A Maelstrom of Hope

Summary: Thrust into the distant future and from one war to another, Naruto find's himself helping a resistance, try to usurp the false image of peace Neo Arcadia has crafted.

"Why do you keep on involving yourself with me?"

"Heh. You know that already, I mean come on don't you? Your body can't move but your mouth sure can."

"Just answer me!"

"...Cause you're my friend."

Naruto gasped as he regained his breath. Feeling the soft embrace of a bed he was confused. Instead of the aftermath of a battle, he found himself in a strange room. As he got up and began to look around he realized it was a girls room. It was a bit messy. He thought, girls were supposed to be more neat and tidy than this. Shrugging that thought off, it wasn't like his room back home was spotless either.

Taking a look at where his right arm was supposed to be, he only saw a stump. He recalled his final clash with Sasuke, before waking up in this room. That begged the question of where he was. Thankfully he still had on his usual clothes, orange track suit and all. Though it had seen better days. He was interrupted from his thoughts when the door to the room opened.

A small child entered the room, she was wearing a pink dress and holding onto a stuffed cat doll. She had blond hair and blue eyes, but the oddest thing about her were the ear muffs she had on. "Oh, you're finally awake!"

Before Naruto could say anything the girl quickly scurried out the room. Calling for her big sister. The whiskered blond just sweat drop at that. He didn't know whether he should follow the girl or not. Deciding to just shrug it off. He walked out the room intending to follow the girl.

He didn't know what to think when he stepped outside the room. Everything in the building looked dilapidated and old. The place was more akin to ruins than anything else, thankfully there was still power. As he walked down the hallway Naruto eventually reached a room, it was a wide open area with a ladder that looked like it led to some destroyed pods or something. Even destroyed Naruto could tell the technology here was completely different from what he was used to. Was he somewhere in the Land of Spring?

Eventually he stumbled upon what looked to be like an elevator. There was button he could press to recall it, but it was moot. The elevator was already coming down, and there was a girl who looked like an older version of the girl from before. Like the younger girl from before, she also wore a pink outfit, but she also had her blond hair tied up into a ponytail. Eventually their two eyes met.

Sensing no hostility from the girl, he gave her a sunny smile and raised his remaining hand in a peace sign. "Yo."

Blinking in surprise, the new girl smiled at his exuberance. "Hello, I'm glad to see you're awake. You were out of it for a while."

"Really? Huh, that last fight with Sasuke must've took more out of me than I thought." The blond muttered aloud.

This only confused the girl for a moment before she continued and gave the blond a bow of gratitude. "Thank you so much for saving my comrade."

Now it was the blonds turn to be confused. "Eh? Did I do something?"

The look of surprise on the girl stunned the whiskered boy. "Y-you don't remember?"

Naruto shook his head only to feel a throb of pain. Grunting, he grabbed his head with his only hand, and a flash of memories flowed through his mind.

~AMoH~

*Huff* *Huff*

"It's sooo hot…" A wandering blond grumbled to no one in particular. Traveling the desert with only the things on him was a pretty terrible feeling. He was wearing orange track pants, some chain-mail over his black undershirt and a torn -up black and orange track shirt. Thankfully he still had his headband signifying his allegiance to the Hidden Leaf Village.

"Stupid space granny and her stupid dimensions." grumbled the blond as he thought on how he ended up in this situation in the first place. He had just finished his final clash with Sasuke, undid the Infinite Tsukuyomi, then he proceeded to black out after hearing a strange sound.

Waking up in the middle of a desert was not something he had planned. He was down an arm, and he was still so damned tired from everything. Kurama was thankfully still a sleep as well. He doubted the fox would be able to help him at the moment, since they both used up almost everything they had during their fight with Sasuke.

Shaking that thought away, his ear's twitched and something out in the distance could be heard. It was loud, louder than anything he'd heard in this sea of sand. As the noise grew closer eventually a silhouette of a flying machine could be seen in the distance.

Naruto felt a spark of hope, he had no idea what the hell that thing was but it was close enough to some of the things he'd seen from the guys in the Land of the Sky. That meant civilization and civilization meant food, food meant Ramen, and that meant he could finally figure out where the hell he was at. With a new pep in his step Naruto ran towards the direction the machine was going. He only hoped he'd be able to catch up with it, or find a place where it could land.

