582Disclaimer: This is strictly a work of fanfiction using character and elements from both the Naruto world, created by Masashi Kishimoto and the History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi world, created by Syun Matsuena. I do not claim to own them, and this story is merely a product of my own imagination, written not for monetary gain, but for my own enjoyment.
Naruto stood defiantly in the underground cavern, his arms crossed in an expression of contempt for the man that he stood across from.
"I don't care who you are, or who you claim to be… all that matters is that you are the root of the matter. But this is as far as it goes… this is the end for you," he declared confidently.
But the man who faced him, the man wearing an orange spiral mask, did not quail under Naruto's righteous fury.
"So, Naruto-kun, you've done quite well for yourself since last we met, eh? Finally achieving your dream… becoming the Sixth Hokage. Not bad, not bad. Y'know, I once wanted to be Hokage too… once upon a time."
The man's voice trailed off, carrying a hint of melancholy that somehow made him seem even more menacing than before.
"So," he continued abruptly, "I must congratulate you on your achievement. Good job. I guess I should be feeling some kind of envy now that the person who succeeded where I failed is standing in front of me… but… it's different now. Because… I hate Konoha!"
With that furious battle cry, the man bounded towards Naruto, pitch-black chains trailing from his wrists, flying behind him like a spectral cape.
But Naruto was more than a match for the sudden attack. He didn't attain the Hokage position through his levels of public approval alone, after all.
Sapphire chakra surged around him, wrapping around him in a protective manner.
"Mayonaka no Uzumaki (Midnight Spiral)," he murmured, deathly calm.
The energy continued to swirl around him, making him look more than anything like his signature technique- the Rasengan. The giant ball of energy spun and spun, a deceptively dangerous lightshow that lit up the dark cave spectacularly.
The man in the orange mask stopped short, deterred by the rapid rotation of the chakra.
There was a short inhalation, as if he was about to throw out a taunt or insult, but at that instant, violence erupted, so sudden and explosive that it didn't seem quite real.
The giant ball of light disappeared, and suddenly, Naruto was behind the masked man, his palm stretched out.
"Goodbye," he said, almost sadly.
The moment the skin on Naruto's hand touched the masked man's back, it felt like the entire world had been tipped on its side.
Inside the cave, there was an enormous twisting, spiralling sensation, centred around the two men. The very air seemed to warp inwards and start to thin, even as an unbearably bright light pierced the air, temporarily blinding all who saw it.
Which only numbered two, technically.
But still, 'two' was still a number that was unexpectedly more than Naruto expected, to be honest.
"How are you still alive?" he asked in a tired voice.
But this seemingly invincible masked man was now showing weakness, huddled as he was against the stone wall, clutching a broken mask.
"Izanagi," spat the man contemptuously.
Naruto frowned at the unfamiliar word, but stayed wary. Any jutsu that shared its name with a god was obviously nothing to be scoffed at.
"Now you," hissed the masked man, "What was that? That move you just used."
Naruto decided to humour the man's inquiry, if only to try and buy enough time to come up with a plan to finish him off once and for all. Mayanaka no Uzumaki was one of his most powerful techniques, with it seemingly rendered ineffective, he was almost out of cards to play.
"Mayanaki no Uzumaki is a combination of the Rasengan and the Hiraishin that my father created. The Rasengan and all its derivatives are powerful, but they are obvious. Besides the thrown Rasenshuriken, if the opponent can stay out of range, I can't get them," Naruto said slowly, even as his fingers slid towards his sleeve.
"And based off second-hand accounts of my father's Hiraishin, I managed to reverse engineer it… kind of. I'm considered a seal master, but I'm nowhere near close to decoding my father's Hiraishin seal. And as the way it is now, it takes too much energy to use effectively," he continued, "But with my Mayanaki no Uzumaki, it functions as a combination of the two- the overpowered Rasengan provides both the damage and the fuel source for the Hiraishin, which in turn acts as an unavoidable gap closer…"
As Naruto reached the end of his explanation, he heard the man give a mirthless chuckle.
"Just imagine," he wheezed, "Ha! Never thought I'd be in this situation all over again. Facing a blond Hokage who wields both the power of teleportation and the orb of destruction. Ha!"
