The Never-ending Journey
A Naruto fanfic by Jetede
Summary: When his Konoha's destroyed, Naruto and Kyuubi decided to travel to multiple different realities. Searching for the perfect world, they both gained and gave much more along the way.
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A/N: I was watching Stargate SG:1 when I suddenly got this idea for the fanfic. It was the second time I watched the episode where 16 SG:1 teams from multiple realities got stranded on one base because of a deliberate wormhole effect caused by one of the alternate SG:1 trying to bring back a defense weapon back to their own universe/reality.
So I got the idea, what if Naruto and Kyuubi were doing the travel from one reality to a different one in order to find the perfect world for them? There are a lot of time-traveling Naruto fics in this site, and several different dimension or realities-related, but I don't think this particular idea has been used yet. I couldn't help it. I just had to pour this idea into writing. Don't worry, I haven't abandoned my other stories yet. In fact, I just updated The Demon King last night. I'm also in the process of writing the next chapter of Horizon. Bear with me, okay?!
Well, here goes. The story and plot development isn't by any means completed yet. So if you have any suggestions as to where you'd like the story to head to, by all means…please do write me the review. This is kind of my first attempt at writing something related to sci-fi. Hopefully you'll enjoy the story.
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A muffled groan was heard from within a small one-bedroom apartment in one of the lower districts of Konohagakure no Sato. Striking blue eyes fluttered open slowly. The owner of said eyes blinked his eyes several times before focusing on his surroundings.
'I'm in my old apartment,' Naruto thought.
Uzumaki Naruto, the jinchuuriki of Konoha, human sacrifice and demon vessel of Kyuubi no Kitsune, the strongest of all bijuus, was currently laying on the hardwood floor of his kitchen. Naruto could feel a dull throbbing in his head and around his wrists. He tried to get up from his position on the floor, trying to lift himself up and to support his body with his hands, only to wince and fell back down. His wrists hurt when he tried to put pressure on his hands.
Naruto looked down to inspect his arms and found traces of blood around said wrists. Correct that—lots of blood around his wrists! He looked around him and realized that there were even more blood pooling around his body on the kitchen floor.
'Damn. Are those all mine?' Naruto thought again. 'Kyuu, a little help here?' Not a few seconds after that, the blond jinchuuriki could feel the warmth of the demon fox's youki healing his body and providing him with extra strength. Small amounts of the red chakra were visible around his body.
'Thanks, Kyuu.'
'No problem, brat.'
Naruto tried lifting himself up again, being careful not to slip on the blood-soaked floor. He felt much better after Kyuubi gave him the youki. The pain around his wrists was now just a dull throb and his headache was almost gone as well.
'Wow. Look at all the blood. I wonder what happened to me in this reality.' Naruto pondered after he sat up, leaning back to the low cupboards behind him. 'Suicide attempt, huh? I think we got ourselves a bad one this time, Kyuu.'
'Hmmph, I can see that.'
It had been years since Naruto and Kyuubi made a pact with each other and declared a truce between them. Their Konoha and the rest of their Elemental Countries were destroyed after a major world war that involved all of the nations and also the Akatsuki. In theirworld, the remaining members of the wretched organization managed to gather and extracted all bijuus except for Kyuubi, and even succeeded in controlling their powers.
The alliance between the nations was rather weak at that time. Relationships between each country were strained politically.
Eventually, war broke.
One thing lead to another, and before anyone realized, the whole continent was involved. The Akatsuki took that chance to wreak havoc in the lands. They unleashed the eight bijuus' power within the five major hidden villages—knowing that destroying the military power of each nation means that it would be easier to conquer the rest of the country.
Then, they got a better idea. Why do it one by one, if they could take over the whole world in one move?
The Akatsuki unleashed all eight bijuus simultaneously. Konoha, being the strongest village at that time, got three bijuus at once. Naruto and the Konoha Twelve, Tsunade, Jiraiya, and the rest of Konoha nins were hard pressed trying to defend their village from the onslaught of the demons and the rest of Akatsuki minions.
It was a massacre.
