The Wrath and Redemption of the Kyuubi no Kitsune

By: EDelta88

Rated M for language, violence, and because I said so

Insert Disclaimer Here

Background and Beginning Notes:

This one is actually a challenge from my forum by the same title. It came to me one day when I was itching for time travel fics, did a few searches and... wtf?

"No one has had Kyuubi go back by himself? Seriously? With the number of different ways he apparently knows to send Naruto (Genderbent or otherwise), Hinata, Sasuke, Sakura, Ino, Kakashi, Itachi, Kushina, Minato or any of the other little humans back he has never just gone back on his own? This is... UNACCEPTABLE!"

So yeah, once I calmed down I posted it as a challenged, talked it over for a few days then set it on the back burner for a few months. Then, low and behold, a few weeks ago I hear this song on the radio that, for whatever reason, clicks with the fic and I go nuts for couple hours. After some refinement and tweaks, this was the result.

Enjoy...

Prologue

It was over...

After everything they had been through, everything they had strived for, it was all coming to an end. They had fought for so long. They had come so far. They had been so close!

So very close...

But, in the end, close had not been close enough. Naruto's training had been far too little. Their new found partnership had come too late. Their enemies had been far too prepared. They had fought... and they had lost.

Their luck had finally run out.

The ritual was beginning now. He could feel it. The pull on his chakra as that accursed statue started to consume him. Like as if he were being crushed at the bottom of the ocean while being slowly ripped apart. They were taking him away... away from the world the Sage had left him to and back to that thing he had been before, away from himself... away from her. They would take him away and Naruto would die. They were going to kill his friend.

This was... unacceptable.

They could take him back. They could wipe out his personality and recreate the Juubi. They could cast their stupid illusion. They could raze the world to ash and cinder. What did he care? They could take everything else, anything else, but they could not have her! They would not take the only person he had ever given a damn about! He would not allow it!

And so he fought. For the only person he had cared about since the days of his creation, Kurama fought like he like had never fought before.

But it wasn't enough.

He was Kurama, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, first born of the Tailed Beasts, the favored child of the Sage of Six Paths. He had over a thousand years of experience and near limitless power. He was one of the most dangerous beings ever to walk the face of the planet! But it wasn't enough. That damnable statue was winning. Madara was winning.

And it infuriated him...

In the confines of his container's mind Kurama thrashed; he roared and struggled against the inevitable, enraged by his own weakness. This fight was over and he knew it. It had been lost long ago. Long before the little shinobi had united. Long before Naruto had faced Pain. Long before that insolent brat had first come to him and demanded power. He couldn't win. Not here. Not now.

But it was not over... not if Kurama had something to say about it. It would not end like this.

He had come to far, gained too much, for it to end like this!

Kurama grit his teeth, pulling with every fiber of his been and, just for a moment, managed to halt Madara's ritual.

He would not allow it to end like this!

So, with a final roar of defiance, Kurama turned the full might of his being on the space in front of him, pushing, tearing, willing the universe to bend to his will, and thrust his claws forward into reality itself...

And brought existence as he knew it to an end.

"When you fight to protect those precious to you. That is when you become truly strong." -Yuuki Haku

Chapter 1: Kurama's Wrath

No one was sure what had happened. One moment the night was silent, cool, and peaceful.

Then the Kyuubi had appeared at the gates, terrible and enraged. It had moved closer, unhindered, cutting a bloody swath through the defenders that came to stop it until it came to the mighty walls of stone that surrounded Konoha. It paused, only for a moment, then it crashed through the towering fortifications as easily as a child would fall through rice paper.

Ninjutsu washed off it like water off a duck's back. Genjutsu found no hold. Weapons and taijutsu were less than useless.

It was a hopeless battle, already all but lost.

Then, from somewhere beyond the Hokage monument, an unholy roar louder than anything heard in living memory shook Konoha to it's very foundations as something rushed toward the village. A moment later all light from the moon vanished as an enormous shadow sailed over Konoha and crashed into the Kyuubi with a sound like thunder, driving it away from the village with the force and fury that not even the strongest of summons could hope to match.

And all around the village, Konoha's defenders froze in shock as they stared in wonder and confusion at the sight before them.