Naruto's froze.
"You fought my father?" he asked breathlessly.
The man growled angrily and shakily stood up.
"Yes, I did, but that's neither here nor there. Let's finish this, Konoha."
Naruto didn't hesitate.
Moving quickly, he flicked the kunai from the specially made pouch in his sleeve and flung it at the masked man, aiming squarely for his chest.
But even though he had thrown the blade with all his might, it still wasn't enough.
The masked man simply batted it away with a wave of his arm, sending it clattering into the corner of the cave effortlessly.
Naruto stared blankly as his eyes followed the path of the kunai. That weapon had been his last hope- his final gamble. A one of a kind weapon that sported a seal that contained a certain amount of youki- Naruto had pinned all his hopes on that one kunai.
But he refused to give up.
Because he was Naruto Uzumaki.
He let out another dry humourless laugh.
"What's so funny?" asked the masked man, now standing directly opposite him, no signs of weakness visible at all.
"Nothing," replied Naruto shortly.
He made a cross-shaped seal, and a Kage Bunshin exploded into existence next to him. Holding out his hand, Naruto began to gather chakra into it, watching emotionlessly as it started to form a ball shape.
Meanwhile, the masked man looked on with slight interest.
"Hey, hey, what's this? You haven't needed Kage Bunshin to form your Rasengan for years," he remarked drily.
"To defeat someone like you, the root of all this madness," grunted Naruto, "There's no room for fancy tricks. The Rasengan is the technique that represents me most well. Take it with your body, feel my RESOLVE!"
With this last cry, Naruto burst forward, the shining blue ball thrust towards his opponent.
But the masked man was not unprepared.
"Bring it, Konoha!" he yelled, "Let's end this once and for all! Kurai Ori Magatama (Dark Weave Magatama)!"
Exploding into existence with the force of the strike of a lightning bolt, three huge tomoe-shaped disks appeared. The comma shaped rings were a shiny black, somehow standing out starkly even in the dimly lit cave.
The three objects appeared around Naruto in a circle, evenly spaced, closely resembling the distinctive shape of the Sharingan's fully matured form. However, they were moving inwards towards Naruto at a disturbingly fast pace.
But Naruto didn't care. He was already where he needed to be.
With a ferocious cry, he drove his Rasengan into the masked man's shoulder, slamming the destructive orb deep into flesh and muscle.
With a sickening crunching, the man's entire arm was grinded off, falling to the ground like a hunk of meat. Blood blasted from both the enormous wound and the amputated limb, spraying everywhere, creating a gruesomely abstract painting.
Tch, I missed, thought Naruto, even as chakra began to swirl into life back over his palm.
But he didn't even have enough time to summon another Rasengan, as the magatama all struck him at once, evidently not deterred by their caster's state of injury.
At that moment, Naruto froze. The chakra that had been gathering in his hand dispersed harmlessly, even as he stood there, locked into place. The circular sections of the magatama had, instead of hitting him like expected, had gone right through him, like a hand through the mist.
And as they passed though flesh, they brought along the most horrible chill, a terrible freezing feeling that stopped even veteran ninja like Naruto dead in his tracks.
"Shit," he ground out.
He tried to remember what he was doing, but the dreadfully miserable feeling in his stomach persisted, so sickening that he couldn't keep his mind off how terrible it was.
He felt like screaming, but he wasn't in mind-bending agony or anything like that. It was just so cold that it made him feel… well… miserable. And not just miserable like 'getting wet while on the way home, miserable', but truly, truly wretched, like 'finding out that you are the last one in your graduation class that is still alive, miserable'. It wasn't a feeling easily described by words.
He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a weak sounding moan.
"Heh," came a sound to Naruto's left.
He soullessly glanced towards it, but the freezing feeling in the pit of his stomach still stole most of his concentration. A man with the smashed orange mask crowed triumphantly while clutching the bleeding stump of his arm, finally achieving the victory he had waited so long for.
"I win! Finally! I win! I have the Kyuubi! It's finally done! The Moon's Eye Plan… so many years, so many lives, so many sacrifices! I win, Konoha…"
But even as these historic words were spoken, Naruto simply didn't care.
