Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
-A Testament of Things that Never Will-
Naruto found the bandits after only fifteen minutes of travel. It had been a simple matter as the bandits apparently stopped caring about covering their tracks after they cross the border and he found a large number of them that led him straight to their encampment. The Raikage had been correct in assuming that the bandits had taken up home in one of the many caves in the area and Naruto studied the men from a safe place.
He looked down on them. The area that they camped was surrounded by three cliffs with the fourth side being a gentle slope that lead up to the same level of terrain as him. The area was very hilly, with sudden cliffs and sharp peaks and Naruto hid behind a large stone and a thick green bush. A low growing tree made it impossible for anyone to see him from behind and he knew that he would only be found if he wanted it so.
There was a clear area before a large cave opening and the clearing was full of tents and fire pits. Men sat around several of the pits but there were too few for how many tents there were. Noise came from the slope and Naruto looked over to see a large number of men coming.
He clenched his jaw and touched his radio. Being this close to the enemy, Naruto subvocalized his message as to not be heard. "The rest of the bandits have returned" he said. He had been watching the bandits for a few minutes and had been reporting to his Jonin-senseis from the moment he had arrived.
"Just watch for now, Naruto," Kakashi replied over the radio. "We will be there in about fifteen minutes."
"Kakashi," Naruto subvocalized and couldn't stop some of his anger from touching his voice, "they have some women with them."
"It's too dangerous for you to engage them," his silver-hair sensei countered Naruto's unspoken plea. "You won't help them if you die in the attempt. It is best to wait for us and then we can save them together."
The men dragged the women into the camp and Naruto was able to get a better look at them. The ages ranged from possibly the forties down to young teens and each of them had a look of complete and utter fear. Naruto's gut clenched and his hand itched to throw a kunai.
One of the men disappeared into the cave and none of the women were touched while he was gone. A few seconds later the man returned, a wide grin on his ugly face, and announced loudly, "Sargent says we can 'ave them first!"
A wave of cheers echoed around and they started toward the women. Naruto growled and quietly said, "They're going to rape these women, Kakashi."
His sensei grunted over the radio. Naruto knew that the decision to have him hold back was tough for the man. Kakashi, for all his laziness and uncaring demeanor, had a very strict sense of justice. He cared for others but he was in the position of a sensei and Naruto understood the man's hesitance in letting one of his Genin attack a bandit group alone. There were too many unknowns and that was dangerous.
"Kakashi," Naruto pleaded. He put all his will, sorrow, and strength into it and he hoped that the man would understand.
"Naruto," Yuri's voice came over the radio. "Can you take them?"
"No idea," Naruto answered honestly, "but I can't sit here and let this happen. Trust me, please."
Neither replied and Naruto watched in mute horror as the bandits fell on the women. They cried out for mercy, for help, but they knew, deep down, that there was none coming. The only one that could do anything was bound by the words of his sensei but that restriction was weakening with each desperate plea.
"Do it, Naruto," Kakashi commanded.
He didn't need any other motivation. He quietly dispelled the clone that had appeared next to him and he smiled, despite the grim events that were about to unfold, at the fact that his clone just disappeared. No smoke, nothing to tell another that he was there.
When he had first arrived at the camp, he had made several clones that used an earth based jutsu to tunnel under the camp. They had a simple mission then but now it had changed to something far more important.
Explosions ripped across the camp. Tents flew up into the air and black smoke clouded several parts of the clearing. A group of men vanished from sight in one rather large explosion and he knew that many of them were either dead or wished they were.
Naruto saw his clones emerge from the ground around the women and some immediately picked them up while the others took up defensive positions. They ran to his position and the bandits that hadn't died in his initial attack gave chance. Just as his clone mounted the cliff face, he summoned a group of clones, and rushed down the cliff. He passed the clones and leaped off the wall casting kunai at the bandits that had foolishly ran into his ambush.
He landed in the midst of them and immediately entered into his taijutsu stance. A bandit attacked him head on and it was a simple matter to dodge his clumsily swung sword and jab him in the throat. He felt the man's esophagus collapse under his power and he stuck the man in the side of the knee, breaking the delicate joint and collapsing the man in a gurgle of pain. Another came and another fell and soon Naruto had taken the lives of several men.
