Title: New, Yet So Old

Main pairing: Naruto/mm (slash, possibly non-graphic)

MY Inspiration: Naruto (all media forms, primarily Manga)

Disclaimer: This is my standard disclaimer; I don't own anything in regards to the sources of MYInspiration. All publically recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

All the characters, worlds, base concepts or general ideas are just a bit food for the writing bug. This story is pure fiction and is in no way meant to copy or reflect real life, events or people, should this happen then obviously it is pure coincidence.

Categories: AR (Alternate Reality, but still within the Naruto Shinobi World), Yaoi, Shonen-ai, Adventure, Romance, Martial Arts

Main warning: See author's profile for preferred pairing style.

Summary: Yes it's a back in time re-write of events from the Naruto manga and animé, but not an OMG I'm in the past kind of tale. Genin before he's twelve? Maybe! Super powers, um, how about the Nen concept from the HunterXHunter, as a new or foreign jutsu that Naruto learns. This story is not a cross-over. Slash pairings projected for this tale and more of a factual tale than character driven, so you've been warned of my writer's folly.

Speech Legend: (Standard speech legend, from here on this will not be repeated)

"Normal"
'Thoughts'
(…internal conversations, Kyuubi / Naruto…)

Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old

CH 1

Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old

The path to early independence for an orphan of Konoha is limited by the options available to learn. Not many were willing to accept the small blond boy as an apprentice, so his fall back and only option was the way of the Shinobi. It was a harder path than he'd thought at the time, but it was worth it in the end because he'd found precious people to care about and fight for.

They were the ones that allowed him to fight with everything he had every time he left the village. The common villagers, well some still saw him as the demon and not the person that housed the creature. Still during the course of his long life, he accomplished many things and had even been elevated to the rank of Hokage of his village.

So why was he now confronting another impossible enemy, seeking power and instigating wars among the Shinobi Tribes? The enemy didn't care. They wanted more power. They wanted to rule the lands with an iron fist and terror. Calling upon the past Kages of various nations, many abilities were absorbed from their supposedly unrecoverable corpses. The rule had been the one still alive at the end of it all, would be the one to triumph.

Uzumaki Naruto the Nanakagé of Konoha, the seventh Kage after the fall of Jiraiya the Toad Sage who was sixth Hokage after the Godaime failed during one of her medical procedures. She had died from exposure to an unknown disease she'd been dealing with. The eighth or Ha-chikage had been Konohamaru who died during the rise of yet another Shinobi war.

The Nanadaime was pulled from his well-deserved retirement to oversee this new war. His orders came from various parts of the world, as he competed with his enemy in gathering the abilities of his Kagé predecessors. The Shinobi fought the war in the only way they knew how, from the shadows. Many were killed and just as many were saved by these shadows.

The grave of the final Kagé was where the enemy and the Nanadaime had their last confrontation. The last ability was swallowed by Naruto and with it the inactive seal on his stomach burned. The pattern that had been with him all his life, even after that blasted demonic fox had been fully absorbed and was there still there as a reminder of his ostracism, his childhood pain, activated.

Naruto gasped and tore at his shirt. He called on all the elements, opening the path of the Sage and that's when he saw many ethereal paths. Paths he could have taken, paths he didn't take, paths to future loves, paths to lost loves and one single path that would destroy this world's enemy before it would be too late to correct the total destruction that his enemy had been planning.

He smiled, despite the pain that he was feeling at the moment. "Yeah," he said with golden eyes looking into the insane ones of his foe. "I'll take that path and you'll never rise."

He released the fires in the seal and his enemy screamed in defiance to that outcome. "It's too late," Naruto told them. "My precious people are calling for me to come home. You are finished."

The cage surrounded his enemy and then slowly collapsed inward and dwindled to a bare spot before completely evaporating. It left behind a charred spot on the ground and nothing else. The Nanadaime fell like a puppet without strings. There was no one there to bury him and his corpse became food for the beasts.

The old burnt seal was good for one more thing though. All the techniques that this Kage had learned during his lifetime were burned away too. His body was no good to those that seek Ninja techniques from the dead.

