Chapter Two: A Beginning

xXx

(Wave Country)

22nd July, 1382 EV:

We're now 14 months into Naruto's training. I've said it before, but goddamn is this kid a mess. Taijutsu, Chakra control, if it's a shinobi skill it either needs to be fixed or re-taught from scratch.

Jiraiya looked up from his journal at the tiny room of the small Wave Country hut the two were currently lodging in. It was a fairly humble affair, with only a living room tastelessly decorated with animal heads and a bedroom, from which the blonde jinchūriki's grating snores could be heard. Making a mental note to buy a new pair of earmuffs the next time they went into town, the Sannin returned to his work.

After all the shit I've put him through in the last few months though, kid needs a break. I'm taking the kid to the Land of Waves' famous Irihi Beach. As an added bonus, seeing that bridge of his should be enough to get him raring to go again. And if I can get a little research done on the side, so much the better. It's a pity that the kid's going to miss the Watanagashi Festival, but unfortunately...

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Suddenly, an inhuman cry of agony split the air. Accompanying it was a vivid, all-too-familiar orange glow that spilled around the doorframe of Naruto's room.

In less than a second, Jiraiya leapt out of his chair, wrenched the door open, swore and summoned his sealing materials.

As the man had guessed, the glow was coming from Naruto. The boy was thrashing about in his bed, limbs flailing wildly, his entire body covered with an orange aura. In the process, his shirt had bunched up above his stomach, revealing the jinchūriki's glowing seal.

Or what was left of it, anyway.

The seal was beyond damaged. What had previously been an organized and intricately drawn work of art had become a mess of squiggles and meaningless lines. The containment segment of the seal appeared to have vanished completely, and the chakra conversion matrix had twisted back in on itself.

Faster than he had possibly ever moved before, Jiraiya drew up a chakra-suppressing seal on a blank tag and slammed it into the screaming boy's chest. As it touched the seal, there was a bright flash of light and Jiraiya was sent hurtling back through the air, punching straight through the wall. The tag itself was instantly incinerated, having no obvious effect on the boy's condition.

xXx

(? - Ten Minutes Earlier and Three Years in the future)

Purple sound creeps Kurama, hurting pain pain. Void of darkness and light and shadow and stars and utter emptiness. Sense of familiarity true home pain fading.

Distorted clouds swam above come with dark and eldritch things all around come come and hair sticks to the vibrations in deep soul.

All around come come a sense of place utterly incomprehensible come. The place beyond come and beautiful come and terrifying come and unable to be understood come.

Too easy just drift come and be free come and stop trying to be together.

COME!

Through the unknowable void the Kyuubi found itself in came the summons, too strong to be ignored.

Don't want to go back return not the prison all lies and tricks and broken.

A thread of gold wrapped itself around the fox and began slowly reeling it towards the world of shinobi.

Not the pain not the darkness not the cage.

The pull became stronger.

not the cage. not the cage. not the cage.

The Kyuubi reached the material world. As it regained its sense of self, it felt itself hurtling back towards Naruto.

Not the cage!

The beast's chakra began to enter the boy's seal.

Not the cage! Not the cage! NOT THE CAGE! I WILL NOT RETURN!

Halfway between the world and the Void, the Kyuubi began producing the largest Bijadama it had ever attempted. With its power rapidly flowing into the Uzumaki's adolescent body, the great Nine-Tailed Fox swallowed the dark ball of energy. Then, ignoring every instinct it possessed, it did not release it.

Had the fox attempted to detonate a Bijadama inside its own body while caged inside the boy, it is likely that the seal would have prevented any major impact from occurring besides putting Kurama through rather extreme pain. Likewise, if it had tried to do so in the Void then the lack of a genuine physical form would have made it extremely ineffectual.

As a result of doing it on the very precipice between the Void and the real world, the effects were nothing less than glorious.

The Nine-Tailed Fox's form detonated into a fantastic explosion of pure malignant chakra. The parts which had already integrated themselves into Naruto's system were violently wrenched out of the boy's body while the parts inside the Void were sent flying off in all directions, setting the stage for the beast's inevitable reformation.

It was along the edge of the barrier itself. however, that the results were truly spectacular.

Caught on the rim between realms, the dark, malignant chakra had nowhere to go but sideways. Spreading across the border, the semi-sentient energy noticed an incursion of radiant streaks of light entering hundreds of thousands of locations across the material realm. These lines of light seemed to be most densely-packed in four places in particular.

The light was irritating to the inherently-evil chakra.

Therefor, it would put an end to it.

Ignoring the significantly smaller and weaker lines of light around it, the Kyuubi's chakra split itself into four, each cloud heading towards one of the four brightest lights.

xXx

(Wave Country)

"Damn it!"

