Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction that borrows characters and themes from the Naruto manga series. No profits are being made from the creation of this piece of writing whatsoever.

Prologue

In the distant past shinobi made constant war on one another, resulting in one Hidden World War after another. However, after several generations of careful preservation of the shinobi gene pool for the purposes of producing stronger and stronger bloodlines, things began to take a turn for the worse. Eventually, shinobi women were rendered sterile, the chances of successfully producing children between shinobi shrinking to infinitesimal percentages, until finally the slow extinction of ninja and their kind began to play itself out.

It was at this point that the shinobi community as a whole finally started to set aside most of their differences to begin seriously working toward the preservation of their kind. The greatest minds of the shinobi world collaborated for decades in an attempt to rejuvenate birth rates within their community, eventually resulting in what would preserve the future of all shinobi: Z.

Z: a mutated chromosome occurring in less than 1% of all shinobi, which allows for successful childbearing. After the discovery of this mutation, extensive effort was put into the careful preservation and breeding of those carrying the Z chromosome. Eventually this effort resulted in the slow recovery of the Hidden World, but its structure was greatly changed by the necessary preservation of its only source of proliferation, resulting in the creation of "The Hive System", which governs ninja society today.

One.

A lone silhouette basked in the light of a sky afire in bittersweet hues of apricot, sardius and gold, as the sun finally went to ground, heralding the end of another long work day. All around the still form tall grasses swayed in the slightly cool Autumn breeze.

"Out here again, huh? I knew you would be."

The voice that called out to said figure was quiet and low-key, much like its owner, but was still enough to startle the youth who had been gazing so intently at the sunset. Said figure turned around jerkily to regard the source of the voice, squinting harshly into the relative shade directly behind him, his eyes having long ago become accustomed to the brilliance of the sky at dusk.

"Gaara? Is that you?" the boy called softly into the darkness, a little dazed after having been so abruptly interrupted from his revery.

"Yes, it is I," came the flat reply, as a somewhat smaller figure, a rather solemn looking redhead, calmly approached where his friend sat atop a slight rise in the terrain, "Who else would it be?"

The other boy smiled a little impishly in response and scooted over slightly to reveal as space on the rumpled work jacket that he was sitting on, gently patting it in indication that his friend should come sit next to him.

"Actually, the other day one of the foremen noticed I was missing and came to give me an earful," he admitted, a hint of a grimace tingeing his smile at the memory of the encounter.

"And yet here you are again. Your actions are very illogical, Naruto," the redhead observed flatly, taking a seat. His tone was neither scolding nor condescending, merely observant. Gaara was known among their cell for being one of the most collected and objective, almost to the point of being cold, but Naruto found his flat affect endearing. He was neither judgmental, nor patronizing. He simply was.

"Heh, not that I need you to remind me, but thanks," the now openly grinning youth replied, "What made you decide to come out and join me?"

"You know that I have no intention of joining you in your...musing. I was merely concerned when I noticed your absence," Gaara answered, pausing briefly to search for an appropriate word to quantify what it was that Naruto did when he shirked off his duties to come here and stare contemplativelyat the sunset.

"Musing?...Hah, yeah I guess you could call it that," Naruto replied, running a hand through his brilliant golden hair, "I'd say its more like daydreaming if anything though."

"Daydreaming...why do you come to this place to...to dream? Can you not dream at night when we go to rest?" his smaller companion pondered aloud, "We should complete our daily tasks as efficiently as possible in order to make work lighter for everyone in our cell. Is there not enough time to dream at night when our work is complete?"

"Well, yeah...I guess I could wait until work is over, but..."Naruto gnawed his lower lip a little as he debated whether to spill to Gaara what It was that had been eating at him lately. It wasn't that he was afraid his friend, his closest friend really, would misunderstand him. Rather, he did not want to belittle Gaara's point of view. However, not one to keep things to himself, the blonde finally decided to bounce his thoughts off of the other boy.

"See, the thing is, I know its important that we do our work, and I know it takes all of us to make things efficient and stuff like you say," Naruto began, glancing a bit hesitantly to his friend for signs of his reaction,"But sometimes I feel like I just...don't...want to work anymore. Like I don't belong here, or that there are other more important things that I should be doing. Something...else."