When Naruto next came to, the first thing he noticed was that he was still underground. His eyes immediately flickered wildly as he tried to regain some sense of the events that had taken place while he was unconscious.
All he remembered after striking the masked man with his Rasengan was a terrible, all-consuming cold… and then darkness.
"Oh," came a dreaded but familiar voice, "You've woken up."
Naruto glared at the man, who, despite now missing an arm and having his mask smashed in, was still seemingly as unbreakable as the day he first appeared.
The blond tried desperately to summon up some chakra, but suddenly the masked man kicked him in the stomach, sending him into the stone wall.
"Don't try anything," he snarled viciously, "Just wait for the extraction."
Extraction, thought Naruto blearily, what?
It was only then that he saw the translucent, diaphanous chain wrapped around his torso. Immediately recognising some of the dangerously intricate fuuinjutsu arrays inscribed upon the chains, he tried to struggle, despite knowing how futile it was.
"Too late for that, Hokage. Now, the final bijuu is mine! It was a good fight, but I win," declared the masked man, before he exited the room with an air of finality.
"Begin," was the last that Naruto heard.
Naruto couldn't remember how long the extraction lasted. It could have been several days, or it could have been a couple of minutes. His sense of time had been diminished, bordered and contained only within the unending reality of pain. He couldn't seem to remember anything other than the searing pain that permeated his body. No other sensations, no other memories- all that existed for the being known as Naruto Uzumaki, everything that defined who he was, was just the burning agony that he felt.
He didn't know if he was screaming- his senses had long ago burnt themselves out, no longer capable of receiving any other feeling other than 'pain'. He didn't know if something as mundane as screaming could accurately portray the sheer magnitude of the suffering that he endured.
There wasn't anything Naruto could think of that could describe the type of pain he was feeling- nothing in his life could compare to the way his body was feeling. It was beginning to get to the point where he couldn't even tell if the sensations that constantly blasted his body was even pain.
But eventually, after what seemed like eternity, the pain ended, and Naruto Uzumaki, the Sixth Hokage of Konoha, died.
However, even if Naruto was now technically dead, the last vestiges of his essence still remained. Because of his status as a junchuuriki, Naruto was now a spirit, existing as a small island of humanity in the incomprehensible ocean of chakra that was a bijuu. It would take almost no time at all for his small centre of energy to be eroded away by the sheer mass of youki, diffusing into mere particles, never to be reassembled again.
But even before that could happen, something momentous happened in the outside world- something that Naruto- not yet departed for the afterlife- happened to witness.
The thing was, as the Kyuubi (and, consequently, Naruto) was added to the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, all the constituent parts of the Juubi, the primordial entity, were gathered together in one place for the first time since its sealing.
What's more, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was actually the Juubi's original body, cast aside after its sealing by the Sage of Six Paths. But now, finally reunited with the primal energies that once filled it and terrorised the world, the Demonic Statue creaked into life.
With slow, lumbering movements, the statue broke the ceremonial chains that bound its limbs- antique symbolic oddities left there by the Sage of Six Paths himself- and stood up, its head easily breaking through the mountain it was hidden under, and finally revealing itself to the moonlit surface world.
It looked up at the luminous moon, ten flailing tails behind it, and howled- an earth shaking roar that was heard and felt by every single being that lived.
Not a lot of people know much about the Juubi. Usually, only a vague idea about its connection to the rest of the bijuu and the Sage of Six Paths is the limit of most people's knowledge about the mythical beast.
However, in truth, the Juubi is much more closely tied to the very core of the shinobi world.
Because the Ten-Tails was the very entity that created the world.
Although 'gods' in the sense of the word do in fact exist and are worshipped in select temples and monasteries across the land, they were not, contrary to popular opinion, the creators of this world.
The Juubi's relation to the 'gods' is shrouded in mystery, but they are, in fact, extremely similar in terms of power. Or as far as humans can tell. Such beings are so far out of our league that the sheer scale of the powers unleashed cannot be comprehended.