Just as it came, his hopes were soon dashed as the whiskered boy saw what he assumed to be a bone like object fly toward the contraption.

*Boom*

It hit the machine, but it was still flying somehow. Although not for long because the rotating blades on the machine eventually began to slow and it began to plummet toward the ground.

Not liking what he just saw, the whiskered blond sped up and eventually reached the crash site. The door to the contraption was blasted open and out came crawling a young man. He wore a green uniform, brown boots, and helmet with a red triangle in the center.

"Hey are you okay!?"

"W-who are you…? Did the resistance send you…?"

Shaking his head, Naruto replied, "Nope, I was wandering the desert when I saw you fly over. But, don't worry I'll help get you out of here."

Struggling to stand back up on his own, the blond gave the man a hand, and pulled him up. Only for the young man to gasp in shock.

"Well well well… What do we have here? A surviving maverick and a… human?"

The blond narrowed his eyes at the familiar feeling of killing intent. When he turned around, he was taken by surprise for a moment. What was standing in front of him was a mechanical bi-pedal dog thing, holding a staff. In fact that bony staff looked eerily familiar to the thing that took down the flying machine.

"Who are you!?" The blond shouted.

"Hmph. My name is Anubis Necromancess the Third. I work for Fefnir, one of the four Guardians. I'm the king of destruction and the ruler of this desert. Now step away from the maverick, human."

"Maverick? What the hell are you talking about!?"

"I see you don't know. That maverick there, is to be retired under the orders of master X."

"This X person sounds like a real peace of work. Lemme guess it's his word or everyone dies huh?"

"Such insolence! Master X is the leader of Neo Arcadia! The savior of the human race and ruler of all reploids!"

Naruto simply raised an eyebrow, he had no idea what the hell a reploid was, but it seemed like this X person was going to be on his shit list. "Oh yeah…? What makes him a so called maverick?" The blond asked as he pointed toward the surviving resistance member.

"It is simply his time to be retired."

Understanding the implication of being retired the blond said, "I won't let you kill him."

"I see… then we've come to an impasse."

"If you want him then you've got to go through me!"

"Master X. Please forgive me but I have to punish this- no… I have to smite this human maverick! En-garde!" Anubis said as he smashed his scepter into the sand.

The sand began to shift and swirl, until multiple hands began to appear out of the sand. Naruto tensed and before Anubis could make a move, he crossed his index finger with his thumb and yelled out his signature technique. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Five puffs of smoke appeared out of thin air surprising the reploids. Another blond came out and picked up the survivor before jumping away from the battlefield. Once that was done, it began to meditate.

Realizing he was in a safe spot, the survivor looked at the blond in curiosity before shaking it off and contacting the resistance base.

Four pairs of blue eyes stared at the hands appearing out of the desert and widened their eyes when they saw blue machine like undead rise from the sand.

"Oh what the hell!? Freaking robot zombies!?" All of the blonds said at the same time.

As they came tumbling toward the group of clones, Anubis said, "It seems you are no mere human. No matter, your life will end today!"

"As if!" The real Naruto charged Anubis while the clones took care of the zombies.

He attempted to punch the machine only for it to dodge and begin to fly. "Oh you've got to be kidding me. You can fly too!?"

The reploid didn't say a word but Naruto could practically feel the smugness radiating from the stupid dog. Growling in annoyance he pulled out a kunai from his pouch and threw it. Inwardly he was just happy that the pouch was tied to his left leg. Sadly he didn't have much left, he maybe had one or two more. That quickly turned into a frown when Anubis used his scepter to block the kunai.

As that happened, one of the clones used that as a distraction and brought a rasengan toward the reploid from behind. It ground against the metal body of Anubis, before pushing him back and exploding.

Anubis' body quickly began to dismantle for a moment before it completely mixed in with the sand of the desert. Naruto didn't like that at all. He couldn't sense the damn thing, and if it had as much control of the sand like Gaara did he'd be in major trouble.

Naruto and his clones felt a subtle rumble within the ground before they had to jump away. Unfortunately the clones weren't so lucky when two pillars of sand with spikes on top crushed them.