As expected, Gaara's dark-rimmed eyes widened slightly at this revelation. Not wanting to do one's work was absolutely unheard of. For Drones such as themselves, it was their sole purpose in life, the thing that gave significance to their very existence.

The infrastructure of the Hive, the place they called home, was such that Drones like Naruto and Gaara provided the manual labor that was crucial to their society's survival. If the Hive's social structure were like a pyramid, then they were the base. There were more Drones than there were people in any other social stratum within the Hive, and without them working diligently day in and day out, the structure would simply crumble in on itself.

Of course everyone in the Hive had their role to play, not just Drones. For each and every member of the Hive their lifelong roles, as well as their day-to-day objectives were guided by digital entities, called NAVs – personal computer interfaces which accompanied members of the Hive through every step of their daily lives from the time they were born. One's NAV was an essential part of one's existence, as it was connected directly to the Hive's central control system, which synchronized the movements of all of its members constantly in order to maintain the essential balance that allowed them to function as one efficient unit, much like the insects from which their social system's name was derived. Their society had taken this form ever since The Fall, several generations ago.

To be even slightly dissatisfied with one's role in the Hive was unprecedented. From birth they were instilled with deep understanding of their importance in the scheme of things – how the Hive could not function properly without each and every one to perform their roles. One was raised to be proud of their position in the Hive, as it was what made each individual part of the whole and gave their otherwise insignificant lives meaning.

For these reasons, it was only natural that Gaara looked absolutely taken aback at what he was hearing. If the situation hadn't been so serious Naruto might have laughed at the way shock had distorted his ordinarily staid friend's features.

"Something...else? Something else, Naruto?" the redhead repeated, as if hearing the phrase for the first time ever, "Such as what? What else is there?"

"I-I dunno, I just...feel it, you know?"

"No, I don't know Naruto," Gaara answered frankly, shaking his head as if to clear it, "This is serious. Have you consulted your NAV about what exactly this feeling you've been having means? Surely there is some explanation for it."

"Well that's the thing. See, my NAV, it's been...acting kind of strangely lately actually," answered the blonde, shifting his weight from side to side a bit anxiously.

"Strangely? In what way?"

"It speaks to me differently from how it used to, and it says...It claims that it has a name," Naruto confessed, lowering his eyes to his lap. This was the one thing he hadn't intended to bring up at all, but the horse was definitely out of the barn now.

"It calls itself KYUUBI."

That night, after they returned to their housing units, Naruto lay awake far past lights out, staring at the backs of his eyelids as he went over recent events from within the solitude of his mind.

The walk back from the fields had been a very quiet one. He was sure that Gaara had not been giving him the silent treatment on purpose. Rather, the words that he had spoken to his friend had been so shocking and disconcerting that the redhead was at a loss for words, and had gone dumb in his shock and disbelief. No doubt he was somewhat concerned to realize that Naruto had been keeping these concerns to himself for such a long time.

As usual they had taken their evening meal together, but that was where the normality ended. That evening Naruto had been as quiet as his redheaded companion during dinner, when normally he would be joking around with his work-mates from their labor cell. Instead, he had slipped into his own inner world, musing over the strange things that his NAV had been telling him of late in an uncharacteristically brooding manner.

Before, his NAV had been just like everyone else's in every way. It provided him with all the necessary information for life in the Hive from day-to-day: What date it was, the current time, the temperature outside their living quarters, how far into the harvesting or planting season they were, when his labor cell would be allowed their next recreational break, where his cell would be working that day and the next, and so on. NAVs each took their own form, and were visible only to their handlers, but they all had the same general characteristics – they took on an animal form familiar or pleasing to their handler, spoke in either a male or female voice depending on the handler's preference, and had no particular name, just "NAV". One's NAV was assigned to one at birth, as it was essentially a chip implanted in the body that contained all of one's personal information. A NAV was one's closest confidant: part parent, part teacher, and part secretary.

However, lately Naruto had noticed his NAV behaving strangely. It spoke with its own affect, unlike the flat, serious manner he was accustomed to. It had given itself a name, "KYUUBI", and it insisted that Naruto call it by this name rather than the generic "NAV". More noticeable than that though, was that its appearance had begun to change.