"What in all the hells..." Sarutobi Hiruzen whispered from the pathetic ruins of the walls that had protected his village for over a hundred years, Enma hanging limply at his side in the form of a hyoinbo as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

A second Kyuubi, battered and enfeebled, had joined the fight...

Moments Earlier...

For a split second Kurama struggled against the fabric of the universe, holding his existence together by the barest of threads as he focused on his goal with a single minded intensity that could only be described as some kind of temporary insanity and then...

Then he was falling out of the sky, his abused body crashing into the ground and tumbling into the trees with a resounding crash.

'Wait... trees!' His eyes going wide, Kurama leaped to his feet, his eyes swiveling in every direction. Trees! Stars! Mountains! Rivers! He was out! He was- 'It worked...' he realized, staring around in awe. It had actually worked! Somehow, by the grace of something, it had worked!

Where was he?

When was he?

Throwing out his senses he took the measure of the area around him, feeling, searching. He was in Fire Country, somewhere just east of Konoha and he could feel...

'Fear...' he thought, his eyes fixing on a point in the west where he knew his container's home lay. He could feel panic, hysteria, anger, but most of all there was fear in Konoha. Fear like he had felt the night when...

Kurama's eyes went wide.

It was like the night Naruto had been born. The night Tobi had ripped him from Kushina's seal and set him on that pathetic village. The night everything went wrong...

'Perfect...' Grinning in unrestrained triumph, Kurama barreled forward with unimaginable speed. Weakened though he was, he closed the distance between his previous position and Konoha within seconds, roaring a battle cry as he coiled to leap over the village; all the while gaining a progressively clearer image of the village through his empathy. What he found as he leaped into the air toward his past self surprised him. Even as he crashed into the other Kyuubi he felt... nothing. Where he should have been able to feel a ball of anger, hate, and frustration struggling against the power of Tobi's sharingan there was an empty void.

But that couldn't be right. There should have at least been... Scowling, Kurama shoved those thoughts aside for the moment and focused on the task at hand. He had staggered his opponent, he had the advantage.

Now he had to press that advantage.

Ducking low, Kurama drove his shoulder into the other Kyuubi's chest, lifting its forepaws off the ground and throwing it further away from Konoha before rushing forward and slamming into its exposed flank.

The other Kyuubi roared, taking the hit and rolling to its feet but still Kurama felt nothing from it.

Rushing forward like he had before, Kurama lowered himself again as if to perform the same tackle when the other Kyuubi dodged to the side attempting to flank him.

Kurama was waiting.

Planting his forepaws Kurama torqued his hindquarters to bring seven of his tails into the path of the other Kyuubi's head even as the other two snaked out to snare his opponent's forepaws.

'He doesn't move like me,' Kurama observed as he completed his spin, dragging the other Kyuubi forward and off balance. Even when under Madara or Tobi's control he had still been himself. So... 'Why doesn't it move like me?' he wondered as he brought one of his forepaws down to deliver a devastating blow to his counterpart's skull only for it to release a half formed and hastily constructed Imari into his chest, throwing him into the air.

Roaring in pain, Kurama road the blast, twisting his body through the air so that he came down facing his counterpart as it crossed the battlefield at him, its eyes ablaze with the sharingan that controlled it.

And still he felt nothing. It was completely empty. Devoid of feeling or emotion. Like...

'Like a soulless husk...' Kurama realized even as his eyes grew cold and calculating, a low snarl rumbling in his chest as he began to circle, his battle fogged mind working a mile a minute. 'Soulless...' Yes. Yes, that would make perfect sense. It did not move like him because it wasn't him. It did not have any emotions because it didn't have any. It felt empty because it was empty.

His eyes narrowed further, his keen gaze never leaving his empty shell as they continued to circle each other. Unfortunately, husk or not, the puppet with his skin was still a threat while Tobi controlled it and possibly still a threat after Naruto's father severed that control. A biju with his level of strength with no mind of its own? At best it would act on the nature of his chakra and go on a berserker rampage, which would simply cause him a great deal of trouble. At worst...

At worst, without a mind to hold it together it would explode and wipe out everything for hundreds of miles in every direction.