Leaping up off the hard ground, Jiraiya kawarimi'd back through the now broken wall into Naruto's room. As he did so, he noticed that the sky to the north was lit up with two bright red pillars of light that appeared to be descending from the clouds.

As he stood there, frantically scrawling another chakra-suppressor seal, the bright orange glow that lit up Naruto began fading away. The boy's struggles became less violent, then came to a stop. Whether from the pain or from the dissipation of the Kyuubi's chakra, Naruto was unconscious.

Jiraiya looked to the seal, only for it to fade into invisibility. The Sannin sighed in relief. For the seal to disappear meant that the Kyuubi's chakra was no longer outside its prison. Hopefully, crisis averted. Now to figure out just what the hell was going on.

In this situation, most people would allow the jinchūriki to wake in his own time, or shake him awake. Jiraiya decided to go down a more direct route, and shock him into consciousness with a harmless Raiton jutsu.

Bzzt!

The boy's body jolted, and rejoined the realm of the living with a loud cry.

"Ah! What the hell, Ero- Senni..."

His eyes registered the concerned-looking man leaning over him.

Naruto went as white as a sheet. "J... Jiraiya?"

Jiraiya was tempted to shoot off a sarcastic retort, but something in the boy's tone stopped him. It contained joy, hope, dread and even a hint of terror, all at once.

Jiraiya nodded. "One and only, kid. Now..."

"But you... You were... You were killed!" Naruto stuttered

Jiraiya blinked. "... Come again?"

Naruto's eyes hardened. "They resurrected you too, huh? I'm sorry, Ero-Sennin, but that's not going to stop me!"

Flinging the confused man off him, Naruto leapt to his feet and made the Shadow Clone Seal. And promptly collapsed to his kneed with a scream of pain.

Jiraiya rushed to steady him. "Naruto! I'm not dead and I don't intend to be for a good thirty years yet. Don't try to access your chakra, we don't know what effect the Kyuubi has had on it!"

"But.. you..." Looking down at himself for the first time, Naruto noticed that his limbs were significantly shorter than normal. He brought his hands up in the anti-genjutsu seal. "Kai!"

Only to once more release a scream of agony.

Jiraiya grabbed him by the shoulders and lightly shook him, "Idiot! What did I just say? Now tell me, what happened with the Kyuubi?"

Naruto began hyperventilating. "I'm dead, aren't I? I've died and everyone else is dead and we've failed and Akatsuki has the Kyuubi!"

Jiraiya shook his head in confusion. "What?"

"I'm not going to give up! I'll find a way to return, and I'll..." Naruto gibbered, before being silenced with a stinging slap from Jiraiya.

"Get ahold of yourself, shinobi!" Jiraiya growled. "Now, Naruto, you are going to calmly tell me just what the hell is going on!" The Sannin's eyes flickered to the distant lines of energy that were still illuminating the night sky to the north. "And you are going to do this as we head towards whatever's happening over there. Can you run?"

Naruto nodded shakily.

The Sannin nodded back. "Good."

The two set off towards the light. As they did so, Naruto placed one hand in the other, and with a quick twist subtly broke his left pinky. There was a brief burst of pain, but the world around him did not waver one bit.

Even through all the hell the boy had been in in the past week, his optimism remained intact. If there was even a chance that this reality was real and his mentor was alive, then for now he would accept it. Despite the oddness of the situation, Naruto began to talk.

xXx

As Naruto's story unfolded as they ran through the trees. Jiraiya found himself wanting to interject more than once, but held his tongue until his possibly insane student had finished.

"So let me get this straight." Jiraiya said as Naruto finished. "You're saying that Akatsuki's leader, Pain, is my old student Nagato. You're also saying that I went on a scouting mission to Amegakure and was killed by said student, who then killed and resurrected most of Konoha's population after you defeated him and convinced him to follow your ninja way. Furthermore, the true mastermind behind Akatsuki is a man named Tobi who used Edo Tensei to bring back an army of powerful shinobi, defeated you and then extracted the Kyuubi from you in order to cast an Infinite Tsukuyomi that's going to turn us all into zombies. You also believe that we could both be dead."

Naruto nodded, having calmed down somewhat due to Jiraiya's confident presence. "That's correct, Ero-Sennin."

Jiraiya stopped. "Normally, I'd say that you're insane. I am forced to admit, however, that quite a few parts of your story match up to things I know for a fact to be true. However, to the best of my knowledge I am not dead. Furthermore, Nagato was killed many years ago."

Naruto shook his head. "No, the only one to die was Yahiko. Konan and Nagato survived."

