Prologue

Smoke rose from an otherwise empty plain. The sunlight shone down harshly, filtered by a fine layer of dust and debris kicked up by the fight down below. North of the smoldering ruins of what had once been a prosperous village, Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, laid the formerly great Valley of the End where the powerful Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara had fought decades ago. Now, there, the fight was repeating as it had before, with one key difference.

The representative of the Senju was not alone.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Uzumaki Naruto glanced around him as smoke of his last attack cleared. His gut tightened when he saw his friend Sasuke standing a distance away from him. Both of them were focused on a position in front of them that was enshrouded in a cloud of haze: the current position of Uchiha Madara, the now insane jinchuuriki of the Juubi.

Naruto, Rokudaime Hokage and one of two last survivors of the destruction of Konoha, stood resolutely, eyes flashing red as he stared down the position of the man who had made his life hell for the past four years. He glanced toward Sasuke and inwardly smiled, even as he winced at the wound on his arm. Sasuke had finally returned three years ago, after losing an epic battle with Naruto, his former best friend.

Sasuke had been adamant about returning to the village even after his defection from Madara, so Naruto had had to return to the only method of making his friend listen that he knew: beating the crap out of him until he got some sense knocked into him. Even immediately after the fight, when both combatants were close to unconsciousness and the land lay desolate for kilometers around, Sasuke had refused to see from Naruto's point of view. It had taken months to coax him out of his self-made shell of loneliness and hatred; months that were otherwise spent fighting the largest conflict in ninja history: the Fourth Great Shinobi War.

Even then, after Sasuke had returned, nothing was ever the same. Naruto had finally taken the office of Rokudaime Hokage, a position that had been temporarily held by his sensei Kakashi for almost a year as Naruto had continued on his seemingly futile quest to bring Sasuke back. Finally, Naruto thought that the village had really acknowledged him, and he believed that he had what it took to protect his precious people. But wartime was never so benevolent to the wishes of the blond Hokage.


 Team 8 had been the first to completely die; a routine mission to Kumogakure to obtain information on troop movements had been failed and Hinata and Kiba had been killed in the ambush waiting for them, Shino having been killed by Kabuto on a mission to the remains of Oto six months earlier.

Neji had died alone on a kamikaze attack on Kumo one week later.

As the years passed, friends had died left and right on missions and invasions, the constant turmoil making it even more difficult to identify friend and foe in the chaos of war. The experience of it had almost torn Naruto apart, if not for help of from surprising source.

If Naruto had heard of Lee's death in a raid on Suna, of Ino's death defending the village against Iwa, or of Chouji's death on the betrayed invasion of Kiri, he simply put his head in his hands and sobbed for hours, all the while Sasuke standing by his side, expressionless eyes staring forward with his hand on a kunai ready to defend his friend. After Sakura's death, the first casualty of the war for the Rookie Nine, both Uchiha and Uzumaki had cried for hours, unable to comprehend the horrors of war as Kakashi stood by, remembering the loss of another friend in another war, his mind far away in a distant time.

With every report, hey had tried to harden their hearts and move on, but they had all known that the village of Konoha had been torn apart forever.

The war had begun as a result of political maneuverings and old suspicions in the Five Great Countries.

The Tsuchikage had died in the first invasion of his village by Kumo, and was replaced by a bloodthirsty and ambitious jounin of Iwa's ANBU.

The Raikage had been killed when the Hachibi had gone out of control and had destroyed the entire village of Kumogakure. The Bijuu had been captured shortly after.

The Mizukage had been taken out and replaced by Uchiha Madara himself, having resumed his old position as the former leader of the village. He had used up most of the village's strength in attacks on Konoha until he had destroyed the village itself as a measurement of his own strength.

Kakashi had taken the position of Acting Hokage after Danzo's death from Sasuke at the Kage Summit, but refused to accept the position officially, waiting for Naruto to finish his search for his friend.

Gaara had been killed almost immediately on his way home from the Summit along with his siblings by a group of overambitious traitors. The group had sent the entirety of the Village Hidden in the Sand into a bloody and tumultuous civil war.

After the death of the last other member of Akatsuki, Madara had slowly gone insane, sometimes disappearing and then reappearing, leaving entirely destroyed villages in his wake. The reason for his strength and madness? Uchiha Madara had become the jinchuuriki of the Juubi no Tsukurizokonau, the incomplete ten-tailed beast. As his effects to capture the Kyuubi from Naruto and Konoha had continuously failed, the legendary Uchiha had become desperate. His efforts had finally culminated in the faulty creation of the ten-tails, which had been sealed inside Madara, giving him tremendous power at the price of great insanity.

Over the years, Naruto and Sasuke had grown more powerful as Madara had sunk deeper into the darkness of madness. Naruto had gained the title of "The Sealing Sage of Konoha" after his suddenly discovered talent at fuuinjutsu and his own sage techniques, and Sasuke had a flee-on-sight order issued by all other villages. The two had been the last survivors of the complete and utter destruction of Konoha and were no fighting against the one man who had been responsible for all this of destruction at a place where the last two holders of the Will of Fire had themselves fought, eight years ago.

The Valley of The End was now a canyon extending for miles in all directions.

Naruto started, snapping out of his thoughts as the haze cleared and a maniacal Madara had been revealed, his skin surrounded by a black aura and his prized Sharingan eyes turned into pitch black holes of utter blackness. He cackled maniacally as Naruto glared in pure hatred. He had finally understood one part of Sasuke's need for vengeance. There stood the one man who could never be redeemed in any way. Naruto pitied the wretched monster.

Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto say Sasuke leaping up for another Katon technique and so he himself ran toward Madara, unwrapping a scroll before drawing a quick seal in blood.

"Sutorappu no Fuuin: Oni!"(1)

Chains of characters flew off of the scroll, which quickly disappeared in a poof of smoke. The writing seemed to form into the mouth of a monster, which opened and tried to swallow Madara. The Uchiha stood calmly as a sudden blast of dark energy took the seal out within a fraction of a second. Naruto winced. He'd have to up the ante a little, it seemed.

The Uzumaki looked over at his friend and nodded; they had been fighting together for so long that it seemed that they could sometimes know what the other was thinking. His hands blurred into sage katas as Sasuke formed the familiar seals of a Katon jutsu. With a poof of smoke a large toad suddenly appeared in front of Naruto. The toad began to gather nature energy and transferring it to Naruto through a specialized seal. As Naruto's eyes molded into the familiar gold-slit red-outlined shape, he brought his hand up to perform his signature technique as Sasuke began to breath air to release his own jutsu.

"Fuuton: Rasenshuriken!"(2)

"Katon: Karyu Endan!"(3)

As Naruto's Rasenshuriken sprang into existence in his palm, it was splattered with toad oil, which was quickly absorbed into the spinning vortex. Naruto threw the huge matrix of chakra towards Madara, where it fused with Sasuke's Fire Release to create their special combination move: Hikigaeru no Shippuu no Bakuhatsu. (4)

The flaming highly-concentrated ball of chakra flew towards Madara until it vanished- and re-appeared about a kilometer to the northwest.

"BOOM!" The entire area around the spot where the attack had re-materialized had been torn to pieces in a blazing inferno of a hurricane. Naruto mentally palmed his forehead; he'd forgotten about the Juubi's space-altering effects. He realized that the only way to end this would be through close combat: and to do that he would have to find a way to seal his fellow jinchuuriki's reality-bending abilities. He nodded to Sasuke as cogs in his head started to turn. He would have to come up with a new seal; he hadn't expected to have to do something like this. But, after fighting for hours on this destroyed battlefield, her realized that it would be the only way. The blond ninja bit his lip; if he messed up even a little bit on a new seal, then-

Well. He'd just have to not screw up then.

Summoning a lengthy scroll from a tattoo on his wrist, Naruto bit his thumb and began drawing lightning-fast kanji on the paper. As he dashed toward Madara, he noticed Sasuke running up next to him. The raven-haired shinobi's Sharingan eyes had transformed into their noticeable Mangekyo shape. As the two friends ran towards the crazed Uchiha, the madman's face contorted as his body was suddenly racked by pieces of flesh tearing themselves off, leaking the chakra of the formerly dead demon out into the shape of a ball of compressed dark youki. (5)

Sasuke's left eye began to bleed as he shouted "Amaterasu!" (6) A huge firestorm of black flames appeared, heading towards Madara.

Naruto completed his writing and pressed his palm to the ground to activate his new technique. "Oni Shiiringu Kusari!" A chain wreathed out the scroll and shot towards Madara, blazing with gold brighter than the Sun.

The crazed Uchiha stood wordlessly as the ball of youki shot forward, aiming at the other two attacks.

The three techniques collided- and the shinobi world would never be the same.

Naruto convulsed in agony as his mind and body were ripped apart in an explosion of pure light and darkness. He raised his voice to scream, but no sound came out. Only the tortured screeches of the air around him were hearable, he could almost feel them as if they were tangible and he saw Sasuke writhing away from him and ohgodohgod make it stop-

An explosion of blinding light rocked the valley and when the smoke cleared, the canyon was empty.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Binding Seal: Demon. Summons a stream of blood-red characters in the guise of the Nine-Tailed Fox in order to swallow up and bind the opponent into submission. Obviously the collaboration of one blond Konoha shinobi and his furry friend. My personal creation.

Wind Release: Rasenshuriken. If you don't know what this is by now, you really shouldn't even bother reading past this point.

Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Missile. Used by Sarutobi in his battle against Orochimaru. It releases a stream of white-hot flame unsurpassed in temperature from the user's mouth.

Toad Gale Explosion. My own invention. I gotta say, it would be the ideal team move for Sasuke and Naruto…

Demonic Chakra. Basically, the stuff that forms the Fox Cloak whenever Naruto's pissed.

Once again, if you don't already know what this is…

Demonic Sealing Ring: Chain of Darkness. One final new jutsu; this is Naruto's spur-of-the-moment seal that he creates to try to deal with the Juubi's freaky space-time powers. Needless to say, it doesn't exactly go well…

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A/N: Welcome one, welcome all to the Sage of Seals' first ever fanfiction! I'd like to ask nicely that you all play nice in reviews (because everyone knows that they're the best way to get updates fast). So honestly, tell me what you think and where you think the story will go. Note: This IS a Time Travel fic, so if that isn't exactly your metaphorical cup of tea, then feel free to check out some other authors. I'd just like to apologize to anyone who may have seen this when I first posted it: I was just testing out the site's system and thus the entire prologue was not up. However, as you can see, it's all-better now! ;-) Finally, if anyone has an issue with my extremely disgusting Japanese or my original techniques, then please, please, tell me! It's always good to know when I have to correct something.

As for just to where and when Naruto and Sasuke are going…

Well, we'll just leave that for next week, shall we?

(Yes I know I'm sadistic)

Au Revoir!