Naruto was then forced to make a deal with the Nine-tails to allow him have one hundred percent access to his chakra during the war. Kyuubi reluctantly agreed since his jailor's survival also meant his own. In the end, they managed to push back and defeated all the other eight bijuus.
The war started when Naruto was sixteen, just a few months after he managed to bring Sasuke back to Konoha. It ended the very same day Naruto turned eighteen. The victory came with a really expensive price: everything was decimated. No one survived. The whole continent had become a huge graveyard in less than two years. Naruto was the only survivor of the war, everyone else died.
Kyuubi realized that his jailor was breaking down. With literally nothing to hold on to in life, it was just a matter of time before Naruto completely gave up. The fox couldn't bear to see the blond teenager suffer like that. He had witnessed Naruto's life for the past eighteen years. He admitted that his vessel was strong. Naruto was a survivor. Kyuubi actually grew to respect the kit. Sure, the fox wanted to live, however by that point of time, what's the use of getting free out of his cage when there's literally nothing outside? The lands were already destroyed in the war. The kitsune decided then to help the blond shinobi whom he had started to regard as his own kit.
The fox proposed another deal to Naruto. Naruto would release the seal that contained the fox, resulting in them merging as one. Kyuubi, however, would be able to retain his consciousness within Naruto so they could still communicate inside the boy's mind. In return, the fox would sacrifice all of his chakra to the boy, giving him full access to the youki whenever he needed it. Naruto wouldn't need to ask permission before he used the chakra since technically it would be his. Kyuubi, however, could help him push and regulate the chakra from within his body whenever Naruto was in trouble or unable to pull it out himself. This was actually very rare and would only happen if Naruto was on the brink of death and could not concentrate on chakra control at all.
At first, Naruto refused to do it. It was only until Kyuubi brought up the topic of alternate-reality dimension travel that he eventually agreed to the deal. Naruto actually ran into the fox's cage and gave him a big hug after Kyuubi explained everything. That night, for the first time in years, Naruto wept in relief and hope—that he would be able to see a living Konoha and his friends again.
That night also marked the beginning of Naruto's never-ending journey of alternate-reality travel. The night Naruto turned eighteen was the start of his new life.
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That was what brought them to this point of the story—where Naruto found himself within his alternate-reality younger self, laying on his kitchen floor, bleeding to death.
Naruto started to inspect himself as he carefully stood up. He ignored the blood-soaked orange jacket and pants and slowly trudged toward the bathroom to look at the mirror there. He stepped on a low stool in front of the sink to reach the high mirror and inspected his reflection. His blond hair was covered and matted down with his blood, dying it red.
'I'm guessing that I'm around six or seven in this world.'
'Seems about right, kit.'
'Gah! I'm so tiny. I'm a midget again, Kyuu!' The fox snickered in amusement from within Naruto's mind.
'Oh c'mon, kit. We've been doing this several times already. You'll grow taller soon.'
'I know, but I think this is the youngest one we've encountered so far. I wonder what happened to the Naruto in this world that would force him to try to commit suicide like that. Whatever it was, it must've been really bad.' Naruto commented dejectedly. 'Is he still in there somewhere, Kyuu? Or is he already—'
'He's still alive, don't worry.'
'Hmm…I see.'
'While you're accessing his memories, why don't you check around the apartment for more clues about where and when we are?'
'I'll do that after I cleaned up.' Naruto nodded to Kyuubi's suggestion.
The blond jinchuuriki closed the bathroom door and took off his clothes. He decided to take a warm shower to clean himself up from the blood. As he stood under the showerhead, he started to access the memories of the Naruto whose body he currently inhabited in order to find any kinds of information about this new world.
Kyuubi and Naruto found out that by using the reality/dimension-travel jutsu, they were able to move from one reality dimension to another as a whole. Basically what the jutsu did was to convert them into some kind of a sub-molecular being made out fully of only chakra, soul and consciousness, and enabled them to travel from one plane of reality to the next.
