The story is moving onto a massive rewrite after I read the light novels, and thought they'd make a better foundation than the anime.

No, I'm not bending over people's reviews urging me to make Naruto 'less spineless', 'less nerfed' or whatever the fuck they want - though having hours of effort recognized a bit more certainly wouldn't hurt - I just think I could do a better work with the prose and some stuff, but my original plans with the story haven't changed a bit.

Besides, I've already derailed parts of my original story due to trying to please some of them.

Sorry for the people who were following it. Hope the next iteration is better.

Just a fair warning, once the new version is posted, I most likely will delete this one, so archive it while you can.

Summary: Louise expected many things to be her familiar, a loudmouth knucklehead commoner clad in a garish orange tracksuit and a bit of an attitude? Not so much.

Prologue

Worlds Apart!

There's something that gets on Louise de La Valliere's nerves, all right: the endless whispers from the classroom whenever a teacher asks her for assistance on any magic lesson. Some of them come through derisive snickering, largely from Kirche von Zerbst, others arise from genuine concern, dread even. She's conscious of it; it's been like this yesterday, and the day before, and since she can remember. It causes her to stiffen any time it happens, making her look smaller than she already is. And yet, Louise escapes the clutches of the concerned thoughts as she bumps her chair back while standing up, her youthful face purposeful and her rose eyes alight.

Surely, even a 'Zero' can do a simple spell, right? The teacher, a chubby, elderly woman in a purple cloak, wondered. Sure, it is an inconsequential matter to brood over too much. And yet, it's something that weighs heavily on her, for some reason. Like titanic boulders pressing onto her shoulders, making her lean legs shake even more.

Laughter everywhere grows harsher, turning into a mocking cacophony, and she isn't sure if it's just her ears, which are burning, that make them feel thundering. She wants to escape it all, but it would only add fuel to the jokes and disgrace her name even further than it already is. Does she even have a choice in the matter?

Louise stands up, tugging at her skirt's pleats—a sort of instinctive gesture of hers anytime she's nervous. Her face is burning with resolution and embarrassment of sorts, she can only hope no one notices the latter.

She brandishes her wand as if it could drive away the jeering and laughs; for some reason, when Kirche speaks up, it's not to mock her this time around. "Hey, Louise, you don't have to do it if you don't want to, you know?"

Does she think she's stupid? Louise puckers her lip, unease dying down for a moment as she frowns.

"Shut up. I can do it," she's already walking down towards the table, up to the stone. It is indeed a simple spell to cast. Just turn the stone into glass.

"Oh, fine! Help yourself! Just don't cry when it blows up in your face," Kirche remarks loudly. But Louise can't hear her from the humming.

Miss Chevreuse offers her a reassuring smile, an implicit blessing of some kind, as she steps away from the table. Louise likes her. She never pushes her when performing spells and tries to make things more bearable. While his nerves die down a bit, they still like to nag her. Her fingers clamp down on the handle. C'mon, Louise, the other part of her brain that tries to push aside the taunts revs up as she pivots her wand up like a broadsword. She relaxes her eyes for a moment.

You can do it. Just picture the glass. Don't think of anything else. You are not a 'Zero', Louise, you are not a 'Zero'.

Louise takes a long breath, trying to ease her nerves a little more, and whispers, "Ansuz kenaz isa ehwaz…" she outstretches both arms, whirling them slowly, her eyes splitting open. Her voice is loud and clear, brimming confidence for just a moment. Even when she notices her classmates have taken refuge behind their desks. "PERDO BERKANO TERRA!"

There's a surge of white light from the whirling tip of her wand, jetting into the stone.

KA-BOOM!

A loud explosion is heard all over the campus, all of a sudden, making anyone close jump alarmed. Windows shuddered and cracked as the ensuing blast flung them open. They can't tell if the reason why no one ended up deaf was because, by now, this is an extraordinarily common set of circumstances at the academy. Even the out-of-touch onlooker would look at the mess and, straight away, pick up what just happened: Louise will try casting a spell—only the Gods knows why they still grant her the chance—she will weave around her wand, utter the chant and presto! You have the perfect recipe for a miniature bomb.