This happened a few more times, before Naruto grew annoyed and made another rasengan to blow up one of the pillars charging toward him. Suddenly he felt his knees buckle. He still hadn't recovered enough chakra from his last fight. Because of this he didn't notice Anubis reforming. The reploid used that to his advantage and threw his scepter and landed a blow on the blond.

Gritting his teeth from the pain, Naruto looked up at the floating reploid once more before it summoned even more zombies. Taking a calming breath the blond pulled out his last kunai and added wind chakra to it. It was do or die time. He'd come way to far, to just die in the middle of a stupid desert.

Quickly cutting down the zombies, he threw the wind enhanced kunai. He had just enough chakra for one more major attack. He had to end it here. As the kunai flew he began charging another rasengan, only instead of being the size of a small ball, it grew to massive proportions. Suddenly he felt familiar chakra being infused into it. With a smirk he mentally thanked his furry friend and charged at the reploid.

"Giant Rasengan!"

Shortly after blocking the thrown weapon, Anubis felt it, an absurd amount of energy rushing toward him. There was a giant blue ball of destruction heading his way. He tried to block it with his scepter but it was for not because it snapped like paper. Instantly he tried to dismantle himself and hide within the sand, but it was to late. The last remaining clone of the blond anticipated this, and with it's own rasengan in hand, struck from below.

"I-impossible!"

The giant rasengan ground into his body while the clones rasengan targeted the core of Anubis. Eventually both rasengans exploded causing the clone to dispel and the original Naruto to be sent flying back.

Landing on his back, Naruto let out a startled gasp. He struggled to get up, but has was able to kneel and he saw the body of Anubis begin to glow in a bright light before eventually exploding.

*Huff* *Huff*

"Hey! Are you okay!?"

Naruto swore he heard someone calling out to him, but he couldn't tell. His vision began fading to black.

~AMoH~

"Are you okay?"

Hearing the concern come from the girl, Naruto shook off what he just remembered and smiled. "Yeah… I'm fine. I just remembered what happened."

With a smile, the girl said, "Once again, thank you for saving my family."

Naruto just rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

*Groowwwl*

A soft giggle could be heard from the girl and Naruto couldn't help but feel embarrassed.

"We don't have too much food here since I was the only human and I don't have to eat too much, but I'm sure we can find something for you."

"Do you have ramen by any chance!?" In his excitement Naruto forgot to ask an important question.

Giggling at his excitement the girl finally introduced herself. "Hehe, I just realized I never introduced myself, I'm Ciel, and it's finally nice to meet you."

With another sunny smile the blond replied. "It's nice to meet you too Ciel. I'm Naruto Uzumaki."

Ciel couldn't help but give her own wide grin, for some reason the happiness the blond was radiating was infectious. It filled her with hope. Realizing she never answered his question she got back on track. "Oh um… I do have some ramen but it's only instant cups is that okay…?" She asked as she twiddled with her fingers.

For some reason he couldn't identify, Naruto felt a swell of happiness."Sweet! That's all I needed to hear, thank you so much ya know!"

With a small smile, Ciel beckoned Naruto onto the elevator.

Eventually the two reached the mess hall and they found themselves surrounded by smiling and cheering resistance members. A lot of them were curious about the whiskered blond who not only saved one of their own, but took on and managed to defeat one of Neo Arcadia's elite warrior reploids. A small black-haired child with a mischievous smile walked toward Naruto and asked a question.

"Hey hey! I heard you were the guy who saved Caille. He said you had this weird ability to make copies of yourself, is that true!?" The young reploid asked in excitement.

Not seeing anything wrong with the question and being given the chance to show off, Naruto couldn't help but grin at the boy's question. He kind of reminded him of a younger Konohamaru. He crossed his thumb and index finger, and channeled enough chakra for a clone. A sudden cloud of smoke appeared out of thin air surprising the reploids and out came another Naruto with one arm and all that jazz.

"That's so cool!" The kid couldn't help but have stars in his eyes.

Naruto beamed at the kids enthusiasm before, ruffling his hair, while the clone was surrounded by the other reploids and being poked at.

Seeing the site in front of her, the scientist within her couldn't be contained and Ciel began to bombard her fellow blond with questions. "How did you do that? When you crossed your fingers did they act as some sort of trigger? Are your clones corporeal? Are they capable of independent thought or can you relay your thoughts to them?"