It was disturbingly easy and Naruto glanced around to see his clones decimating the bandits that attacked him. The battle had only been going on for twenty seconds, yet half of the bandits were now dead or dieing and he wasn't even out of breath. Dozens had fallen to him but he found it strange that he didn't feel bad about it. Perhaps it was that these men truly deserved to die and as such he's heart felt no burden nor regret at their deaths. He twisted around and split open a man's throat with a kunai and in doing so he found so satisfaction, only grim acceptance of his actions.
Thirty seconds later the majority of the bandits were dead and the few that were left were the ones that hadn't chased his clones and fallen into his trap. He waved at his clones and signaled them to engage the last of them. He watched them close in on the monstrous men but they never reached their objective due to a lightning bolt that came roaring out of the cave.
Naruto turned his attention to the cave and immediately changed his position with a clone. None of the information that he and his squad possessed had mentioned shinobi among the bandits and Naruto reported the information to his senseis. However, just as he made to radio them he felt a strange static like feeling wash over him. He touched his radio and found that it was dead. Whoever had used the lightning jutsu must have had another one that could take out electronics.
Taking that into consideration, Naruto kept his attention on the mouth of the cave and watched several people come out. There was a bald man, a woman with a furious expression, two lanky men with similarly cut brown hair, and a monstrously tall man. With the way the others looked at these people Naruto knew that he was looking at the leaders of the group and he took a guess that the tall man was the leader of all of them. He readied himself.
The tall man looked around the destroyed camp and stilled his eyes when they landed on Naruto.
A bandits ran to the man and said, "Sergent, he attacked out of nowhere and took all the women. The little bastard is-" the man never finished his report as the tall man crushed his head in his massive hand.
Blood dripped from the monster's fingers and he spoke in a deep voice that echoed in the clearing. "Goro, Izo, Hiaso," he commanded in a way that showed he was used to being listened to, "killed the brat. The one who brings me his head will get their pick of the next group of women."
The three men rushed toward Naruto and he fell back into his reliable Tetsu Sheru starting stance. The three men spread out and took up positions around him. With his shell made and his senses focused, Naruto became intimately aware of the scent of sweat, blood, and filth that filled the air. He could hear the brush of fabric, the rattling of metal, and the quick inhalations of the men around him as the prepared for their attack.
He heard the man that was behind him start his attack and he decided to rush the man. He knew that the other two men would attack him the moment that he was busy with the man who was behind him and in an attempt to buy him some time he closed the distance between him and the man that was attacking him. The bandit must not have expected him to do that as he stumbled into a taijutsu stance that even Naruto could tell was sloppily held.
He crashed into the man with strong attacks and quick movements and after only a second of fighting the man he knew two things about him. The first was that the man had shinobi training, evident by the man's use of chakra on his feet to hold his position against Naruto's attacks. The second thing that Naruto knew was that the man was pathetic at taijutsu. It took him only a few attacks to strike the man in the throat. The bandit reached up to his neck and Naruto disemboweled him with a flick of his kunai.
Naruto swept around and was greeted with the two other bandits. They had rushed him while he was dealing with the third man and he only just raised his guard in time to block several heavy attacks. He took several steps back, forcing the bandits to follow him, and went on the defensive until he could be sure of each of the bandits skills. They also had the tell tale signs of being trained as shinobi but they couldn't have gotten far. Their attacks were slow, their footwork clumsy, and they were far more aggressive than their skills allowed. They must have been so used to fighting and killing civilians that they underestimated a true shinobi's abilities.
One of the men swung wide at Naruto and he ducked under it. He quickly struck at the exposed armpit of the bandit and slide his leg around. He knocked his leg into the back of the man's knee and the bandit buckled with a cry of pain as he clenched at his dislocated shoulder. Naruto, continuing with the turn, jumped into the air and struck the man in the back of the head with his foot. He felt bone crush under his devastating attack and the man's cry was cut short.
The third and final bandit jumped back before Naruto could continue his path of destruction and a hint of fear stained his features. He looked back at the large man that observed the battle with mild interest and then back at Naruto. Fear dominated the man's eyes and Naruto could understand his position. The man couldn't run away from the battle because the giant of a man would most likely kill him and he wasn't strong enough to take Naruto on alone.
The man stood there for several seconds before he nodded to himself and shot off to the side and vanished into the forest. Naruto tracked him with his eyes and noted that the woman who had exited the cave gave chase, leaving him alone with the apparent leader of the group.
The man, Sargent was his name if Naruto remembered correctly, looked at him and let out a deep laugh that echoed off the walls of the cliffs around them. "Your skilled, I'll give you that," he said. "You've killed most of my underlings and even took out three missing-nin without breaking a sweat." The man thought about something and, with a grin on his face, said, "Why don't you join me?"
