Part 1-1
Day 1
October 10th
"Naruto!"
At the sound of her name being called, Naruto whips her head around to find the source. Sasuke stares back, his eyes wide and disbelieving, but mostly focused upon the ground beneath her feet. The ground beneath her feet which is covered in Fūinjutsu lines. Where had they come from?! Isn't everything supposed to be over now?
Kaguya's sealed, locked away forever by the awesome power that is the Naruto-Sasuke combo, best friends, brother and sister in all but blood.
"It's a time-delay jutsu!" Kakashi-sensei's voice is the next thing Naruto registers and she turned big blue eyes to look at her silver haired sensei. Thinking about it now, her reactions are slowing, her mind struggling to keep up with the world around her. In fact, she's struggling to hear what they are all talking about, even though she can see their mouths moving.A last-minute attempt to do her in? Naruto doesn't like the sound of that. And then there's Kurama's roar of denial, both from inside her seal and out, a sudden mass of violent chakra surging outwards, trying to break the Fūinjutsu array.
Dear Sage does Naruto wish she'd paid more attention to Jiraiya when he was going on about seals. But she'd been too focused on getting a good jutsu, too focused on the here and now because sealing takes years of study and that'd been time she didn't want to waste on anything other than battle-worthy jutsu.
Yeah, that'd really been a mistake. Another in the long list.
Kurama's roar of fury is the very last thing she hears before the pain takes over. And what incredible pain it is, burning through her body, leaping from bone to bone, limb to limb and it would have left her gasping for breath if she weren't too busy screaming instead.
She can remember everything, the dimensions hopping about before her eyes as they chased Kaguya, Black Zetsu hiding beneath her large sleeve (the greatest mamma's boy to ever exist), there's Neji's death, Madara and Hashirama and all the other Hokages. Dad. Her dad, stood before her smiling before he was suddenly beamed up and then the Fūinjutsu array beneath her feet.
The one that feels like it's been ripping away her life force, shredding it and forcing her body to shrink in on itself. And it's scorching, incinerating every inch of her skin and all that lays beneath, it felt like her body is being forcibly tenderized, squashed and sliced and torn apart all at once. It's the most pain she's ever felt, it's unbelievable and she doubts even Kurama will be able to heal whatever mess this Fūinjutsu is making of her.
More pain races through her body and she lets out a final scream before darkness consumes her.
.
.
Deep within a forest of a land that will someday become the home of a village hidden beneath the crushing force of a waterfall, a young couple press themselves into the natural groove in the stone, ragged breaths mingling as their faces come closer together. The desperation and terror is palpable, thick and choking as it lingers in the air.
Between their bodies, sheltered and as protected as one can be in such tragic circumstances, a tiny baby rests, bundled up in thick cloth hastily retrieved during the panicked dash for safety. Their little girl has yet to see a week of life; she's a beautiful thing, dark wisps of hair and eyes that are already beginning to settle upon a rich green. For the times they live in, their lives had been peaceful, their village secluded from the constant fighting, occupied by others wishing to get away from all the ninja that run riot in the outside world as clan wars with clan.
Unfortunately, this also meant any call for help would always arrive too late, nevermind when reinforcements would be dispatched. What had once been a peaceful night is shattered by screams, a scene from campfire horror stories.
The moon sits high in the sky, full and robust as the Kyūbi tears through buildings and landmarks as if they are nothing. Curling that much closer to their baby girl, the young couple weep, no longer fearful the noise will draw the demon's wrath. Given its rampage, there's no possible way they will survive the giant tails that sweep across the land, splintering trees like toothpicks as they go.
The villagers are trying to flee as fast as they can, scrambling against the wet earth but it's utterly useless. They're never going to make it out alive. There's a reason these beasts are known as disasters. There is no surviving them.
Only, only then a miracle happens.
There's a bang, louder than thunder but without the flash of light. No one spots her, the little girl falling form the sky, not even the Kyūbi itself. It does notice when the small body impacts against his own flesh and there's a pull. Chakra, the likes of which the villagers scarcely remember from time before immigrating the village, whips out. And the Kyūbi, the Kyūbi stumbles. It's colossal limbs tremble and shake, it's head thrown back in a mighty, furious howl. It goes to dispatch the threat, to rip to pieces the thing that is stealing its chakra, locking it down. But the demon fox is too late.
The girl hits the floor with a bang, a crater forming at the site of impact.
All is still with the world as the surviving villagers slowly emerge from their shelters, eyes wide and round, disbelief evident. But no, the girl is still there, the scent of burning skin filling the air and a freshly inked seal clear on her raw stomach. There's a lot of tanned skin, a lot of long blonde hair on a girl that cannot possibly be more than a decade old. Yet… there's one of those ninja art things on her skin and the great demon fox, the natural disaster that is, is gone.
Clutching at his wife's shaking form, the male can only take a trembling step forwards, entrusting his daughter's well-being to his other half. As some villagers call out for the girl's death (the monster will die with her, they claim but none are too sure of that), He puts forwards his own opinion. The girl has saved them, intentional or not.
He'll see her live for that, at the very least.