Knowing that his calm facade was the only thing keeping Naruto from having a panic attack, Jiraiya was doing his best to appear composed and unruffled. Inside, however, Naruto's supposed 'revelations' rocked him to his core. His two students were not only alive, but the leaders of the organization hunting his protegee? Itachi Uchiha had committed the Uchiha massacre on the orders of Konoha's elite? He had died? It all seemed utterly surreal, but it held too many elements of truth for a simple fever dream or a hallucination. But his death? He knew for a fact that that had never happened.

Wait.

There was a scroll he had read once. A scroll of theory, written by a man who had been effectively debarred from academic circles for coming up with something so outlandish.

"Naruto. What year did this Fourth Shinobi World War happen in?" Jiraiya said slowly, emphasizing every word.

Naruto looked at him strangely. "Uh, I think it was thirteen eighty-five."

A scroll titled Travel through Time.

Jiraiya's eyes widened.

"Naruto." he whispered. "This is thirteen eighty-two!"

Naruto looked at him. Then looked down, at his adolescent body. Then back up at his very alive mentor.

"Wha... buh... Ero-Sennin." He stuttered, then leapt at Jiraiya, catching him in a bear hug. "Ero-Sennin!"

Jiraiya returned the hug, laughing. "I'm here, brat."

The cynical part of his brain tried to interject, but was beaten down by optimism, hope and joy.

The two stood there for a minute or so, before Jiraiya gently indicated that Naruto should let go. The boy did so, with a slightly awkward laugh.

Turning and setting off again, the two quickly reached the base of the pillars of red energy. Moving out of a patch of forest, Naruto found himself in a very familiar location.

The Konoha shonobi had emerged on a grassy cliffside, overlooking the sea. Right on the edge of the cliff were two small wooden crosses, degraded by wind and water. Behind the crosses was a huge, rusty broadsword as big as a fully grown man, impaled into the dirt. The columns of crimson energy stretched down from the clouds above and appeared to penetrate into the ground itself.

Before the two had time to do anything, the energy suddenly vanished. Seconds later, the silence was broken when a muscular arm forced its way out of the ground, followed by the head and torso of a very irate and very much alive Zabuza Momochi.

"AKATSUKI!"

For someone considered stupid, Naruto could on occasion be very quick to put things together. Zabuza had been present when the Kyuubi had nuked his insides during the extraction. Zabuza was yelling about a group he hadn't encountered in this world. Several other people had also been present at the extraction.

Oh. Oh no.

xXx

Tobi opened his eyes, looking up at the concerned face of a woman who was supposed to be dead.

"...What?"

xXx

Omake - (Inspired by Naruto Shippuden Episode 239)

The Suna-Oto invasion was in full swing. Konoha's buildings blazed furiously as shinobi fought atop them tooth and nail for their respective causes. Below them, civilians fled in all directions, trying desperately to avoid being caught in the cross-fire.

In one particular street, the legendary 67-year-old Eternal Genin Kosuke Maruboshi stood next to the first Ino–Shika–Chō Trio, surrounded by around twenty Konoha shinobi.

One of the chuunin stepped forward. "Shikaku-san, the enemy have entered the Western District. We should..."

Kosuke interrupted him, "Inoichi-san, Shikaku-san, Choza-san. The way you battle has such depth. You overwhelm your opponents while instilling courage in your allies."

The Ino-Shika-Cho trio smiled, as did most of the Konoha shinobi.

Katsuya, the chuunin who had spoken before, did not, "Yes, that's great Kosuke. Now, our people are getting massacred out there, we need to reinforce..."

Kosuke wasn't done, "A splendid formation that transforms your comrades' fears into bravery. The power of your experience, judgement and most of all your faith is magnificent!"

Katsuya looked around. Far from being concerned about the loss of life that had and was occurring all over Konoha, all the other shinobi seemed oblivious to their surroundings, even happy.

Shikaku laughed. "It's nothing like that, Kosuke-san"

Inoichi nodded. "We're just stuck with each other, whether we like it or not."

Katsuya clenched his fists. "There is an invasion going on. This is not the time for this."

Chouza ignored him. "Yeah, yeah, don't tell anyone. We just don't want to look bad in front of our kids, since we live in the same village, right?"

All the gathered shinobi laughed heartily.

"What the hell is wrong with you people? People are dying out there! Stop... Stop talking about yourselves and go help them!" Yelled Katsuya, ignored by all.

Several streets away, the group of Oto shinobi closed in on the three wounded Konoha ninja, kunai glinting.

"For the love of God, where the hell are the reinforcements?" One of them screamed as the first jutsu was launched.

xXx

Silly Filler. Seriously, watch it. The buildings around them are still visibly smoking, and at least twenty Konoha ninja are just standing around talking about how great the Ino-Shika-Cho team is. Even if there weren't any enemies in the immediate area, surely the hordes of wounded would need treating. Oh filler, you do so kill me!

Anyway, Review!