Naruto frowned, biting back an angry retort. He took a breath and replied, "Never."
"Oh," Sargent said, unsurprised with his answer. "And why is that? If you join me, you can get all the women would could want, the best of food, and drink that only ends when I say. You could become a god among the weak people that exist on this world. You are strong, you have the right to take what you want."
"Strength doesn't make someone more important than another," Naruto answered. "The only ability that people like me can boast is the one to kill. Looking at the people that make up this world I am envious of their abilities to provide for their families, to look out for others, and live a life that doesn't revolve around the spilling of blood. I am a shinobi, loyal to my people and I would be damned if I ever preyed upon the ones I swore to protect."
"Is that how it is?" the man said slowly. A scream came from the direction that the bandit had run and it was cut off after a short second. Sargent smiled. "I have no use for cowards and weaklings. They are a plague on this world with only a single purpose. Death."
"I have seen a boy who ran from his own shadow rally a town in the defense of the people he wanted to protect," Naruto retorted. "People are not born brave or courageous. To become such takes time and practice."
The large man shook his head and sighed. "It seems that there is no convincing you," he said. "I guess I'll just have to beat you into submission."
The hair on the back on Naruto's neck rose and he had only a moment to jumped away from his position. A lightning bolt came roaring from the forest and slammed into the ground where he had been standing. Blue electricity dance along the ground and the clap of thunder pounding into his ear drums.
Naruto glanced to the source of the lightning and saw the women who had disappeared into the forest staring at him. Her hands flashed through hand seals and Naruto swore as he called forth several clones. He changed positions with one but let out a cry of pain when a blue bolt of electricity stuck him from behind. He staggered and watched, helpless, as his clones were struck by the same elemental attack as it chained to each one of them.
The blonde Genin reached his hand back and felt that the area he had been hit on his lower back was numb and his shirt had been blown away. He fingered a piece of his steel armor that had been splintered and stabbed into him. The pain was minor and he was more concerned about the fact that he could feel his rigid, burnt skin with his fingertips but not on her back. A third degree burn would cause him to have limited movement and the pain that was already building from the area of second degree damage caused him to clench his teeth.
He studied the woman who hadn't moved from her position since she used the attack. She was breathing heavily and he knew from training with Kakashi that lightning jutsu used a great deal of chakra. Not knowing much about his adversary, he could only guess that the woman had a low amount of chakra and, judging by her use of ranged attacked, she was a long distance fighter.
He frowned. Now that he thought about it, he had no doubt in his mind that the woman specialized in long distance battles and that left him at a major disadvantage since he was a close combat fighter. The woman watched him just as much as he watch her and he knew, could almost feel it as a part of his being, that if he moved to close the distance between him and her she would retreat just as fast as he charged. Deciding to not play into her hands, Naruto brought his hands together and started to go through hand seals quickly.
The blonde may have started his hand seals first but the woman was quicker and she finished before he did. Another bolt of lightning came flying toward him but he had counted on that. He knew that she was faster than him and he wanted her to finish before he did. She would be freshly exhausted from using her jutsu but he, having the monstrous amount of chakra that he did would be fine and the advantage would be his for that moment.
He finished his jutsu and threw his hand down as he yelled, "Futon: Daitoppa!"
The wind from his jutsu launched him into the air and he threw several kunai at the green-haired woman. His kunai shot through the air and he twisted around to use the jutsu he had just used to propel him toward his enemy but when he had spun all the way around his eyes widened. He didn't have time to ready himself when the bolt of electricity smashed into him and his jaw slammed shut. Blood pulled in his mouth from him biting his tongue and he hit the ground hard, the sound of snapping bones echoed off the cliff walls like the applause of an audience.
Pain conquered his mind. He knew that his right arm was broken to the point of uselessness and several of his ribs had snapped away from his vertebrae, digging into his internal organs. The organs that weren't pieced by bone had been damaged in the sudden stop and Naruto was intimately aware of the bruising and internal bleeding that was pouring into this abdominal cavity. He lift his head, grunting and wincing, to see the woman come walking toward him, a soft smile on her lips.
When she reached him she knelt next to him and dipped a finger in a small pool of his blood that had formed on the grassy earth. She stuck the digit in her mouth, causing her eyes to close and her entire body to shiver. She opening her eyes in a sensual manner, half-lidded and full of lust, and whispered, "Give me more."