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Day 2
October 11th
.
There's something tickling her nose.
Twitching, Naruto rolls over, pressing her face into the flesh of her arm but the sensation's still there. What the hell- Cracking one blurry eye open and scanning for the source of her discomfort, the blonde finds herself sprawled out in what appears to be a meadow.
Blinking, she sinks one hand into the grass, fingers clenching and pulling at the strands, but it is indeed plant life that comes away from the earth, plant life that sneaks out between her white-knuckled grip. There'd been no grass on the warfront, only Hashirama, Madara and Obito produced trees.
Jolting up into a crouch, Naruto lurches dangerously, centre of balance dangerously… off-centre. She's nearly face down in another patch of thick, luscious grass, muscles only just tensing in time to prevent it. There shouldn't be any grass here. Where is she? Where are Sasuke and Kakashi and Sakura? Where's the rest of the Shinobi Alliance? And where's Kurama? The oh so familiar presence that has occupied the back of her head in increasing frequency ever since she could remember (before she'd even realised he was there), is silent.
When she tries reaching out to him, Naruto finds her conscious mind bounced back with a surprising amount of force, leaving a pounding headache in its place. Right, okay, don't do that again. If Kurama wants to be a little bitch and not answer her, that's fine. She can figure this out on her own.
Squinting up at the sky and then hissing as the sun all but sears her corneas, Naruto hoists up a hand to defend her eyes from the offending ball of gas, mouth tucked down in a firm grimace. After a moment to prepare herself, Naruto slowly peels her fingers away from the sun, eyes scanning her surroundings now that she's adjusted to the light. Her forearm is bare, devoid of the protective arm-guards she'd taken to wearing after returning to Konoha
. There's a single moment of stupefaction as she wonders what idiot would dare to rob her blind while she's unconscious, but then her eyes really catch onto what's wrong with her arm.
"What the hell!" This, this can't be her arm. It's too short, to full of puppy fat that she'd shed years ago, it's too, too, childish. Child-like. It's a child's arm.
Gaze dropping to the rest of her body, Naruto screeches in horror at what she finds, even as her mind finally kicks into high-gear and relays her last few memories.
Finishing the war, Team Seven reunited and heroes once again- the panic in Sasuke's voice as he'd screamed her name. That's right, she recalls numbly, there was a Fūinjutsu. What the hell had Kaguya's last trap done to her?!
Patting down her torso only confirms its not an illusion (as does a quick, unnecessarily strong pulse of chakra) and that someone has seen fit to dress her in a simple white shirt and draw-string drawn pants. Oh god, she's got no underwear on and these aren't her clothes, what the ever-loving f-
"Calm down, Naruto, think this through. There was a Fūinjutsu, and now you're in a clearing and far too young…" Was it something to do with Kakashi-sensei's Sharingan technique? She didn't think so, but Naruto couldn't be too sure.
Whatever was happening, she needed to get back to the war-front or, failing that, to the Leaf and get someone to turn her back to her fabulous seventeen-year-old self. She'll get Shikamaru to do it. He's the smartest person she knows, of course the lazy-bones will be able to figure out what's gone wrong here.
Rubbing at the back of her head, Naruto shakily pushes herself up into standing. That's when her eyes land on the pack. It's an innocent looking thing, civilian in material and design. But there's a note attached, wrote in the most hideous characters she's seen since her pre-genin days (Naruto valiantly ignores the fact those Kanji had belonged to her).
Plucking it from the pack, the blonde squints at the message, turning it this way and that until it starts to make some semblance of sense. She ignores the way her limbs scream in defiance of the task she has assigned them, ignores the way her legs and abdominals shake from the effort of keeping her standing.
'Our deepest thanks for saving our lives'. That's it. That's all the message consists of.
Sinking back down to the ground (it's not because her legs are one more breath away from giving out. It's not), Naruto runs a hand through her tangled, matted mess of hair and exhales. It's a shaky thing, full of barely restrained panic. But panic's not going to help her now. She needs to figure out what the hell has happened to her, what's going on, why the hell she's in this clearing as if she's been dressed by a stranger (by the Sage, it better have been to cover her modesty or Naruto's gonna hunt a bastard to the ends of the earth), and why the hell her best source of information has barred her from contacting him. Any attempt to contact Kurama is going to give her a headache, Naruto soon finds out after the failed second try. It feels like her brain is splitting in two in her skull, not even pressing her palms against her forehead helps with the pain. Is this what Sakura-chan always felt when she complained about 'migraines'? If so, Naruto takes back every bad thing she ever said about them. They're hell to do with.
"Right, right. Find out where the hell I am first. Then go from there."
Plan made, Naruto forces her body to it's feet once more, this time braced for the pain. She still stumbles out of the clearing, pack over one shoulder, but the key point there is she manages to move.
Where she'll go from there… Naruto's not too sure, but she'll manage.
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EDITED 19.03.18
Er, third time's the charm? (I'm slowly going through this to fix it, and while i can't promise new material beyond the chapters already posted, things look optimistic at the moment. So, here we go again.)
Tsume
xxx