None of them can really fathom how was it even possible to mess up this badly: to turn a simple spell into a goddamn explosion. But as they always said, while shaking their heads, "Louise the Zero finds a way."

Louise's ears ring piercingly for a moment, though she's frozen stiff, as though the explosion hadn't even moved her in the slightest. She coughs twice. Her uniform has seen better days, and she's covered full of soot and ashes.

Oh. Shoot, she blinks twice.

Everything around her is a perfect picture of disaster. As though a typhoon had razed her entire classroom asunder, bulldozing the desks and chairs, and flipping some of them over. Her classmates' effort at taking cover was ultimately pointless. Some of them lay motionlessly over the flung tables, gawking at the sheer magnitude of that bomb.

After a few minutes of wordless confusion, in which the smoke and debris clear out, Louise finally perks up. She giggles as if trying to dismiss the whole fiasco.

"Whops! I guess I made a little, tinsy, mistake!" Her classmates don't look amused in the slightest. Miss Chevreuse lays flatly on the ground, her eyes spiraling into unconsciousness. "But, h-hey, M-Miss Chevreuse told me not to be afraid of making mistakes – even little ones," she giggles once more, sounding more strained than before.

They snap. "YOU CALL THAT A LITTLE MISTAKE?" A boy screams, pointing upwards. "OUR TABLE IS LITERALLY SMASHED THROUGH THE WINDOW UP THERE!"

"GODS, LOUISE, YOU SUCK!" a girl accuses.

Louise simply stands there, taking all the insults and anger. She laughs nervously since it's common at this point. Despite her efforts to brush it away, the unfulfillment clings onto the tiny girl, seizing her from her lean legs, and making her smaller than she already is.

"YOU ARE A TOTAL ZERO AT SPELL CASTING! YOU HAVE ZERO MAGICAL ABILITIES!"

Louise de la Valliere. They call her Zero for a good reason.

An hour and a half later, after cleaning most of the wrecked room, Louise is heading to her dorm room. Her arms are sore, leaden weighs, and her legs feel like they'll crumble at any moment. All she wants is to crash into her bed and escape the annoying reality.

She's plodding along, downwards the spiraling staircase, lit by the light of candlesticks to the sides. Was there anything worse than this?

"Oh, Louise!"

Speak of the devil and it shall appear.

Kirche von Zerbst's pesky, lilting voice comes dead ahead, a few steps under, but it feels like it's crashing her eardrums. Louise grumbles between teeth. "What you want now, Zerbst?" she asks dourly, looking up at her.

"Where you're going now? Packing up your things because they finally expelled you? Guess you really blew it this time around!" the red-head laughs at her own dumb joke, alongside Montmorency, the pretty girl with golden ringlets and azure eyes. Meanwhile, the girl with the neck-length turquoise hair remains lost in her book's world, her cerulean eyes never straying away.

The brick walls amplify the two girls' annoying laughter, but Louise knows better not to give in and simply walks past them. Even though her legs are like jelly, screaming for a break, she stands firm, her face clear from any sort of trouble—she's determined to not let her pride get trampled on. Not by Zerbst of all people.

"No punishment at all," she says, soberly. She's lying. Of course. There was a punishment, just not as severe. But why should Zerbst know the full truth, anyway?

Both girls look back at her, in disbelief. Tabitha remains indifferent to the whole thing.

"Eh?" Montmorency blurts out.

"Why?" Kirche exclaims.

The confusion in Kirche's voice is like a flavorful sweet to Louise's ears. She savors it like a gourmet meal.

"They said the teacher carries part of the responsibility. You guys warned her not to let me, didn't you?" she grins at her mischievously, giving her a sidelong glance.

And they start laughing even harder, slamming into Louise's ears like a tidal wave, spoiling her meal.

Damn it.