-A Testament of Things that Never Will-
She didn't move, only watched as Sargent and the others left the cave. She had heard explosions and screams coming from outside the cave but she didn't dare move and risk bringing attention to herself. She waited.
More screams. More explosions.
Slowly, she move one of her feet, careful to not make a single noise. She stopped when her foot came to rest of the stone ground and she watched the entrance to the cave. Sargent didn't come and she risked placing a bit of weight on the foot. Slowly, she made her way across the cave, sticking to the shadows as much as possible, and eventually she managed to lean around the entrance of the cave and what she saw astonished her.
Sargent and his bandits had been attacked before, typically by other bandits or a group of villagers, and she was watched several of those attacks. She remembered how much hope she had as a child, hope that the bandits would be destroyed and she would be saved. It was after the fifth attack that her hope finally died and it was taught to stay dead over the course of the next dozen or so attacks after that.
Hope. That was something that she hadn't felt for a long time with the only memory of the emotion being kept in the place between remembering and forgetting. She knew what hope was but had forgotten how to feel it long ago. She had thought she had lost the ability to know hope but it was to her great surprise that when she watched the blonde boy who battled against Goro, Izo, and Hiaso that she started to feel a tickling of that old emotion.
The boy was outnumbered but he owned the battlefield with a confidence that left her in awe. He ducked, dodged, and attacked with grace and determination that spoke to her heart and she could almost hear the boy telling her that he would protect her. She wasn't sure what was happening to her but what she did know, with all her being, was that this boy would protect her with all he was.
When the three monsters that plagued her nightmares were vanquished, she rose to her feet, slowly and quietly. When the lightning bolt came crashing from the forest, she about screamed out a warning but the boy must have sensed it coming because he jumped out of its way however he didn't know how Hikisaku's jutsu worked. He was hit by the second part of the jutsu and when he attempted to attack her from the air with a display of great skill and cunning, he was hit again. He crashed to the ground and with him so did her hope.
She scolded herself for thinking that the boy could protect her, that she could be saved from Sargent. She wasn't allowed to hope, only suffer. She cast her eyes to the ground and moved to return to her spot before Sargent knew she had been watching.
Suddenly. she heard Hikisaku scream and she turned in time to see the woman go flying into the air. The area the boy had landed was a smoldering ruin and she watched as a hand erupted from the ground. A blonde head followed it and just as the boy pulled himself from the ground like a corpse rising from a grave so too did her hope came back to life.
Surebu closed her eyes and hoped with all that she was that the boy would win.
-A Testament of Things that Never Will-
Naruto pulled himself from the ground, spitting dirt and blood from his mouth as he did. Just as the woman was going to tear his chest open do what she willed with his heart, one of his clones that had stayed underground, against his orders, changed places with him. He could almost hear the clone telling him to survive his fight and also tell him the secret to the woman's jutsu.
Clambering from the ground, he rose shakily to his feet and as he did he felt a fire spread through him. He felt lighter, faster, stronger, and his pain lessened. He flashed his chakra and chalked the strange feeling that had come over him as coming from his prisoner. Whatever it was it gave him something that he desperately needed for this fight: hope.
He spied the woman as she walked through a cloud of black smoke, noting her burned arms and rage filled face, and started on his hand signs as fast as he could. His right arm tormented him with pain but, with the new feeling that filled his entire being, he somehow forced it to do his bidding. Seals were made and the woman raced to keep up with him but with her injuries she was a fraction of a second behind and that was all he needed.
He clapped his hands and slammed them onto the ground as he shouted, "Doton: Senjo no Maiso!"
The ground all around the clearing bucked up and the bodies of all the bandits that littered the area were engulfed by waves of earth and rock. In a moment the area was cleared of bodies and he smirked when the woman glanced around, a hint of fear staining her eyes.
Unafraid of her jutsu that used the bodies of the dead as storage for electricity that she could then attack with later, he charged her. His body moved easily, despite the pain that cut through him but even that was kept at bay, as if a thin sheet had been thrown over it. He knew it was there but it didn't rule him like it had earlier.
The woman took a step back and cast her jutsu but now that Naruto knew how it worked he had no fear of it. He rolled to the side, dodging the jutsu by a hair's width, and roared loudly as he plunged a kunai into his opponent's heart.
He pushed the body away from him and turned to the final person in the clearing. Sargent had a heavy frown on his face and his eyes spoke of murder. The man took a step and that was all. His headless body fell to the earth, watering the grass with his life's blood. Kakashi crouched next to the body of the giant of a man, electricity slowly dying away from his hand.