Naruto felt a bead of sweat drop from his forehead at the rapid fire questions. Ciel was an excitable one wasn't she?

Realizing she was bothering the blond, Ciel coughed into her hand, and with a small blush apologized for making him uncomfortable. "I-i'm sorry about that. I don't know what came over me."

Chuckling, Naruto waved it off and began to answer her questions. "It's okay Ciel. To answer your first question, I used chakra. As for your second question, If you want to be technical, I guess you could consider my hand signs a trigger, but all they really do is help me control the flow of my chakra. Also yes, my clones have a real body when I make them and they do have free will, but they are me in the end so they can get a bit wild at times. As for your last question, I cannot. Though I do get their memories when they dispel."

Nodding in excitement from his answers, Ciel was curious about something."You've mentioned it a couple times already but what exactly is chakra?"

Naruto frowned for a moment, he knew he was far from home. The fact that Ciel didn't know lick about chakra even though she possessed it was a huge sign of that. It didn't help that he couldn't feel any chakra coming from the other resistance members either. He'd have to ask about that soon, for now he answered her question. "Chakra is a form of energy but to be more specific it's the combination of spiritual and physical energy Ciel. All living things have it. In fact I can sense some chakra coming from you." Naruto was really glad his late master was able to hammer in the basics of chakra theory into him.

"M-me?"

"Yep, you don't have a lot in reserve, in fact, you have about as much as an academy student. But that's understandable because you don't actively use it. What does concern me is that I can't sense anything from the others." As he said those last words, he look at the resistance members curiously.

"If what you're saying is true then it's because they're not human Naruto."

"Eh? What do you mean by that?"

Seeing the confusion on Naruto, Ciel had to ask for certainty, "Naruto, do you know what a reploid is?"

"Nope."

From that answer alone, Ciel felt like things were about to get much more complicated way too quickly.

~AMoH~

Naruto found himself staring at an ocean of sand. As the sun went down his thoughts drifted, toward what he had just learned. Reploids were essentially in his own words sentient machines with free will and emotions of their own. Personally he didn't care whether they were human or not, the fact was, the situation the resistance found themselves in was horrible and he wanted to help.

They were being forcibly retired, because of an energy crisis and instead of trying to find a solution, X decided it was just easier to pick and choose who lives and who dies. His mood slightly soured when he thought about Menart and the little girl from before, he now knew as Alouette being forcibly retired for something beyond their control. Apparently they were using too much energy, and so they were now labeled as mavericks because they didn't want to die.

His thoughts went out to the other reploids, before he sighed and moved onto another topic he had to think about. Neo Arcadia. He had no idea, just how advanced the technology here was but it was beyond anything he could have ever imagined. While some things were familiar, many things were completely different, and it astounded him just how far humans could go. Eventually his thoughts drifted back to the topic of peace. He believed that humans and now reploids could one day understand each other through bonds and live side by side, apparently Neo Arcadia was considered a utopia, a truly perfect place. But that was a lie, just seeing the current situation with the reploids, Naruto knew it was nothing but a facade.

What kind of utopia would allow the suffering of it's people, human or reploid? He just didn't get it, how could X, someone who saved humanity multiple times just go insane and order the death of his own people? No Hero worth their salt would ever consider this true peace.

"You're thinking too much brat. How about instead of using that little pea sized brain of yours, you do what you always do?"

With a small smile, the blond responded. "Good to have you back Kurama. Ya sleep well?"

"Hmph. It could've been better but like always, you found trouble and I had to step in."

"Haha. I can't deny that. Not this time. Do you know the current situation?"

"Of course, who do you think I am?"

The banter between the two continued on for a little longer, before Naruto decided to return to the resistance base. He knew what he had to do. As much as he wanted to return home and see his friends, that could wait for a little while longer. He'd never live it down if he just walked away from a situation like this when he knew he could make a difference.

Naruto Uzumaki would join the resistance.

Aaaand Cut. Please let me know what you guys think of this prologue. There's a lot I want to do with this story but that'll come later. Specifically once I come back from a trip across the States. If you liked it, please favorite, and follow. Take care and thanks for taking the time to read this!