It was somehow similar to how Kyuubi existed inside of Naruto all those years. He existed as a conscious 'blob' of chakra behind the seal on Naruto's stomach, without a physical body. Technically, Kyuubi's physical body was that of Naruto's—although he did not have any kind of control over it—the seal made sure of that. Naruto's travel jutsu turned him into something similar like that—thus enabling him to 'escape' from one reality to the other without the constriction of a physical body. It's a rather complicated technique to pull off and even Naruto himself did not fully understand the whole scientific explanation to the process—but what mattered the most was that it worked in the end, so everything was fine.
Every time he moved from one physical body in one dimension to another, he would temporarily replace the original consciousness that previously occupied the body. Naruto would have full access to the original's memories; therefore he was always able to avoid suspicion from acting differently from his other self. It was actually kind of fun to act differently from his real self and following the original owner's personality instead.
At the beginning of their dimension-travel journey, Naruto felt uncomfortable with the whole idea of temporarily replacing his other self's real consciousness. It was like stealing another's life. Kyuubi then explained to him that in a way, Naruto was not intruding nor was he stealing anything from anybody, since technically it was himself. Kyuubi explained that although there may have been multiple different consciousnesses that exist throughout the different realities, they were all in essence, still Naruto, and that although there were different physical bodies, there's only one soul.
At that time, Naruto argued with the fox by saying that if there really was only one soul for all these different dimensions, then why was it that the rest of Konoha was still alive in that reality, while in his original one they were all dead. Kyuubi could only answer him with a cryptic sentence: 'Now that, would be the mystery of the universe, wouldn't it, Kit? Only God knows the answer to that.' In the end, Naruto stopped arguing with the fox and gave up.
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After shower and some memory-searching, Naruto looked around in his apartment for more clues. He found out that today was October 10. It was his seventh birthday.
'That explained the suicide attempt, I guess. The villagers probably went over the line and tortured my other self mentally, and physically, considering all these scars all over my body—and very badly too—that he could not take the pressure anymore. It was always the worst during my birthday.' Naruto sighed. 'The 'me' in this reality is really weak.'
'Well, that's about to change, now, isn't it, Naruto?' said Kyuubi.
'Damn right it is, dattebayo!' he laughed inwardly. 'Ne, Kyuu, I know we've never tried this before, but it is possible to wake my other self's consciousness while we're here, right? I mean, it would've been much better if instead of working on improving the Naruto in this world's life actively, like how we've always done it—we could work passively from within his mind.'
'Humm, I see what you mean. You want to help this kid from within, just like what I did to you, huh?'
'Kyuu, you never did help me in my childhood. You only taunted me constantly to release the seal, you overgrown furball!' Naruto retorted jokingly.
'Hey! I resent that! I helped you with my chakra, didn't I?'
'Pssh! Only after I demanded rent from you!'
'Hmmph!'
'But seriously though, will we be able to do that?'
'Well, it is possible, I think. In order to do that, we have to 'wake' your other self up. That means we'll have to search for the representation of your other self's consciousness within his mind. He's probably locked himself somewhere within one of the doors.'
'I guess we could do that later. Let my other self rest mentally in there. He's been through so much. Even the villagers in our reality were not this ruthless. Damn them!' Naruto complained in his mind. '—wait a sec—Kyuu, is that—?'
Naruto was currently looking at one particular memory bubble in his mind, while physically in the real world, he was sitting down on his bed, toweling his hair.
'Well I'll be damned! Who knows that the weasel actually have a heart.'
Both Naruto and Kyuubi were currently watching one of little Naru's memories from the year before. Lil' Naru was sitting under a huge tree in the forest just outside of the west wall of Konoha in a fetal position, his body bruised and bloody from recent abuse. It was raining and lil' Naru was shivering from the cold. He put his arms around his legs, trying to preserve his body heat as best as he could. That was when he felt someone approaching him. Naruto could feel his other self stiffened in fear of the approaching stranger.
From behind the tree he was laying under, slightly to the right, appeared an eleven-year-old Uchiha Itachi. He was wearing a chuunin vest around his standard Uchiha attire. Naruto and Kyuubi witnessed how Itachi slowly and carefully approached lil' Naru and eventually managed to coax him out of his defensive gesture, even if only slightly. The stoic Uchiha actually hugged and carried the small jinchuuriki away from the rain.
