As stated before, this story was originally by Dirty Reid. Therefore, not only do I not own Naruto, but I don't even technically own this story, either—and yet HE says it's better than his original (blasphemy! Heresy!)!!! Ponder that as you read if you will.

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Chapter Two: Return of the Darkness

Twelve years later, Naruto was on his first mission out of the village.

It was supposed to have been a simple C-ranked job—escort a bridge builder back to his home in the Land of Waves. Naturally, it had since become an A-ranked nightmare. After being attacked by rogue ninja, coming within an inch of death, and his first friend full of senbon, Naruto wasn't certain what would happen next. All he could feel right then was an absolute, all-consuming rage.

Flames of chakra licked at his body, enveloping him in the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox. He punched one of the Hunter-ninja's Ice Mirrors, breaking it instantly, before something… dark flooded through his body. It was such a peculiar sensation: he somehow instinctively knew it was bad—even worse than the Kyuubi, somehow—and yet… it just felt so good. He felt stronger, faster—more powerful in every way.

But that wasn't the only way he felt good—it was like some kind of pleasure flowing through him, some sick ecstasy. It was both disgustingly vile and gloriously euphoric at once.

Grinning, Naruto said, (in a significantly darker voice) "You tried to kill me, Hunter-san. It's time I return the favor."

With that, he lashed out with bursts of the red chakra—not as powerful as before, but with much greater control—and the mirrors began to crack. Suddenly, he had to evade a flurry of senbon.

Silently cursing to himself, Naruto realized that the mirrors were repairing themselves. He'd have to attack to stop that from happening, but wasn't able to do so—he needed his full attention to evade the onslaught of senbon.

Glancing at Sasuke for a moment, he noticed two things: first, that the Uchiha had apparently activated his Sharingan; and second, that said Uchiha was looking at him with a horrified expression.

Frowning, but not worrying about it for now, Naruto continued trying to dodge the potentially lethal projectiles.

Imagine his surprise when he started seeing the weapons in slow motion. Unsure of why, but thankful that such was the case, Naruto began analyzing the weapons' positions.

This way, he could move to dodge them before it was really necessary, enabling him to continue attacking the mirrors.

'I don't know why I can suddenly do all of this, but I'm damn sure not complaining! Wait a minute, since when the hell do I curse?!'

Shaking his head to clear it of the (for now) unimportant trivia, Naruto succeeded in shattering mirror after mirror until only one remained.

At that point, the Hunter-ninja left the mirror and said, "Naruto-kun, I can only beg that you kill me now, as I have failed my use to Zabuza-sama."

Widening his eyes, Naruto asked, "Why should I kill you if you beg to die? But more importantly"—here his eyes narrowed—"how the hell do you know my name?!"

Sasuke was unconscious due to his wounds—and from shock—but would've flinched if he'd been awake. After all, Naruto never cursed. He never even called Sasuke a bastard, for cripe's sake! (He often felt like calling him a bastard, but since his mother had been very strict about foul language, Naruto always settled for 'jerk' or when really irked, 'prick'.)

As the Hunter-nin removed her mask, Naruto's eyes widened once more as he recognized her. He exclaimed, "Haku?!"

Then, his face contorted into a mask of barely constrained rage. "I trusted you! I fucking trusted you! I didn't turn you in that day in the clearing, and you repay me by trying to fucking kill me?! Burn for eternity, you bitch!"

His fingers were engulfed in black flames as he punched viciously Haku in the gut causing her body itself to catch fire. He sneered at her and said, "That's Darkfire, you traitor. It'll burn you alive and not kill you until you're just a pile of embers. Oh, and although it burns the rest of you normally, it actually causes your nerve centers to regenerate every so often. That way, you won't escape the pain."

Then, having incapacitated the phony hunter ninja, Naruto turned in the direction of Kakashi's battle with Zabuza.

Sakura saw him at this point, and could barely keep from screaming.