But she will not let them get their way. As she stands below on the staircase, lying opposite to them, Louise keeps her temper in check, her face remains collected as if nothing can affect her, though her brows betray some of her exasperation. "I-I was just having a bad day, that's all!"

"Oh, you're always having a bad day, right, Louise, the Zero?" the redhead remarks amused.

The nickname smashes through her 'I don't care' front with a thunderclap. "Shut up!" she hisses, her cheeks burning as if Kirche struck her with one of her spells.

Boastfully, Kirche turns around, a victorious smile plastered all over her face. "I just can't wait for tomorrow. I wonder which kind of familiar you will summon, Zero."

Oh, it is so on.

Louise's head screws up, her face is blistering with anger and refound decision.

"Oh, I'll show you two! I have complete confidence in my summoning spell for tomorrow." Both girls look at Louise with wide eyes, taken aback by her sudden disposition as she pointed at them.

"Look very well tomorrow! I'll summon an imposing, gorgeous, unbeatable familiar spirit—even more so than any of your familiars combined!" then, the tiny strawberry-blonde girl stomped away with a loud 'hmph!'.

After hearing a loud smash (most likely the exit door being kicked open by Louise), both simply stare at the empty staircase, then at each other, reflecting on whether she means business or not.

"Hey, Tabitha, you think she's serious about it?" Kirche asks, turning to her best friend.

Tabitha flips to the next page. "Don't know."

Louise crashes into her bed. As she approached her room, she calmed down a bit. Before resting on Morpheus' arms, her mind goes back to the staircase and her taunt towards both girls. So rash and reckless when irked. She never learns.

Grabbing a pillow, and lashing it against her head, Louise grumbles. "Shouldn't have said that!"

Following some moments of kicking her feet against the bed and screeching into her pillow angry at herself for letting her sour mood and pride get the better of her again, fatigue finally weighs over her. Louise sleeps in a worried dream that night, wherein the only thing that shoots out of her wand the fateful day is a massive explosion that turns the entire continent into a smoking crater.

Hopefully, everything will turn out all right the next morning.

She has no idea what's about to unfold the next day.

.

The next day, in a far tumultuous land.

.

As he grabs Sakura from the back, the kunai grazes right at his cheek. Even still, Naruto hardly acknowledges it, alongside the caustic sensation that floods his whole body in a matter of seconds as he softly settles his teammate down into the water.

Right ahead is the rift in their team, standing within the portentous shadows projected from the large brick-built bridge above them, his whole body appearing covered in shadows.

Even though it's been a couple of months, Sasuke is almost unrecognizable: in addition to being half-blind with dried blood trickling down one of his eyes, his clothes are all threadbare and stained with his blood.

His face is also warped in a vicious sneer, a lot more distressing than at any other time, even during the Valley of the End.

Nevertheless, Naruto keeps going. He stands before his friend but does not let either Kakashi or Sakura stand by his side.

"C'mon, Sasuke," Naruto snarls, "Sakura-chan's a comrade from Team Seven, remember?"

The Uchiha scoffs. "You mean…'Former comrade'. I'm no longer one of you."

Kakashi steps before Naruto, facing his rogue student, his normal eye shut to focus his Mangekyō Sharingan with a precise aim on his target.

"Now do you understand, Naruto, Sakura?" his sensei asks never averting his gaze from his former student's, "Sasuke's no longer the same Sasuke as before."

But the whiskered blonde lingers there unwavering, furrowing his brow in defiance, before directing straight at his friend. "Tobi told me the truth about Itachi! I don't know if he was lying or something, but that doesn't matter anymore. What you've been doing…"

He pauses momentarily, weighing down on everything his friend had said. Just talking at Sasuke without even bothering to understand him and where all this darkness stems from will never bear any results. It only bore failure time and time again, with his former friend showing little consideration for what he had to say.

This time, however, it will be different. It has to be. If Sasuke's lost, then he might as well give up on changing the state of the world as it is.

"I get it!" Naruto finishes.

Sasuke gawks at him, his face fixed in a scowl of angry confusion, and his hands shake as they ball into tight fists, nails digging right into tender flesh.

