A/N: Okay, the original version of this needed reworking, seeing as I penned it SEVERAL YEARS ago.
So its been fixed, improved, and rewritten to be better than before.
I'll say it now, this is a parody/crack fic. Only slightly serious.
Such is the way of the NGH or "Not Going Home" series.
If that's not your cup of tea, then I do apologize.
Its meant to be mad, silly and CHAOTIC.
I return my subjects! For any wondering, YES I have heard your pleas, and decided to present the beginning of the Not Going Home franchise. This, is that story. Not Today! Followed by Not Tomorrow, and so on.
Therefore, before reading this, I SERIOUSLY suggest you stop and read the other "Not" fics, first.
So, I've been going over reviews, and an anonymous reviewer said something that really resonated with me. I love to write. But sometimes, I feel that this gift owns me, rather than I, owning it. Its like a beast inside me, this urge to create, but I can't control it very well, which results in a LOT of new stories. So as of last night, and continuing throughout the week, I'm purging stories that won't be continued, or works that no one enjoys anymore.
Let me know which ones you feel should be continued, before its too late! Don't worry, many of the major ones will remain, but anything from 2008-2009 is likely going out the window with all the rest of the trash, never to be seen again. This may seem sudden I know, but I'm only purging the forgotten fics that no one cares for. Fear not, its not going to be immediate, but it WILL happen, I simply wanted to get this out as a forewarning.
This will be of very few new stories I plan to re-release, god willing. If I have an idea, I plan to make it a damn good one before I just toss it out there, as I devote myself to my other works, soon to number into the hundreds, and potentially dozens as I whittle them down. I need to reassess why I want to write, for the joy of it, and I can't do that by letting you guys down with old, crappy stories I wrote in my early days.
LET THE NEW ERA BEGIN!
...off we go! I proudly present the long awaited BEGINNING of this series...
...Not Today!
"So...this is different."
~?
Shot through the Heart~!
Howdy~!
It's me, Naruto!
No, no no, not the pansy-ass canon one!
The Not Going Home one! C'mon, ya'll know who it is!
A bit of the ol' boredom finally caught up with me this morning after I finished my last journey with...oh, what was it? Memory gets foggy sometimes. Ah! One Piece. I'll have to tell ya about that, sometime. Anywho, I'd just finished what amounted to years and YEARS of adventure on the high seas, writing down ma' thoughts and feelings and I thought to myself, hey! I never chronicled the most important adventure, yet! There's been so many of them since the b
And before ya ask, no I'm not talking about my adventures in Bleach.
No, not Dragon Age! That's not been told yet!
No, no, not how I met Saber!
NO not that time in Star Wars, either!
Do I really have to spell it out for you guys?
THE!
BEGINNING!
How all this "Not Going Home" stuff began!
How did a punk kid become the devilishy handsome, charming, ramen-loving blond we all know today? Who started this crazy dimension-hopping spree and all? What was that key event that took my boring life-and yes for those reading, I have looked into the canon life of a normal me When did it happen? Where? Why was it all brought it all about? How?
The events that brought about my ascension to godhood nearly turned reality itself inside out on multiple occasions and almost destroyed the very fabric of time itself. In all my years, I have never dared to repeat them hence, and frankly, I don't care to.
Ah, but I'm rambling.
Now, I'm sure you're all wondering how this STARTED am I right?
It happened right after a certain someone-do I really have to remind you who?-shoved a chidori through my heart-yes, HEART, not lung!-and left me to rot in a certain valley. You know, death isn't always instant, when you have a fox trying to keep you alive. For a good while, about three hours in fact, I lay there, my decimated heart trying to heal itself. Sucking in short, tiny breaths, fighting-CLAWING-to cling to the tattered thread of my life, or what was left of it, as the beast keeping me alive exhausted itself and withered away.
Not gonna lie, I was a stupid little shit, even back then.
Clueless, and stupid.
Zaeed once told me rage is a hell of an anesthetic, but back then I wasn't even angry at Sasuke for what he'd done. Just...stunned. He'd killed me. Me. His friend. Ally. Nakama. Without a second thought. And I couldn't accept it. The idea of dying was so foreign to me, so alien, that I simply couldn't see it happening to me. I was dying but my body, my chakra, it wouldn't acknowledge it. I even prayed a bit, towards the end. I vowed to myself that I would do whatever it took, that I would change things, if only I could live.