No Hunter of any Shinobi tribe could extract his skills.

Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old

In a small single apartment in a not quite nice area of Konoha Village a small blond boy, tossed and turned in his sleep, as though a nightmare had just come upon him. He sat up and gasped for air, his hand rested on the blood seal that had been a part of him for a long as he could remember.

He blinked and his eyes turned gold for a moment and then reverted to his normal sky blue.

He then stood up and walked with stiff movements because his poor limbs had seized during the night. He searched his medicine box for muscle cream and relaxants in order to relieve the terrible pain he was in.

Tears fell from his eyes as the looked out of the window and saw only four faces on the Kage monument of his former village. 'It worked,' he thought. 'I took the last path and best path for my people.'

"I never knew why they insisted on putting our heads up there," he said to himself. He mixed a couple of herbs in hot water and drank them down before smearing the cream on his arms first and then his legs.

"Looks like I'm going to have to do some extreme stretching before going back to sleep," he finished his task and chose a towel that was due to be washed to use. He laid it out on the ground and proceeded to stretch his neck, arms and legs using a mixed method of Yoga and Tai-chi. The towel helped keep the cream from becoming imbedded into his floor.

The mixed exercise was something that he discovered as he'd aged and he'd needed it in order to keep limber, if he still wanted to do most of the things he'd been used to doing in his youth. Now it was only a matter of ensuring that his new and that much younger body, plus stiff muscles were sufficiently warmed up to prevent a night of muscle cramps.

He felt several joints pop and then with one final stretch his back cracked in just the right places to render him boneless. "Ah," he sighed in pleasure at sensation. "Perfect, now to go back to sleep."

Naruto climbed back into his bed, rolled into the blankets like a sausage and slept so soundly that he actually missed class for the first time since he'd begun to attend the Ninja Academy at the age of seven. Students were permitted to miss a few classes based on injuries, but this was the first time that he'd missed because he was too tired to go.

He actually slept for twenty-four full hours and didn't realize that he'd missed the Genin exam. It was the first one he'd applied to and unfortunately, he was going to have to wait six months to try again. The students at the Ninja Academy could try to become Genin at the age of ten up until they turned thirteen years old, which was the age of most civilian apprenticeships. The Academy held exams for Genin every six months, depending on the number of students attempting the exam.

Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old

(...Well, well, well, isn't this an interesting development...) The old fox demon said looking down at the figure in front of him that kept shifting from boy, to teenager and to an aged grey haired, old man.

(...I don't really understand what happened...) Naruto said to the sneering fox. He shrugged and said (...Oh well, it looks I'll get to live my life again...) He made a few hand signs and the chakra belonging to the fox demon flowed into him. It was slow at first, but that was because the boy needed to make sure that the flow would work like he'd learnt in his past life.

(...What do you think you're doing?...) The fox snarled at him. He felt the loss of energy. He felt sluggish. It was almost like he'd been running through the forest for a very long time.

(...I'm doing what needs to be done...) Naruto said. (...The sealing technique was not meant to be used like this for so long. It's best that I fix this now while I still can before something happens like someone trying to forcibly extract you...)

(...Like anything has that kind of power...) The fox said.

(...There are places of power in this world. If the right number of people with an ability to concentrate for extended periods of time and have large chakra capacities… It these were to gather, then all confined Biju can be forcibly removed from their human hosts...) Naruto explained. (...Although that's not supposed to happen for a few more years and I do plan to make it very difficult for them...)

(...How?...) The foxed asked, but received no reply. That's when he noticed that the boy was no longer there. He lay down and curled his 'eight' tales around him. (...Gaki, I'll figure this out and as soon as I know what it is, you're going to be in a world of hurt...)

Naruto had only rolled over in his sleep, deepening his breath and opening the coils of his chakra system to absorb the demonic chakra that he'd pulled from the fox. It was only one tail, but it was one that the fox didn't remember ever having, as that was the effect of absorption and the concentrated hand signals that the boy had just used.

Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old

TBC...