Naruto's NAV had always been a fox. Its intelligent, pointed features and large triangular ears had always been dear to him somehow, and he could remember wishing that he could cuddle up to it when he was a small child. Its brilliant reddish fur, though a hologram, had always appeared just that soft to the touch.

Lately though, his NAV seemed to have grown somewhat larger in size than what he could remember, its vulpine form significantly bigger than what he had been taught to associate with the general form of a fox as a child. And what was more, at some point it seemed to have sprouted a second tail.

He hadn't taken notice of it right away, as his NAV's appearance had been as familiar to him as the shape of his own palm since as far back as he could remember. He hadn't really looked at it in a good while until then. However, sometime around the beginning of "the strangeness" as he had dubbed it, Naruto had noticed not one, but two fluffy tails bobbing unobtrusively behind his NAV.

However, even more disconcerting than either of these changes were the changes in his NAV's behaviour.

Naruto was quite sure that the directives that his NAV had been issuing him lately were distinctly aberrant from what was the norm. They weren't anything too outrageous really, just...strange.

Sometimes KYUUBI would say odd things, like:

[Look at the sky, Naruto. Really look. Doesn't something seem wrong to you?], or [Do you know why it is that you have to work constantly like this? Think about it. If you're here working all day, then what are they doing up there in the upper strati?], and [Why aren't you up there, Naruto?]

Or more recently: [All we would need to do is find away up there. We could take this world, Naruto.]

For the most part when he questioned his NAV's suggestions, it would acquiesce and allow him to do his work, but lately the things that it told him were starting to make more and more sense.

For instance, why did Drones lilke himself and Gaara have to work all the time. Was that really all there was to this life? What did the people in the upper strati do? Why was it him down here and not them? Was working day in and day out really all that they were good for?

And most importantly...why did the sky seems so odd looking to him lately. It was though if he concentrated hard enough he could see right through to the other side. And what was more, he actually wanted to. Wasn't there some way that he could make it happen? He felt like he had the power to somehow. He just needed to figure it out.

[And now you're using your brains little fox. Sleep now and sleep well. You're going to need it.]

That night, as he thought about the sky, its overly bright, downright artificial seeming luminescence, Naruto received the first words of praise he had ever heard from his NAV. It was strangely pleasing.

It was a few weeks later on a particularly ordinary Friday afternoon that everything clicked into place.

On that day, Naruto had actually completed a full day's work for once without slinking off to daydream in the far fields as he had been prone to do more and more as of late. KYUUBI had been absent from his thoughts since early that morning, presumably off retrieving some information or other that he deemed necessary to his handler's "education" as he called it.

Lately the fox-formed NAV had been disappearing from Naruto's mind more and more often. The blonde had never heard of a NAV doing any such thing before, but lately had come to accept that his KYUUBI was just different. It wasn't necessarily a such bad feeling, this feeling like he was special somehow.

Whatever the case, KYUUBI would go off to collect various information, and return in the evening to share his findings with Naruto. He showed Naruto all kinds of things at night while he lay in bed: clips of videos, information on the Hive and its history, fairy tales and legends from long before the time of the Hives, and all manner of things. For the most part Naruto found it all incredibly fascinating, but to be honest he didn't really understand why it was that KYUUBI was doing all this. What purpose could its actions possibly serve?

Until today.

He had completed his work for the day, and was just about to head back to quarters when he happened to glance up. Expecting to see the usual over-bright blue sky he was accustomed to, instead he was completely taken aback by the disturbing sight that he was confronted with directly overhead.

The only word that came to Naruto's mind was "gray". The sky was completely gray.

And not just any gray either. It was an ugly, dark metallic gray that stretched over the entire land as far as he could see, broken only by the appearance of what seemed to be large fluorescent lights descending here and there from the murky ash colored ceiling far overhead.

It was almost as if there was no sky. How the hell had he never noticed something like that before?

In that moment Naruto was overcome with a deep uneasiness, that soon blossomed into fear. The reason the sky above had struck him as so strange before was that it wasn't a sky at all – it was like some kind of an illusion. Was everyone else he knew equally aware of what was looming just overhead, or had they failed to notice this glaring discrepancy in their realities?