Naruto took a step toward the man and collapsed to his knees. The last thing he saw was a small girl standing at the entrance of the cave, tears streaming down her stoic face.
-A Testament of Things that Never Will-
Yuri poked at the fire and watched at the flames danced in the night air. It had been two days since Naruto had taken down the bandit camp almost by his lonesome and the boy's life had been hanging by a thread for the few hours it took Yuri to carry him to a nearby town. It was either the fate of Kami or the blonde's amazing luck that a Kumo medic-nin was passing through the town when Yuri had arrived or else the boy might not have survived the journey back to Konoha. He shook his head slightly and hoped that there would come a mission that the Genin wouldn't almost die on.
The black-haired Jonin glanced over to the small girl that sleep next to Naruto and remembered how Kakashi had arrived with her in his arms. She had been terrified of the two men, literally trembling with fear, but when she saw Naruto laying on the table the medic-nin had laid the boy down on she immediately calmed. She didn't say a word to any of them and when the medic-nin asked to take a look at her she didn't respond.
Half an hour passed quietly with the silence only broken by the Kumo kunoichi asking if she could take a look at the girl a few times. The child never responded to the woman but when Naruto awoke, her eyes widened slightly. Yuri had barely noticed the movement and it was the only thing that had changed on the girl's expressionless face. Naruto talked to Kakashi and Yuri for a minute, long enough to find out that the girl had been with the bandit group he had taken out and that she was likely a prisoner, taken from one of the villages attacked recently. It was only after the medic-nin looked at the girl that Yuri had wished that was how it was.
Naruto asked the child to let the medic-nin look at her and the girl nodded slowly. The kunoichi took her to another room and Naruto promptly went back to sleep. twenty minutes later, the medic-nin returned, the child in her arms and a horrified look on her face. She laid the sleeping girl on the same table as Naruto, the table being more than big enough for the two, and asked Kakashi and Yuri to come with her to another room. What the kunoichi told him and the silver-haired Jonin shook them to their cores.
The girl showed signs of extreme malnourishment and violent physical and sexual abuse. The abuse had been so severe that it would take major treatment for the girl to ever have children of her own when she got older. The worst of the damage, however, was to her psyche. The kunoichi couldn't say what might be wrong with the girl but she had list off dozens of mental issues that were associated with trauma and the possibility of the girl having them now or developing them when she got older.
Yuri studied the small child that was curled under the blanket that she shared with Naruto, the boy's arm around her in a protective manner. She never ventured far from the blonde Genin and, while she had never said a word, the two seemed to be developing a deep bond. One forged by understanding and acceptance.
"The way Naruto describes that feeling that came over him during his battle," Kakashi said, interrupting Yuri's thoughts, "sounds very similar to the stories told about the Kanjo clan."
Yuri nodded. "Yes, but that clan was destroyed during the Warring States Period," he muttered. "If even one survived would be a miracle."
"The Kanjo clan," the silver-haired Jonin thought aloud, "had the ability to pushing their emotions out like other shinobi can push out their killing intent. The ability to push confidence, courage, hope, or fear into people is remarkable. Enough for villages to go to war to obtain it."
Yuri imagined the possibilities that such an ability would bring. The implications that the ability would have on a team and the diplomatic possibilities were mind boggling and would become the envy of all villages. "For now," he said slowly, "lets keep this information between us. I don't want the Hokage or the council finding out about this. If we tell this to the Hokage he would have to report it to the council since it is an issue that has the potential of affecting the whole of the village and this is something that the council has no business in."
Kakashi glanced at him. "You don't like the council much, do you?"
Yuri frowned. "It's not that I don't like them, it's that I expect them to act like a council that I don't want them to know."
The Jonin nodded and scratched his chin. "If they found out about this girl and her abilities they would wait until she was biologically ready and then force her into a breeding program. Her abilities, if she is part of the Kanjo clan, are priceless and the council would want the Kanjo clan to be reborn as fast as humanly possible. You know they would do this and that they would order us to restrain her while we are in the council chambers."
The black-haired man nodded slowly, a grim look on his face. He opened his mouth to say something but another spoke before he could utter a word.
"They would do that?"
Yuri looked behind him and saw that Naruto was awake, his head turned toward him and his stern eyes locked onto him. He nodded. "They would," he confirmed.