"Naruto…" he begins in a hushed, trembling voice. "Just like I told you before… you never had a family or siblings in the first place. You couldn't possibly get it."

He gnashes at his teeth.

"ALL YOU OUTSIDERS SHOULD MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS!" his thundering voice rumbles through the valley floor.

With her scowl fierce with outrage, Sakura steps up.

"Do you even have any idea of what Naruto has gone through just for you?!" she shouts back. "Regardless of the many awful things you've done, he never stopped thinking about you as a comrade!"

The strawberry blonde girl trails off, as she looks at her friend, with shame, the memory of what she did surrounded by the snow a few hours ago fresh in her mind.

"When everyone turned on you. Naruto, alone, stood out for you and tried to rescue you."

"Rescue me?" Sasuke cocks his head to a side, apathetic and aloof, "From what?"

"Well f-from…" Sakura hushed down.

"From revenge, Sasuke," Naruto put in, bluntly, making his former friend lurch all of a sudden. "I swear, I'll save you from revenge and from all the chaos that it causes."

The Uchiha scoffs confidently, lifting his head. "But I don't want you to do that. The stage is all set for my vengeance"

Sasuke's former teammates look at him at a loss, stopping short by his statement.

His vicious sneer grows harsher.

"A few moments ago before you arrived, Sakura, I finally got retribution on the one behind Itachi's betrayal!"

He flexes the fingers from his hand over and over again.

"I took down a high-ranking Konoha elder right here. The one called Danzō."

The three flinch in horror, Kakashi being is the most startled by this revelation. He… killed Danzō… all by himself?

Sasuke shrugs triumphantly, a sneer of unhinged delight stretching in his face.

"I never felt like this before! I can feel the tainted Uchiha name becoming cleansed! I can feel the Uchiha, at last, being freed from this rotting shinobi world! You all couldn't even begin to understand it!

"Besides, isn't what I'm doing exactly what you" he spat the word with so much poison,"Konoha shinobi wanted all along? You have always snubbed and put down the Uchiha clan… So I'll simply erase the Uchiha from your memories…"

Jet-black eyes bulge up, manic and wild. "I will slaughter every last one of you and then destroy Konoha as a whole!"

Naruto flinches. He recalls his father's words. So long as we have shinobi culture, the monster known as hatred will exist.

"Severing all bonds with Konoha will be the ultimate purification! And that shall lead to the Uchiha's true restoration!"

Sakura grimaces, as the true horrific extent of Sasuke's plan truly sinks into her brain: a massacre, one far greater,than the one that bore fruit to the man standing in the shadows before her.

"By God, Sasuke."

Hatred, Kakashi thinks, mournfully, shutting his eyes for a moment, It's the history of repeated, accumulating hatred that has created the Sasuke standing before us.

He looks at his other two pupils with empathy, And even if it isn't crystal clear, Naruto and Sakura are seeing with their own eyes that Sasuke is a victim of the tumultuous times we live in. He faces the young Uchiha, tilting his head downwards, Which is especially why…

Before Naruto could even do anything with the two Shadow Clones he'd just conjured, Kakashi stepped in front of him, one of his arms outstretched to stop him at his feet.

"This is my responsibility," Kakashi declares, insistent on his burden. "Naruto, Sakura, get yourselves away from here."

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura exclaims in protest.

"If you stay here…" he scowls, without looking at her. "You'll see something you wish you hadn't. Now go."

"Sensei, I—"

Kakashi steps forth, water sloshing and rippling under his soles.

"Sakura, the poison-laced kunai Shizune taught you how to use, won't kill Sasuke. He still has Orochimaru's immunity to poison." He pauses for a moment, lingering in thought. "What's more… you've come to terms with your feelings, right?"

She screws her eyes shut, shaking to the bottom of her feet, lowering her head in grief. Was it that obvious? Damn it. How had things turned out this badly?