Naruto had seemingly grown a few inches so that he was taller than either of his teammates. His shockingly blonde hair had turned pitch black, and some of it had fallen to cover his right eye. His skin had become a bit pale, but the main thing that horrified Sakura was that Naruto's visible eye… was yellow with shrikes in it, like some evil perversion of the Sharingan. After a moment, though, the shrikes began to fade so that it was simply yellow.

Naruto also gave off an aura of pure… malevolence—there was no other word to describe it.

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Kakashi and Zabuza had also felt the rush of darkness that flooded the bridge like a plague. Zabuza wondered if it might've been one of Kakashi's jutsu, but in his heart knew that not to be the case.

Kakashi, however, recognized the stench of evil and pinpointed it immediately.

'Oh God… Minato-sensei's curse—it didn't end with him! Shit, shit, shit!'

Making a few handsigns, Kakashi prepared for his only major original jutsu.

"Zabuza, it's time to end this now. Lightning Blade!"

As the blue electricity in his hand pierced Zabuza's heart, Haku could only watch in horror from her tortured position. If she'd only waited, she could have been able to save him…

Seeing her distress, Naruto grinned at her and asked, "So tell me... how does it feel now that you've really failed your precious Zabuza-sama?"

Then, in a lower voice, he asked, "Come now dear, why haven't you begun screaming yet? I'm certain that such a lovely creature as you are would have a beautiful voice for pain."

To punctuate his certainty, Naruto took a kunai and stabbed her thigh with it—causing her to scream out in agony. She had been able to bear the burning (so far), but the sudden, sharp wound from the blade was the last straw.

Naruto listened gleefully as the girl screamed. Now that she'd broken her silence, she couldn't stop screaming from the fire, either.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Naruto mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "Ah. Music to my ears…"

Suddenly, though, his 'song' was halted by a kunai in Haku's heart.

Frowning as he looked at Kakashi, Naruto asked, "Why did you stop the screaming? It was so beautiful… like something from Mozart."

From across the dissipating mist, a short fat man in a five thousand-dollar suit was clapping his hands as he said, "I agree wholeheartedly with you, boy. That bitch deserved every second of whatever you did to her—tell me, how would you like to become my personal musician? So long as you play well, you'd be paid handsomely."

Removing all emotion from his face save a pleasant smile, Naruto asked, "Are you Gato of the Gato Corporation?"

Kakashi and Sakura were appalled—what the fucking hell'd happened to Naruto to make him act like this!?

"Why as a matter of fact, yes I am. So what's your answer, boy?"

Still showing that pleasant smile, Naruto eyed the hundred or so samurai and other hitmen around Gato before speaking.

"My answer is this: I'll work for you, Gato, once the sun has risen in the West."

Then, he created twin swords from the Darkfire and rushed at the horde, wondering whether or not he should yell the phrase 'hack and slash'.

Deciding against it, he simply cut through the normal swords like a hot knife through butter, and the humans were cut down just as easily.

He couldn't help but laugh in the unholy carnage. As Naruto stabbed a Darkfire blade through someone's throat, he wished the slaughter spree would go on forever.

As he finally slew Gato himself, Naruto muttered, "Alas, all good things must come to an end."

Then, he turned around to look at his handiwork, and to see the terror on his teammates' and sensei's faces.

But suddenly, the darkness left him.

Naruto reverted to the way he had been before—both physically and mentally.

Seeing the bloodbath he was responsible for, Naruto screamed in horror and self-loathing as he passed out.

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When Naruto awoke, he found Tsunami staring at him, great concern in her eyes. Upon seeing that he'd regained consciousness, she asked, "Naruto-kun, what on earth happened to you?"

Then, in a louder voice, she turned and called, "Hey everyone—Naruto-kun's awake!"

Following the thud-thump of running feet, Kakashi, Sakura, Inari, and Tazuna virtually crashed into the room. Sasuke arrived immediately after.