However, the Juubi, even after performing such a great feat, did not think much of it, and did not deign to visit the place until several millennia after its birth. To a beast such as the Juubi, time meant nothing. But one day, while drifting through the gaps in dimensions, the Juubi saw a curious little planet teeming with life and greenery. Finding a sense of familiarity with the place, the Juubi's eidetic memory instantly recalled its little experiment aeons ago… and so the Juubi came to wander on its creation's green lands.
However, despite its great power, the Juubi, upon exploring the realm that it had built, did not realise that it had not taken its own might into account when constructing the world. Although the place was constructed from and filled with the Juubi's almighty energy, it could not withstand such a destructive force upon its lands.
Where the Juubi stood, the very fabric of the world warped into destruction.
There was once a continent east of Water Country. It contained thriving civilizations and innovative peoples. However, ancient murals have shown that the Juubi once visited its sunlit shores.
The continent is now long forgotten.
Instead, in present times, the place is called the Unspeakable Void, a name passed down in history. People can only speculate about the meaning of the name, because none have ever journeyed there… and survived.
But the Juubi did not leave, even after witnessing the destruction in caused. If it could not even withstand its creator's very presence, it was not strong enough to survive, it reasoned.
And so it travelled the land, its journey erasing every trace of existing phenomena.
But finally, the peoples of one of the final remaining continents decided to take a stand, led by the man who came to be known to all as the Sage of Six Paths. Utilizing the strands of the Juubi's energy within everyone, finding those rare flickers of the same power that created him, the Sage manipulated it, taking it into himself and using it against his Creator.
And, against all odds, he succeeded in stopping the Juubi's destructive rampage. Of course, the Juubi's power was so great that if it wished, then the Sage, and his people, and the very world itself, would instantly return to the nothingness that it once was.
But upon seeing the Sage's determination and power, it experienced the emotion known as pride, and ruled that if the people it had created was powerful enough to subdue it, then they were welcome to do as they wished and continue to struggle through life.
However, that was history and in the Juubi's second appearance on the earth, there wasn't anybody nearly strong enough to stop its destructive rampage.
Nobody.
The Juubi roared as it emerged from the ground. Finally, it was whole again.
I remember this place, it thought, the world which I created.
It had generously spared the place during the last time it had walked the lands, but now, the Juubi decided that it was time to test humanity's resolve once more.
Opening its large, inhumanly long arms wide, it released the restraints it had been holding on its power.
And in that moment, the world stopped…
And disappeared.
The end of the shinobi world happened in the slightest fraction of a second. The moment the Juubi stopped purposely diminishing its power, that was the moment where the entire world was doomed.
After centuries, the chakra of the Juubi that had lingered from the initial moment of creation had slowly faded from the earth and air. The Earth no longer possessed the resilience to put up the slightest bit of resistance against the Juubi's almighty presence.
The last remaining member of Akatsuki, the man with the persistent dream of projecting a Sharingan on the moon, never had the time to regret completing his plan before he was instantly obliterated.
But even if all the life on the planet was disintegrated in an instant, for Naruto, trapped as a shade inside the Juubi, it couldn't be any slower.
As the planet was rent in two and absorbed into the Juubi, every single thing in it flowed past Naruto's viewpoint, shocking him with the diversity it showed him.
Every single person, every single lifetime, every single treasured possession, every single special place… it all flowed past his eyes in multicoloured strands as they were all, in turn, ruthlessly destroyed and absorbed.
Naruto was forced to exist there, trapped by the Juubi's chakra, as the threads of his life, of his world, slipped past his intangible fingers into oblivion.
But as he caught glimpses of the lives of his fellow humans, unnaturally cut short, something changed inside of him. He was suddenly filled with an emotion alien to him- that he hadn't felt before in his life.
It wasn't quite sorrow, and it wasn't quite rage.
In fact, there was no word that actually described how Naruto felt at that moment. Perhaps the emotion it was closest to was regret. But laced inside that were faint veins of determination, somehow present despite the hopeless situation.
However, what was unusual about this instance was that the way the foreign feeling flared up inside Naruto, as vivid and fierce as a storm. The emotions that it provoked in him were so intense, so overpowering, that it became the defining moment of his life.