Meanwhile, Sasuke also trudges forward, feet sloshing in the water as well, passing by the leaves detached from the trees nearby on the plateau. He clutches his left shoulder, channeling an immeasurable amount of chakra into his tensed palm.

With a thundering shriek, a bright mass of lightning bursts into creation, deadlier than any blade could be.

Chidori. One thousand birds. Stronger than the one he'd employed against Danzō and Karin. He's more than hellbent on ending it all in the next attack.

Kakashi does the same, but clutching his wrist instead. It's the technique he's taught him, after all, and the one he created as a response to his teacher's favorite technique. His sphere of lightning blazing wider and more burning than Sasuke's.

Raikiri. Lightning Blade. Had cut through lightning before. It would again. Sasuke's lightning this time around.

Rogue student and teacher glare at each other momentarily. Kakashi does so with guilt, wishing this confrontation could've been avoided somehow. Maybe in another life, he'll try to actually be there for him, but as of now, this cycle of hatred must end here.

Forked lightning crashes into the river below, immediately crumbling leaves into specks of ash and making the water boil upon contact.

Naruto immediately shudders, what his sensei is aiming for is as clear as the water beneath his feet.

He shuffles in the water, tensely. "Kakashi-sensei, this something you don't want us to see… you're going to kill Sasuke, isn't it?!"

Sakura's eyes widen in horror, and Kakashi-sensei's lack of response, but a subtle twitch from his shoulders, only feels like a wordless acknowledgment.

"Go, both of you," his response is final.

But Uzumaki Naruto isn't known for following orders. And sure as hell, that isn't going to change today, especially when he's as unpredictable as it is, and still has two clones behind Kakashi.

So, as recklessly as he's always been, one of them grabs his sensei from behind, his arms extending upwards from the armpits. The sudden loss of focus makes the Raikiri fizzle out of existence, which is exactly what Naruto wanted.

With his sensei out of the way and Sakura way too shocked to even attempt to stop him, Naruto can finally move along with the goal he'd come here for, having already formed a Rasengan while both Kakashi and Sakura weren't looking.

The golden whirlwind compressed into a perfect sphere whirs loudly in his hand, capable of grinding into the hardest surfaces. It is the natural opposite to the Chidori which only pierces through its targets.

Sasuke also heads off to meet Naruto's trademark technique with his.

"Now it's my chance! I'm not holding back!" Sasuke grins.

"Wait, don't do it! NARUTO!" Kakashi yells out, fruitlessly struggling against the Shadow Clone due to the weariness from the Mangekyō Sharingan still weighing him down.

The two rivals are set on an inevitable collision course, sandaled feet splashing fiercely into the dark water below, one of them stepping from the shadows while the other responds from the light: a sight that is all too familiar for Haruno Sakura.

A similar circumstance had taken place on the hospital's rooftop years ago. She couldn't do anything but stare helplessly, as it all went down, but Kakashi could do anything to stop them this time around. The pressure radiating from both attacks was uncontrollable, whirlwind the water around them and atomizing everything that came too close to them. Had a clash between two attacks with this much power compressed into them ever happened, with the two of them too close…

"NARUTO!" she screams, desperately, but it's too late at this point.

They die a thundering death in Naruto's ears, and so does any sound really, blocked by the drum of his heartbeat and the line of thoughts that arises from the gulf.

Time slows down to a screeching halt, minutes turning into hours, as he takes in his rival—the avenger that stands before him intent on culminating his path of isolation—reflecting on the circumstances that had led them to their respective paths in life.

And then he realizes something, as he's about to slam his Rasengan right into the extremely volatile Chidori of Sasuke…

Sasuke, y'know… you and me…

Our roles… could have been reversed…

One last vision appears in his mind's eye: him coming from the opposite side, a Chidori in his hand, while Sasuke responds with a Rasengan. They're like yin and yang, after all—darkness with a sprinkle of light and the other way around.

"CHIDORI!"

"RASENGAN!"