'Oh my God! I can't believe I just saw the Uchiha Itachi care for someone and that someone was my other self!'
'Well, this is an alternate universe; the Itachi in this world may not be as evil as the one we knew.'
Naruto sighed. 'I know. But, it's just so…unbelievable!'
Both jinchuuriki and bijuu stayed quiet for the next few minutes as they watched Itachi taking care of lil' Naru in his apartment.
'Ne, Kyuu. Why is it that we're able to witness these memories in 3-D? It's as if we're there inside the room or around the area as the scenes unfolded. I mean, we even 'materialized' within the 'world' and could actually walk around in it as we looked through the memories.'
'Humm, I believe it's because of me, kit. Although I've been inside you all this time, I was always aware from the beginning. I could see and feel what you felt from within, and because of my heightened senses, I was able to 'sense' what's happening around you. These senses somehow were then turned into a visual representation inside your memory. It's like watching a movie from an omniscient point of view basically,' answered the fox. 'The same thing should apply to my other selves. Since they're inside your other selves, we're able to watch the memories that way.'
'I see. That makes a lot of sense actually.' Naruto muttered in understanding. He continued skimming through the rest of lil' Naru's memories and witnessed how his other self was developing a sort of friendship with Itachi.
He felt a slight pang in his heart as he looked at their friendship. The Itachi that he knew of was evil and in a way, one of the main reasons as to why his world was destroyed. To see the weasel so kind and innocent in a way caused him some mixed feelings toward the elder Uchiha. However, it still made him wonder as to where the elder Uchiha brother were when lil' Naru attempted to kill himself.
Once again Naruto wondered how badly had the villagers treated lil' Naru if the Naruto of this world still tried to commit suicide although he had someone like Itachi to hold on to.
'Just what the hell did this Konoha actually do to my other self?' Naruto was mad. Even Kyuubi was moving restlessly inside his mind in reaction to the blond jinchuuriki's anger. Outside his body, Kyuubi's youki were leaking through from his tenketsu points, while the pupils of his eyes turned into slits and started to turn violet, going towards red.
'Kit. Calm down. Your chakra is spiking. You don't want to attract any suspicion toward yourself right now.' Naruto slightly calmed down after Kyuubi's reminder. He retracted his chakra and his eyes turned back to their original blue color while the pupils turned back to their rounded shape.
'Sorry about that, Kyuu-nii. I'm okay now.'
Not even a moment later, there was a knock on the front door.
'Shit! Did someone feel that chakra spike just now?' Naruto panicked. 'Kyuu, what should I do?'
'Calm down. It's probably just the old man checking in on you or something. Didn't that Sarutobi use to check on you when you were little?'
'You're right. I should probably get the door to avoid further suspicion.'
'That would be the wise move,' replied Kyuubi. In reality, however, the fox was frowning from inside Naruto. There's something about the chakra signature of the person just outside Naruto's apartment that felt familiar. It did not feel like the Sandaime Hokage's chakra though. Kyuubi was slightly worried.
Naruto unlocked the bolts on his door and opened the door slowly. He peeked through the small opening on the door to see someone he never expected to be there.
"Naruto-kun, are you alright? I felt your chakra as I was walking outside just now."
There, standing in front of his door, was none other than Uchiha Itachi in his ANBU attire. His weasel mask was hanging on one side of his face, exposing his obsidian eyes, sharingan inactivated.
Naruto could only stand there in surprise, gaping at the younger-looking Uchiha. He gasped as Itachi reached down and grasped both of his lower arms and turned them so his still scarred wrists were facing up. Naruto winced subconsciously since the flesh around them was still tender.
"Naruto-kun, what happened to your wrists?" Itachi asked again.
'Oh shit!'
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(TBC)
A/N: Well, there ya go: another Naruto fanfic from me. Tell me what you think about it okay? I would also appreciate it if you could give me suggestions about the different worlds Naruto and Kyuubi are going to travel into. This is going to be an alternate-reality dimension hopping story, so Naruto is not going to stay in one world. Your suggestions could heavily influence the flow of the story, so write me those reviews!
By the way, should I make this into ItaNaru? Tell me what you think, ok?!