The blonde glanced tentatively around himself at the other Drones heading back to their respective living quarters. None seemed to notice that he was standing stock still in the middle of the field. None of them spared so much as a glance up at the...the thing above them.

Trembling slightly Naruto took another glance up, as though the terrifying sight he had just taken in might have somehow disappeared, but he was met only with disappointment.

He wanted to tell somebody, anybody, what he was witnessing, but something inside told him that was a bad idea. Gaara had already headed back to their shared quarters, probably already washing off in preparation for dinner, which left him alone. Instead of going to find his friend however, Naruto took off as furtively as he could for the far fields, which he had now come to think of as something of a sanctuary – a place where he could think in peace. He didn't trust himself not to fly into hysterics if he went to find his red haired companion right this moment.

The blonde tried to calm himself down once he was far enough away from his fellow workers, but there was nothing for it: Naruto was scared out of his mind.

The very sky, something he'd taken completely for granted in its omnipresence, was not what he had thought it was. And the more he thought about it, the more obvious it became that the entire world that he knew, everything around him, was equally as artificial. KYUUBI had tried to show him, had shown him all sorts of video clips of nature – forests, waterfalls, beaches, deserts, mountains – none of those places anything like the place where he lived. He had just never found it in himself to put two and two together.

He had never felt anything too amiss in his surroundings before, but with this new revelation, suddenly all around him it was too silent. No tiny insect voices stirring in the field, no birdsong overhead in the mornings, and no lonely animal howls at night. All around him there was...nothing. Nothing but him, the other Drones, and the fields where they worked.

Everything was so so empty seeming, and he felt like a complete idiot for never having thought about it before.

Was this why KYUUBI had been so intent on getting him to pay attention to the sunrise and sunset all the time? But why? And more importantly how was he supposed to go back to his life as if nothing had happened when he now knew what a lie everything around him was? What human could live without a sky overhead?

Overwhelmed by the abrupt changes to his awareness and the sudden foreignness of the world he had once known, the blonde boy sank to his knees and began to cry pitifully. Nothing made any sense at all anymore. Everything he'd been taught since childhood, was it all just lies to keep him a content and productive worker?

[It's done.]

KYUUBI's deep, male voice roused him from his pathetic state then, startling him so badly that he nearly jumped out of his own skin.

"KYUUBI? What the hell's going on? There's something wrong with me! With everything! What did you do?" Naruto had never known anger at his NAV before – had never known true anger before at all really – but now he was feeling very betrayed and generally distressed and in his mind KYUUBI was to blame.

[Be glad. I've found us a way out. It's time to leave this place, Naruto.]

"Wha-?"

However, his cry of confusion barely had time to leave his mouth before a new voice, this one from outside his head, called out to him.

"Uzumaki Naruto?" a low, gentle female voice rang out from behind him, effectively cutting him off before he could ask his NAV any further questions. Naruto whipped around to face the speaker, and he was greeted with three women in flowing white robes. The one who had spoken stood at the forefront, short dark hair framing her small, sharp features in a way that made her look very serious.

"Y-yeah? Who are you?"

"We've come for you Naruto," one of the women behind her, one with long red hair and soft brown eyes, answered, as though that were all the explanation necessary.

"For me? Wh-where are you taking me? Why?" he queried a bit shrilly, increasingly overwhelmed by the quick turn of events.

However, none of the women seemed perturbed by his frightened reply. Instead all three of them dropped to one knee in unison, each placing their right hands over their hearts as they lowered their heads in reverence.

"Uzumaki Naruto, esteemed carrier of the Z chromosome, we have come to escort you to the world above."

Notes:

So here I am, throwing myself back into the world of fanfiction. It's been far, far too long I say. Now that I have the time, I've decided to work seriously on finishing up what I've started. Most of my works will remain on pause for the time being, as I've decided to pour most of my focus into completing the two fics that I have done the most work on so far – namely this one and "Clockwork", which I really really want to finish up sometime in the very near future. This fic is up there as well though, as I really like the premise for it, and have been meaning to write something with a more mature theme for a while now. Fufufufufu~

Anyway, I'm going to try for shorter chapters with this story in order to get them posted quicker. Wish me luck!

Comments, thoughts, reviews and the like are welcome as usual. I'm just sorry I didn't start working on this one sooner!

-hachibachi