Right off the bat, Kakashi asked, "Naruto, how do you feel? Are you all right?"

Sakura also asked how Naruto felt, and although Sasuke remained silent, concern was indeed evident even on his face.

Holding up a hand to keep them quiet long enough to speak, Naruto said, "Not so loud… To answer your question, I feel like I'm having the mother of all hangovers—no offense, Tsunami-san. And as for you two, Sakura-chan, Kakashi-sensei—since when do you actually care how I feel?"

It was Sasuke who answered, "After what happened at the bridge, we have every right to be concerned, you baka. You tortured that fake Hunter-ninja, and then you slaughtered those samurai like they were flies!"

Wincing, Naruto muttered, "Jeez, ever heard of using your inside voice? And what samurai?! All I remember is punching one of Haku-chan's mirrors to break it, and then I felt all weird, and everything after that… is just a blurry mess."

Silently, he wondered if the Nine-Tails might've possessed him and killed all those people or something.

Not that he knew this, of course, but his life would've been so much better if that were indeed the case….

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Next time on Darkness of the Heart:

Wishing only to scare the foreign shinobi, he suddenly changed again, allowing the darkness to reveal itself.

She suggested, "Maybe you're a vampire or werewolf?"

With a hollow laugh, Naruto said, "My dear, that's like comparing Jason Voorhees to a five year-old with a kitchen knife."

"So you mean, the Kyuubi didn't take over my body and kill those people? It was me?!"

"Naruto… your father was the Fourth Hokage."

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Well, including the preview of the next chapter and this A/N, it's about 6 pages on Microsoft Word. Please, tell me what you think. The pairing is already decided—it's a remake of the original, which I'm doing my best to stay true to. However, if the Great, Almost-But-Not-Quite-All-Powerful, Not-All-But-Mostly-Knowing DR says that I can change/add to the pairing, then I might very well give Naruto an extra girlfriend or two—God knows he deserves 'em. (If I did give Naruto some more girlfriends, they'd probably be a somewhat younger Anko and/or Temari.)

By the way, if you have any respect for the Soul Calibur games, then go to Dirty Reid's profile and vote for Soul Edge/Nightmare in his poll. It's embedded at the top, near the navigation for the search engine. Yes, this means that you can't vote for Sephiroth. I'll admit he's badass, but YOU have to admit that Nightmare and Soul Edge are at least SCARIER (which is the whole point of his poll), if not more badass as well. Besides, Sephiroth gets way too much PR as it is.

And if you're reading this, DR, then I will gladly admit that I'm using whatever influence I have to change the outcome of your poll. And if Sephiroth wins anyway, I will start a petition telling you to change it to Nightmare/Soul Edge if I can get a hundred people to sign it (or rather, do so on a forum topic in my profile) between the end of your poll and the chapter announcing who the Summon Boss is.

No, I'm not cheating the system.

I'm simply REALLY fucking dedicated to my favorite incarnation of terror.

I should probably put the last few paragraphs on my profile, but here there's a greater chance of people actually reading it.... Am I ever going to shut up? Meh. Maybe. Anyway, I swear I'll shut up after this next bit. Promise. You can even give yourself a cake for suffering through my extra-long A/N!

If you like this story, then I humbly suggest that you also read 'Manhunter' and 'Fox-Carnage'.

Manhunter is the first Naruto/Hannibal crossover on the site (at least, I'm fairly certain that's so). In it, Naruto is cared for by Doctor Lecter from the age of seven. The pairing is . And yes, Naruto eats people. In chap 3, he ate a Root ANBU's heart right in front of the poor bastard.

Fox-Carnage is a Naruto/Marvel crossover, which I feel is breaking new ground with each chapter—not simply because of the sheer scope of the 'Marvelization' of some of the characters, but because it's a fic in which Carnage (i.e. Naruto) is actually a hero instead of a villain; even though he IS still a serial killer.

You can give yourself that cake now, if you want.