'This is not good,' Kurama decided. He had now lost the initiative and, while this... thing, may not be as skilled as him, he was severely weakened from his romp through time and the war before that. He could not afford to stall in hopes of that annoying blonde meddler. He needed to end this quickly. But killing it wouldn't work. Not even biju could kill biju, gods knew he'd tried to kill Shukaku more than once. But if he dispersed it while there was no mind to control the chakra it would be the same as if-

'Wait...' Kurama thought as an idea occurred to him. There might not be a soul to anchor his younger self but his soul was here. 'That might work...' he thought. It was a soulless mass of chakra. More specifically, it was a soulless mass of his chakra. Up until this point he had been treating a separate biju but it really wasn't. It was more like one of Naruto's Kage Bunshin, a construct of his chakra. The mechanics were a little different but...

Kurama grinned cruelly to himself. He had a plan now. He could win.

Reaching out with his tails he grasped at the debris around him, picking up enormous chunks of upturned earth and ripping trees older than the hidden villages up by their roots, hurling the missiles at his counterpart as he gathered the chakra for for an Imari of his own. All the while, he continued to circle, stepping carefully as he continued to watch the puppet bat away the incoming missiles like annoying flies. He knew they wouldn't do much damage but that wasn't the point. He needed an opening, it didn't have to be much. Just something...

'There!' he thought just as a particularly large chunk of rock struck the husk in the snout, stunning it.

In that brief moment of distraction, Kurama belched an enormous gout of flame across the battlefield at the husk, engulfing his opponent in chakra fire and, more importantly, completely obscuring the space between them.

A moment later the other Kyuubi barked, releasing a pulse of chakra that dowsed most of the flames as it turned to face Kurama.

But Kurama was already gone.

Then, before the enthralled Kyuubi could even think to move, Kurama fell from the sky, driving his opponent into the ground with the force of a meteor even as he released a fully formed Imari into his opponent at point blank range.

Sarutobi's eyes went wide. "Brace yourselves!" he roared, ducking for cover and channeling chakra into every part of his body touching solid ground.

Not a second later the world turned a blinding white as a tremendous explosion rocked the landscape followed almost immediately by a shockwave that sent any shinobi caught out in the open flying, even with the chakra most of them were all using to anchor themselves.

Then the world was silent.

"By the gods..." Sarutobi whispered, staggering to his feet as he felt a steady trickle of blood leaking from his ear.

Where there had been two Kyuubi, the enfeebled one stood alone, panting in the middle of an ever shrinking swirling miasma of vile chakra.

"Orders sir?" one of the ANBU asked, his voice steady despite his obvious unease as the defenders watched the Kyuubi's wounds knit shut before their eyes as the rest of its body filled out leaving it looking healthier by the second.

"...Stand by for evacuation protocols, Captain," Sarutobi commanded. This new incarnation of the Nine Tails defeated a healthy and rested form of itself while at a significant disadvantage, if it chose to turn its fury on them now...

But, much to the amazement, it didn't. Rather than attack them, once the Kyuubi had finished absorbing the chakra cloud, it appeared to pause for a moment and then walked off in an apparently random direction, ignoring them entirely as it made it's way toward the northeast.

Sarutobi frowned, staring after it. "Captain!" he barked. You and your squad are with me. The rest of you, begin triage and repairs!" he ordered before leaping into the forest, a full squad of ANBU hot on his heels. 'What are you doing...' he wondered as he sped after the strongest of the tailed beasts.

Meanwhile...

'Where are you Naruto...' Kurama wondered, his scarlet eyes scanning the landscape as he stretched out his senses, searching for his jinchuuriki.

End Notes

So a few of you likely noticed that this is a FemNaru version of the scenario. This is because I planned on it eventually being FemNaruxKurama somewhere down the line with Kurama eventually coming to the realization that his feelings for his container are not as platonic as he thought blah blah blah learning what loves is yatta yatta yatta you get the picture.

Honestly, I'm rather happy with how this has turned out and will probably be working on it in one form or another. At the very least I'm extending Kurama's fight scene because it was surprisingly refreshing to write a fight between biju.

If you have questions, comments, or critiques please toss me a review. Otherwise I hope you enjoyed the Drabble and, as always, if you want to take this up as a challenge PM me for further details.

-Delta