Two pairs of red eyes gazed at him.

Side by side.

One had slits.

One normal, yet cunning.

He couldn't see their faces.

Naruto knew they were smiling.

They shimmered, barely holding their form, then dissipated in a light mist. They were replaced by a boy with incredibly long and wavy orange hair, a ripped black kimono with coarse grey chains wrapping themselves around his bicep and what appeared to be an...insect?

This boy raised his arm. A sword flashed.

Naruto couldn't see.

Then his vision cleared, and he saw the boy standing over the fallen thing, leaning on the sword hilt languidly, the blade stuck in the ground. The sky was painted a splotch of black, though quickly absorbed by the atmosphere.

Naruto wanted to say, {It's beautiful - is that hell's rainbow?} He began to want to speak again with, {Why did he fall over, did he stub his toe?} But Naruto found that the words dwindled in volume before waning completely. He tried to finish another sentence.

Silence.

Naruto shrugged.

He tried to wiggle his fingers and found that his body did in fact work.

Naruto walked over to the man. Both the man and teenager (close to his own age) were frozen; the teenager's chest was not moving like it had been before - it had stopped completely.

A gaping hole in the chest of the man was dotted with the splotches of black that had painted the sky - the black that had been the size of a glacier. Naruto wondered whether that was a natural occurrence or if he was seeing things.

Red eyes.

Then he realized that the whole arena was cold and dark, just like it was every time he felt the presence inside stir.

Red eyes with slits.

Naruto blinked.

The teenager unfroze. He straightened up. "Your friends need you."

Wordlessly Naruto stared.

"Wake up, Naruto Uzumaki. Your destiny, one fraught with turmoil and battle, awaits you to grasp ahold of it. Only you can muster the strength to fight him off. Save your friends from becoming enslaved by his greed." The boy yanked the sword out of the ground and threw it at Naruto. "Wake up."

The tip of the blade pressed against Naruto's forehead, digging in a sharp furrow as it penetrated his brain-

IIII

Naruto sat up abruptly, banging his head on the stone seat in front of him. His chest heaved as he strived to catch his breath, but it was so difficult he slumped over and spread himself out on the floor, taking in deep breaths. Naruto put a finger up to his lips and said random words to make sure his voice box still functioned. "Hum a dum...what the hell...what was that I just saw?"

A voice interrupted his monologue and bellowed, "Getsuga Juugjishou!"

Two columns of light shot up into the sky, similar to what had happened in Naruto's dream, yet smaller in scale. Naruto tried to sat up, and rapidly grabbed the top of the stone chair in front of him to prevent his skull from roughly tapping the floor.

Another man screamed.

This isn't what happened in my dream, Naruto thought, but he got rid of the thought, bounded over to the edge of the stands, and jumped off.

Initially his feet soared down over the side of the wall, but as he drew nearer and nearer to it, he finally made contact, latching onto it and then running even faster than he had been falling. His excited mind was racing almost faster than his body. What the hell is happening, and why am I not in the thick of it!

Naruto reached the bottom, rolling to a stop at the base of the wall, then sprang, dashing over to the commotion.

As he ran, the earlier voice bellowed again. "Konoha!"

Sakura rubbed her eyes.

Ichigo yelled again, "I come here bearing great tidings." Unsure if they were all paying attention, Ichigo let off a wave of reiatsu for good measure.

Kiba woke, saw Shikimaru still unconscious next to him, and tried to wake him. Shikimaru didn't stir.

Continuing on, Ichigo stated, "The lord of all creation has decided that Konoha shall be his base of operations here in this world filled with ninjas and previously unforseen obstacles. I shall be taking over now."

Naruto stopped running. He yelled back, "Shut up and stop messing around, Kurosaki!"

Ichigo turned. "I have never been more serious...Uzumaki..."

Naruto smiled, still thinking it was a joke. He laughed, saying, "Okay, okay...I admit it. You are better at jokes than me. Let's say, just for a second, that you were actually trying to take over Konoha." He paused to emphasize his next statement: "You defeated Orochimaru. He was going to conquer us if you hadn't interfered."

Ichigo smirked. "He wasn't going to conquer you, he just let his own personal objectives get in the way of our mutual mission. The Hokage wasn't supposed to die - we were going to set up a puppet government, with the Hokage at the forefront."

Naruto threw a kunai weakly.

Ichigo batted away with his bare hand. Blood trickled down, but Ichigo paid it no mind. "Sorry Naruto. I actually kind of am. Oddly enough, you were starting to grow on me."

Naruto shuddered. The blood rushed to his head.

Ichigo said more but Naruto didn't hear him. It almost felt like the dream he had earlier, but Naruto knew that even if this was in his mind, it would still be a nightmare. "So you were going to be a little bitch...sneak behind my back, become Hokage while the real one is a mere figurehead...and smile to my face...the entire time!"

Naruto did not even need to hear Ichigo's reply to know what it would be.

IIII

As a rule, a ninja must never unstopper more than three hundred chakra points. An overflow of chakra can cause inflammation of the skin, and in the worst case scenario, implosion. Even advanced techniques, such as the final release of the Eight Gates Formation, is said to utilize a total of three hundred and fifty chakra points.

IIII

Naruto utilized one thousand.