I prayed, I pleaded and I begged for a second chance, swearing to take nothing for granted ever again. I lay there, helpless, trapped beneath the rubble that bastard blasted me into, listening as Kakashi-sensei arrived, unable to call out. To speak. I could barely even breathe. Even after he gave up looking for me, I didn't despair. Somehow, someway, I still thought that I'd be saved.
Until I took my last breath.
Yup.
In short...
...I kinda died.
That Naruto died, too.
And with that death, his, my first death, everything changed...
...see for yourself!
(...0o0o0...)
Chakra is a funny thing.
It reacts to all manner of stimuli, bloodlines, even nature itself. Countless factors can change it, warp it, sometimes even alter it completely. Ponder that for a moment, if you will. How would the chakra of a jinchuuriki, a living weapon, react to a sudden influx of outside, foreign chakra? Moreso when that chakra is lightning-based and thrust through his heart. Bodily damage aside, let us take a loot at the internal. Even a Bijuu doesn't possess infinite chakra, infinite chakra...
...but if that chakra were poured into its host entirely, utterly exhausted, what might happen? If that chidori struck not a lung, but the heart, instead? Into his body? Nerves? His very soul?
What might it change?
EVERYTHING.
Alas, these thoughts were the furthest things from Kurama's mind at the moment.
For as Naruto lay there in the rain, trapped by stone, the fox was working furiously.
Desperately.
All of his chakra, all of his being, his very soul itself had been exhausted, spent in restoring the heart of his host. Crimson chakra boiled through his veins, working furiously to repair a savaged heart, broken and ripped apart. Every part of him, every fiber of his being was focused in this task, and somehow, miraculously, he succeeded. But at great cost. By the time he realized this, it was too late to take his chakra back-and it wasn't as if he rightly could-for his every effort only tore his host's body asunder.
He felt himself fading with each passing second and it frightened him more than anything else in nearly an entire age.
The cold chill of death sank a clawed hand into his spine, trailing fingers of ice down his soul in a frigid line.
He didn't know, and now, even those bitter thoughts escaped him.
Would he reincarnate? Or did this mean a real, true death?
Might he return in time, or was this his final end?
He was fading.
Falling...
"Damn kid," came his last thought," You'd better appreciate this...
And it was all for naught.
For all of his power, all his might, the fox failed to account for the electric current still coursing through his tenant's body. A curse-mark chidori was nothing to scoff at; it had ripped through their cloak like it was paper, and even now, he felt the twisted, tainted energies warring inside his host. Vying with his own energy, and the ruined remnants of the boy's own chakra, something new was born. Something strong. Purified. The Nine Tails felt the tiniest pang of regret, knowing he wouldn't be around to see this strange new chakra...
For the teenager's beleaguered heart however, it finally proved to be too much. The human body, even that of a ninja, could only take so much strain. And today, Naruto had met that strain and exceeded it.
Uzumaki Naruto died of a heart attack moments later, joining the fox in death.
For all of three minutes.
Then it happened.
Bzzt.
A tiny crackle of electricity coursed through him, a single, crackling line. Then another. Blue lines etched themselves across his body, growing louder and harsher with each successive pop. A stone rolled off his coffin of boulders, exposing an arm. Twitching fingers. Another still, a bit of stone tumbling away from the ruined wall under which he found himself trapped.
And...another?
Another still!
As the boy's body lay there, writhing, stones tumbled away, exposing his body within. His mouth opened in a silent, soundless scream his eyes rolled back to expose nothing but white. Distantly, he was aware of the fact that he was not yet dad but the pain, pain, pain oh the PAIN! It was everywhere, everyone, everything! Finally, when he was certain he could take it no more, these incredible agonies reached a crescendo, and a savage spark stabbed into his chest, bringing forth the impossible.
A bolt of lightning responded, stabbing forth from the heavens themselves!
That was all it took tor restart his heart.
Ba-dump.
"JESUS MOTHA~!"