The boy closed his eyes, his face expressionless, and Yuri thought he had gone back to sleep but when his eyes opened again they were full of determination and a small bit of sorrow. "We should tell the old man."
Kakashi's eyes squinted slightly and he asked, his voice low and serious, "Are you sure, Naruto?"
The blonde closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes," he said. His breath evened out and he drifted back to sleep.
Silence came over the small camp, the crackling of the fire and soft rustle of leaves becoming louder now that there was no other noise to compete with. Yuri stared back into the fire, his mind a tangled web of thought. He was on edge. An acceptable thing with the near death of Naruto, the run in with the Raikage, and, he looked over to a small mountain that stood alone in the northern horizon, the location.
That mountain had been an Akatsuki hideout in his timeline. Of course, it wouldn't become one for years, if it ever did in this timeline but still the sight of the mountain shook him to his core. He thought about the events that had happened those few years ago and looked to the man he called friend. Those were hard times and he would be damned if they repeated. He thought back to the conversation he had with the old Sarutobi and decided that it was time.
"That mountain," Yuri said and pointed at it.
Kakashi looked where he pointed. "I believe that is Mount Yuiitsu, called such because there are no other mountains in the area."
"I know its name," the black-haired man said slowly. "My best friend died there, three years ago."
Kakashi's eyes shot to him but he remained silent. Yuri could understand the man's interest as he rarely ever talked about himself. He had to be so careful about what he said that he found it easier to not say anything at all besides the small tidbit here and there to make him seem human.
He took a breath. "I had been captured by an enemy that called themselves the Akatsuki, a group of S-class shinobi bent on destroying the world in a madman's attempt at ruling it. I had resigned myself to death as all but one who had been captured before had died and that one was saved by the sacrifice of another. I struggled against them as best I could but still they took from me my greatest curse and my most conflicted of gifts. I was all but dead after the ordeal and just as they were lowering a kunai to my throat my life was saved.
"My best and most trusted friend had broken into their secret base and fought against all of them, ordering me to make my escape. I did so reluctantly but with each step I took my strength slowly left me and I knew, as much as I hated to admit it, that if I stayed I would have just gotten in his way. When I made it to an ally camp I immediately raised the call for aid and I lead them to that mountain." Yuri paused and swallowed. He continued with an emotion filled voice, "The land had been scared by the battle and in the midst of it all my friend's body laid unmoving. He had died to save my life."
The black-haired Jonin fell quiet and he was thankful that Kakashi didn't say anything. "Back then," he said softly, "I went by a different name. I was called Naruto Uzumaki," he said and glanced to the silver-haired man who had been his sensei in another life, "and my friend who had sacrificed himself to save me was Kakashi Hatake."
Yuri studied Kakashi and was impressed with the man's self control in light of the information that Yuri had just revealed. There was no widening of the eyes, no slight change in posture, and the air the man gave off stayed the same. If he wasn't sure that Kakashi had heard what he said Yuri would have thought that the man hadn't heard anything at all. The only sign that Kakashi was aware of what Yuri had said was the calculating look that steadily appeared in his eye.
Five minutes passed without a word being said until Kakashi whispered, "Explain."
"You can ask Hiruzen for confirmation as he and Inoichi Yamanaka are the only ones who know who I truly am. I am from another timeline or, at least, that is the conclusion that both the old man and myself came up with. I had been in a battle with the leader of the Akatsuki when he used a time-space jutsu. I interrupted the attack and, somehow, was sent here. Now, I am doing everything in my power to stop the world from repeating itself."
The one-eyed Jonin looked to Naruto and then back at Yuri. He looked to be debating something in his head and it seemed that the side that wanted him to speak won out. "I have known you for several months, Yuri, and in that time I have learned that you almost never lie but I am still having trouble believing this. If what you say is true, I want to know what happened in your timeline that changed the old Naruto into who you are now. This Naruto has only changed by your influence and I can't help but think that you're playing Kami."
"This Naruto already had the potential to become like this, to change from a loud mouth brat into a real shinobi," Yuri said. "I was exactly like the way he was once and I now know that if I had had someone who had giving me the attention that I craved I would have turned out just like this one."
"Who was your Jonin-sensei?" Kakashi asked.
"You already know that answer to that and I don't blame you. The council was pressuring you to train the Uchiha, as they are in this timeline, and you did what you could for Sakura and myself," he said. "As for what caused me to change," he paused. "There are only so many people you can watch die before it has an effect."
-A Testament of Things that Never Will-
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