In that moment, he was nothing except a container for those feelings, nothing more than a medium for those potent energies to express themselves. And the longer that those feelings remained in him, the more they evolved. Branching along to both sides of the emotional spectrum, the feelings inside Naruto came to encompass both negative emotions (lust, rage, antipathy) and positive emotions (empathy, love, charity) alike.
He was no longer 'Naruto', but instead Humanity, an outlet for the final remnants of those strange things called emotions.
The Juubi did not feel much when it destroyed the earth it had created, so many aeons ago. Things as petty as the emotions that plagued its creations did not really apply to a being as great as the Juubi. If anything, however, it felt a slight sense of disappointment in the earth. It had truly been thrilled and fascinated by the Sage of Six Path's determination and power, interested in how such a puny, insignificant insect would dare to defy a being so far out of its league, and yet, still manage to triumph.
But now, no such thing happened. Instead, the earth had grown weaker, and had lost that vital spark, that raging flame of will that had burned within the Sage. And so, the Juubi had deemed the earth no longer fit to exist- sentencing it, and all its inhabitants, into oblivion. They were worth nothing to it.
…until it felt, just moments after the deed had been done, a whisper of the same energy and drive that had filled the Sage of Six Paths, reborn again.
Even as the awful finality of the moment was about to sink in, the Juubi turned towards to the source of the feeling, seeking the answer to the mystery.
It found a miniscule imprint of a human that had died just moments before the great beast's awakening. But unlike the rest of the souls it had absorbed, the Juubi sensed that this new one was different.
Curious, it delved right into the centre of the strange energy that permeated the spirit.
And was subsequently subjected to the full force of every single emotional experience that every human had ever felt. For a being that had largely been void of such things itself, such a deluge of information was almost overpowering.
Added to the fact that the Juubi had diminished itself to a human's level in order to investigate the source of the disturbance meant that it was woefully unprepared for the giant rush of feeling.
And when it was over, the Juubi was a changed being.
Since the Sage of Six Path's demonstration of power, the Juubi had wondered what had driven such a tiny, insignificant human to do what he did.
It had been interesting, but was only a minor issue for the almighty demon. However, now, the Juubi was forced to experience, firsthand, what exactly drove humans to do what they did. The force which allowed civilian mothers to lift enormous trees off their child; the force which drove individuals to kill off entire families over a grudge; the force which allowed lovers to cross the globe for each other; the force which allowed people to stand up for what they believed in, even when faced with the threat of death… it endured it all.
The Juubi had never really experienced anything as an equal. It was the only demon of its kind- the only demon with enough power to create worlds. Sure, there were other gods, with similar power, but they were altogether different beings.
It was a very 'lonely' existence… or it would have been, if the Juubi understood loneliness. However, it had never known anything else, so it had been 'content' with just existing baselessly.
The white canvas of the Juubi's soul was wholly unprepared for the tsunami of human emotions. Love, hatred, fear, sorrow, regret, worry, lust, rage, affection, awe, boredom, desire, despair, pleasure, shame, satisfaction, passion, interest, loneliness, pride. All of these, and countless others, burst through the Juubi. They repeated endlessly, mirrored in the essence of the billions of people that each lived their own unique lives.
And the Juubi, much like Naruto had before him, experienced all of that to the max.
An indescribable feeling burst through the entirety of the Juubi, and a phenomenon not unlike an epiphany came upon it.
Making a decision on a whim, the Juubi decided for once to use its godlike powers in their full capacity. Manipulating the fabric of reality, it twisted its cosmic energies around itself, before collapsing them into a single focal point- around that same spirit which had brought along that change in it.
And then, the Juubi which had existed in that 'space' and 'time' simply disappeared, taking with it every last trace of the shinobi world.
However, even if- technically- no trace of those men and women and places and artefacts remained, it was by no means the last they would be seen.
A single remnant of the once great civilisations remained. A single remnant saved from the purge that swept aside everything he held dear. But he survived, as befitting a remnant. And even if he didn't know it himself, that 'remnant' was destined for great things.