With a bloodcurdling yelp Naruto bolted upright from his coffin of stone, clutching his heart. Gasping, his eyes squinted in the downpour, struggling to see. His clothes smoldered from the storm, a thin cloud of steam like hot coals buffeting his vision as he looked on. And into the silence, something hissed at him.
"You are banished from death."
Not the best words to wake up, to, I know.
"So. Not dead. Also. Hole in my chest. Neeaaaaaat."
When only the silence answered him, he managed a withering groan.
"Alright," he muttered, "So we got some Shadow of Mordor shit going on here...
Groaning, he tried to pull himself out of the strange, earthen depression in which he found himself.
That soon proved to be a mistake. His bare feet wailed in protest, screaming the moment they touched the floor of the valley, invisible pins and needles stabbing at them. Every footstep, agony. His knees cried out, buckling, unable to support his weight. Groaning he half stumbled, to his knees, gasping for breath. Even that nearly overwhelmed him. The panic almost consumed his mind, the claws of a great beast ripping at his thoughts, shredding them to pieces.
"I...I don't...what...where...
A thought carried him across the valley.
Just.
Like.
That.
He thought it and it happened, his body simply vanished and reappeared at the point of his destination, sending him tumbling to the floor.
Sparks skittered up and down his body like a living thing, as though he'd become a living amalgamation of lightning itself. His hand snapped up in a raw panic, and a bolt arced from his fingertips, ripping a savage rent in the floor of the valley. Naruto yelped, recoiling!
That was when he saw it.
There, in a thin basin of water left untouched by the battle, he saw his face.
His face was virtually unchanged, if you ignored the lines. Bright, blue lines etched into his skin, seeming to writhe and crackle as he looked on. Like living things. Eerie. A sparking hand rose, touching his cheek, and the marks recoiled, vanishing into his skin.
Not only those, but his chest.
He'd assumed his would to have healed yet upon closer inspection he realized it was quite the opposite; when he reached for his upper torso he felt a painful indent that seared his palms to the touch. Not quite a hole, but neither could it be called whole, either. As though his very flesh were aflame. Whatever had killed him was also sustaining him. Still, most of his body-corpse?-was surprisingly intact.
His skin and whiskers most assuredly were not.
Now a bright, bleached blue spike, the once blond mess stood upright and jagged, almost rigidly so. Even his eyes had been changed-warped, somehow now by the change-now an eerie neon blue instead of the glittering blue sapphires they'd been once before. The corners of his mouth twitched in disbelief, struggling for moments to make the words:
"What in the world...?!"
His yelp turned the ground to a smoldering crater beneath his feet, shaking the waters of the pool. Gazing at those wild, haunting eyes.
In that instant, something broke, deep inside his soul.
Then his reflection began to laugh back at him.
Madness followed soon thereafter.
A/N: Yup, there we go. Second chapter soon. As in TOMORROW soon.
Don't mind me, just in crippling pain...
AND THE INSANITY BEGINS!
So, in the Immortal Words of Atlas...
...Review, Would You Kindly?
(Preview)
Naruto laughed and stepped away, carefully, so as not to set off the trap. "Say, what."
Yellow eyes twitched murderously.
"Wha-
THOOM!
With a deafening crackle, the explosive tags on the arrow detonated, ripping Orochimaru to pieces. Bits of blood and gore rained down in every direction, but the former blond barely spared it a glance. Pranks would be on the list later but for now, NOW now, was the time for a reckoning. After all, he had to thank him! Thank him for this gift!
"Ah, priceless...now...Sasuke-kun...where are you~?"
He thought he heard a whimper from the next room.
"Bingo!"
"There's a hole in your chest!"
"I noticed!"
"But you promised...
"Yeah. I did. Guess what, sweetheart? He killed me! All bets are off."
"Right, usurping God. I think I'll make that the end goal."
"Are you insane?!"
"No, just emotionally numb. Why?
"When you've died once, you don't take life as seriously."
"Shouldn't...shouldn't it be the other way around?"
"How the hell would I know?"
"You're literally surrounded by water. I'm lightning. How did you think this would end?"
"Well. That's not fair at all."
R&R~! =D