
"Sakura-chan." Naruto stated, scratching his cheek. "Can't look through the other me's memories yet and... well..."
"You will learn what you wish in time." Said the Kyuubi.
"Not a very promising answer..." Naruto said, sighing quietly. "...Hey, can I ask something else?"
"Of course."
"I've had this buzzing in the back of my head for awhile now... that just you guys 'settling in' or something?"
The Kyuubi paused for a moment before a bark of laughter made Naruto jolt. "His presence is dimming. But from what I can gather, he wants you to find a better outfit. Here... perhaps something like this one..."
And in his mind, his older self appeared in the outfit he had come to favor. This one came through as clear as the morning sky to Naruto, who smirked. "What's the difference? It's just changing the blue for black! It's still mostly orange, isn't it?"
"The sage bought it for him. He was especially fond of it."
"Jiraiya?" Naruto frowned at this, feeling like someone had just attached a heavy weight to his chest. "...Yeah. Yeah, alright. Tell him I'll see what I can do. Gonna be hard getting a tailor to deal with me, though..."
"Just behave yourself and you'll be fine. They may presently dislike you, but that will change in time. Money will override that hatred for the time being. And I'm sure, once the integration finishes, your general attitude will shift, anyway. I'm not positive, but expect it to occur anyway."
"I already feel strange." Naruto admitted. "Feels like someone sucked all the energy outta me..."
"Between our arrival and the fusing of your personality with your older self's personality, it isn't surprising. You have those goggles, which means the Bunshin test at the Academy has yet to occur, correct?" Asked the Kyuubi.
"Yeah, it's actually supposed to be later today, why?"
"I will help guide your chakra. The first step in changing perceptions will be to change who you're seen as."
Naruto cocked his head to one side, brow furrowed. "Say what?"
"The town is used to seeing you as the prank-causing bundle of energy that can't control his chakra well. They see you as the reason the Fourth is dead. A simple shift in attitude, simply proving you can mold your chakra as you see fit, those will be the first steps to altering this timeline from our own. You gained many, many friends... but some of them took a long time. I've no doubt some, like the Hyuuga boy, will take a long time this go, as well. However, ignoring certain feelings or acting differently around certain people will go a long way. Follow my lead when we reach the Academy. I'll explain along the way, understand?"
"I guess." Naruto said, standing back up. "Feeling kinda hungry, though. Seems my stomach's doing a little better... hope that doesn't happen too often..."
"I cannot say whether it will or not. When the merger finalizes, you'll likely have flashbacks to countless horrors of war. When and where these trigger is beyond my control. Just remember: This time, we will stop at nothing to prevent those images from becoming reality. We will not be beaten this time around!" Snarled the Kyuubi.
Nodding, Naruto gave the town a slow once-over again. "They'll really change how they feel about me?"
"In due time, yes." Said the Kyuubi, its voice returning to a quieter level. "We must earn that respect, however. The road ahead is long and bloody. There will be times when you'll feel like you have no control over anything. There will be times where you'll curse us for ever giving you this knowledge of the future. But we will overcome all of it because we will be stronger this time. And we will not let ourselves be so easily beaten."
Leaping back down into his apartment and springing across the room, Naruto opened his bedroom door and headed downstairs toward the room he had made into a kitchen. "Guess I'll eat something really quick and see about getting to the tailor's right when he opens. Place the order now so it'll be ready by the time we get put on teams and stuff. Ugh... gonna cost a lot of money, though..."
"It will help. If not outwardly, then inwardly. I think, when Jiraiya appears, we may be able to trust him to an extent."
"With the fact that I can see the future?" Asked Naruto, popping open his fridge and glancing around inside.
"Amongst other things, yes. But time will tell. There are many potential 'safe' targets we could see about giving select information to. But the last thing we need is to say or do the wrong thing in front of the wrong people. We'll have to be extra careful around those that can get inside your head and look around. I will be able to help train you in that regard, I believe."
Scowling as he made himself a rather dry sandwich, Naruto sat at the old table and leaned against it, taking a cautious bite of his breakfast. He wasn't going to trust his stomach for awhile, but he needed to at least try to keep something down. After a few minutes, he seemed satisfied that, at least for the time being, he could eat again, he began to wolf the rest of the sandwich down. "Dunno why I'm so hungry..."
"Again, mostly due to the energy expended because of the merger. And because the seal was broken, I'd imagine. Your appetite will probably a grow a bit more, which means you'll need to exercise a bit more than usual until things settle down and your body becomes accustomed to it all."
"In other words, I'm just going to feel like I'm starving for awhile, huh? Man... and here I have to try and get a new outfit and groceries out of the pocket change I have. This is gonna suck." Groused Naruto, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.
A low, rumbling chuckle came from the Kyuubi at that.
"What's so funny?"
"It has been a long time since we have gotten some 'down time,' as it were. The change of pace is rather jarring. Enjoy it while you can, boy. Things will soon become very hectic. Now then... let us discuss how things will go at the Academy, should everything work as planned..."
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
Author's Notes: Yup. Getting the merger done with right off the bat here, so that we can more quickly start changing things. As the Kyuubi said, managing the present timeline while trying to keep it in synch with the other timeline is going to be hard. The first change is going to be at the Academy, which will be in chapter 3, and will hopefully give me some time for a few amusing bits. While I plan to keep Naruto fairly angst-riddled, what with war flashbacks and having to hide his secret, it's still early enough to have some fun.
The outfit change will be simple. He'll essentially switch to his Shippuuden gear in a few chapters. I've never actually seen fanart of young Naruto in his older half's outfit, oddly enough. Might have to go try and find that at some time.
As for eventual pairings? Well, NaruSaku will be in there. That'll be the main. There's also going to be a fairly major secondary pairing, but giving that away would spoil the fun of the actual moment of realization that's going to occur for one of the characters involved. Speculate all you want, as I'm keeping it all in amongst the main kids. No OCs here, folks. Also, maybe down the road, there'll be a very brief NaruIno moment or two, but that's going to be WELL away. And there's a good reason for it, too. It's just that explaining why would end up spoiling a lot. I've got a lot of hopefully entertaining changes planned for this. Keep tuned in, boys and girls. My update schedule might still be rocky due to a rather nasty case of writer's block that I can't seem to shake, but it'll get done.
Until next time!