Meanwhile, in a world completely removed from the one we are used to, there existed a large city. And in one of the seedier sections of this city, an abandoned warehouse stood creaking under the night sky. In this area of the city, the busy glow of the nightlife did not permeate the heavy silence that blanketed the place. In here, a light represented a person to mug. Needless to say, the streets were usually vacated long before the night's arrival.
The old warehouse had stood there for years, and most had already forgotten its original purpose. The faded sign was no longer even close to legible, and the unrecognizable mess that was inside held no clues. The decrepit hulk of wood and metal had, for a short time, been home to a number of illegal drug-related businesses and the prime location for the occasional rape or mugging, but had long since run out of favour, due to it being too intolerable even for those undeniably shady individuals.
But this one night, this old rundown warehouse would become the location for one of the most exciting events to happen in a long time.
Usually, the night sky above this city was obscured mostly from view by the thick smog and pollution emitted from the industrious factories that dotted the city. But the barely visible stars, for some reason, did not simply twinkle uselessly as they usually did on this particular night.
Instead, they actually dimmed, making the darkness that carpeted the sector to become even more prominent.
Until, with an eerie whine that somehow became audible without any visible source, a single bright light erupted in the moonless sky. The sound soon grew from 'barely audible' to a very pronounced screech that sent shivers down every spine in the vicinity.
And as the sound grew in pitch and volume, the light in the sky grew correspondingly in size and intensity. If one was to describe it, it was less like a star and more like the headlights on a fast approaching car.
Suddenly, as the sound finally crested the peak and became a full-fledged roar of noise, the light disappeared.
Or, to be precise, it was no longer in the sky to be seen.
Instead, the object that had been the source of the light (and most likely, the noise) had dropped from the night sky and straight through the roof of the abandoned warehouse that had stood there undisturbed for more than twenty years.
It struck with such force that the weathered wooden rafters didn't even have enough time to groan in protest before they were ruthlessly snapped in half by the falling object. It slammed into the ground with a sound like someone punching a sturdy tree, before the night was once again silent.
However, even though these events are all extremely unusual, and would normally warrant much attention, this particular neighbourhood was extremely well versed in the practice of ignoring anything that was potentially interesting in the slightest. If such things were interesting, then they would naturally attract the interest of… unsavoury characters… and that was something to be avoided, for sure.
So no one came to investigate the light, the sound or the crash.
Which, perhaps, was a fortunate turn of events.
Because, right now, lying on the floor of the warehouse was a strange being.
At first glance, all seemed normal with the person lying down. Sure, the style of dress was outlandish and out of place, and sure, the long curly hair was of a strange hue that one would not find outside of a box of children's crayons, but other than that, the person seemed to be a normal human being.
But in the time that it took to scan up and down that person's figure, an onlooker would have noticed that the person was no longer the same as he/she was a few seconds ago.
The appearance of the person was changing rapidly, and to an alarming degree. It wasn't just small changes like the length of the hair or colour of the eyes, but rather, integral changes to that person's body.
One second, it was a slim, dark haired girl of about twelve years old, before it changed to a huge bear of man, replete with a golden mane, braided with huge golden rings. Then it changed once more to a busty red-head with a killer figure, before changing again to an obese kid with a bad case of acne.
And as well as these dramatic changes, the clothing that the person was wearing was also constantly changing, from muted formal wear fit for a funeral to strange fantastical battle suits that looked like they belonged in a B-movie.
And all throughout this period, the person lay there without moving a muscle. It was becoming clear that he/she could not move under their own power, and it was extremely likely that he/she was unconscious. However, the person's eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling with constantly changing irises.
Finally, after an hour of these flickering changes, the rate at which these changes began to slow. The changes were now much slower, and the body would now adopt appearances for minutes at a time.
And, then, after stopping for almost a whole quarter-hour on a regal looking old man with strange rippled eyes, the body changed for the last time.
It settled on a young boy with golden hair and cerulean eyes. A young boy with strange marks on his cheeks. A young boy with the strangest tattoo on his stomach.
A young boy called Naruto Uzumaki.
Hello again. As always, thanks to MisterKuma for beta-reading this first chapter. Anyways, this is where I've spent my summer... hope you enjoy.