There is a deafening roar that quickly fizzles out shortly thereafter, a bright light—one that burns brighter than any other from before then—spawning from the core of the Chidori and Rasengan merge, it wraps itself around the two rivals, with their gazes interweaving with one another for an endless moment, lingering through all the collision. While Sasuke's gaze—deprived of sight and lifeless in his fierce scowl of rejection—lingers in the chasm of darkness with only wraiths that vaguely resemble anything familiar, Naruto can see him—all of him—clearer than ever before.

Their hair swoops back from the force alongside the leaves and the surrounding water whirling wildly around their ankles, but it's with a strange comfort and care, a warmness that gently basks them.

…

But there is unison, a fraction of it at least, in the wake of this clash—there would always be—it's what Naruto hoped would happen in the first place. Sometimes peace can spawn from conflict—like some sort of balance between two halves.

Sasuke had put it the best years ago: When two shinobi of high enough level clash, they can read their hearts, even if it's just for a second, after all. An unearthly realm of harmony and blinding light that sprawls before them. Comforting and warm, wherein their voices echo in the distance.

Naruto smiles a faint grin: one that conceals a level of underlying darkness even someone as blind as Sasuke can perceive, as he clutches his abdomen through his baggy tracksuit, where the seal of the demon fox exists.

"Remember?" he begins, softly, not even trying to target him or anything similar, but just reason with him, "The entire village used to hate me 'cause I had the Nine-Tails inside me."

As he puts his arm down, he glances at Sasuke, sympathetically, but his smile has all but crumbled.

"I hated them right back. I wanted to get revenge. One bad move and I might have ended up where you are now," he smiles nostalgically, disregarding Sasuke's cold glare. "I used to think I didn't have any bonds with anyone until I met you and Iruka-sensei…"

Naruto chuckles sheepishly as he ruffles the back of his hair.

"I always knew you were alone too. I felt better knowing there was someone like you—like me—out there. We were just brats—just kids—but dealing with stuff no other kid had to. Me with the Nine-Tails and you with the fate of the Uchiha. We shared similar burdens. Isn't it ironic? To be perfectly honest, anytime I saw you, I just wanted to go up to you and start chatting. I got giddy because I thought you, of all people, would be able to understand me."

His smile turns a little bit more bitter, somewhat with shame.

"But I never did. I was jealous of you. You just were good at everything! So, I decided that, instead, I'd make you my rival."

They linger in silence for a moment, as Naruto beams so radiantly. Brighter than before. A sudden gust of wind ruffles his untidy hair.

"From that day on, you've been… my goal." He pauses for a moment, evoking images of the past: their first missions, the heartache, the struggles…

"In the beginning, I had nothing. But I built bonds with Team Seven. On the missions with you and Sakura… I wanted to be strong like you—be cool like you—I guess that's why I kept chasing after you."

Naruto beams radiantly in that cheerful way so characteristic of his: closing his eyes and flashing his teeth at his friend.

"I'm so glad I've got to know you!"

But, regardless of Naruto's talk and how honest they are, the air around Sasuke is still as grim and hostile as it was out there. He cocks up an eyebrow, glaring at him with nothing more than a bother as if he was a pest in his way.

"Naruto…" Sasuke whispers, animosity palpable with each word. "No matter what you say to me now, I'm not changing." The creases in his furrowed brow deepen, "I'm going to kill each and every single person in Konoha… that includes you."

The blonde frowns.

"Is that really the only way this has to end?" Naruto wonders.

"It is. You can either become the hero who saved the village by killing me or be killed and be forever known as a nobody," Sasuke snarls.

"Sasuke…" Naruto closes his eyes for a moment, ruminating on the prospect of that being his only choice, before opening with a newfound resolve—ah, yes, this is the response he's been looking for. "I don't believe that! I won't be either a 'nobody' or the man who killed his friend!"

The entire place went brighter with light, downright blinding. Sasuke's body began to blur, lost in the radiance. And soon enough, Naruto's body too. Only his response echoes in the nexus of it all but still reaches Sasuke's ears.

"Neither of that will happen!"

END OF THE PROLOGUE