A/N: I was sitting there trying to finish the next chapter of Parthenogenesis when this idea suddenly ran into my head. The ideas kept coming and coming, so I grabbed an old notebook and started writing and writing. This is what it came out to be:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Warnings: Rated M for strong language, graphic violence, future limes/lemons, MALE/MALE! SasuNaru.

Demon of Redemption

By: Tiki Rane Gobell

Chapter 1: The Most Costly Mistake

The rain was falling from the dark clouds above relentlessly. Wave after wave of water was caught by the winds to be thrown sideways into faces and buildings, not that there were any of either out in Konoha that night. Lightning ripped through the sky seeming to shatter it into sharp edges. Thunder could be heard, even over the splitter-splatter of the rain and the howling of the wind.

All was gone- gone, gone, GONE! Everything and everyone except for one person- a teenage boy. He was completely covered in mud and blood as he lay sprawled on the ground, arms wide as if he dared the lightning to come hit him…no…as if he prayed that lightning would come and strike him right then.

The only bit of his skin clean from the mud and blood was the twin tears trails down his cheeks.

He cried.

He cried for those who could cry no longer.

He cried for everyone he let down.

He cried for every promise he had left unfulfilled.

He cried for everyone, everyone except himself. He did not deserve to shed tears over himself. He was unworthy. It was gone. All of them were gone, and it was his fault.

He was too careless. They all were, but he was the most dangerous in his carelessness. They were happy. They were returning from having just saved the Kazekage against all odds. Akatsuki had kidnapped the red-headed demon-container, Gaara. They removed Shukaku from him, killing Gaara in the process. And yet the old lady Chiyo was able to bring him back at the cost of her own life. They were all saddened by this loss, but then, they were gladdened by the Kazekage's return to the living. He was free at last of his demonic torment, and so they celebrated. But on the way back, euphoric over their unlikely success, they got careless. Shinobi could not afford to get careless.

They were ambushed, only a few miles outside Konoha. They were almost home. They thought they were safe. But the elite jounin squad from Rock proved otherwise.

Their numbers were too great for the returning group of Konoha ninja. They were overpowered easily. The Rock nins were going to attack Konoha- a suicide mission, yes, but it would leave Konoha weak, weak enough for the sound nins to finish the job they had started years before during a fateful Chunin Exam.

So the Konoha group kept fighting, fighting for their home. Kakashi went first, using his body in a last minute move to protect his students. Gai was next. He would race Kakashi to the afterlife in their final competition between rivals. Sakura was gone next- she could not continue long under such odds. Lee put up a good fight, but he was poisoned when trying to protect Neji's blind spot. Neji went next without the protection over his blind spot. TenTen was taken down protecting her teammates' bodies. Finally, Naruto was the only one still fighting. Tears ran down his cheeks at his comrades' deaths as the voice of the Kyuubi called out to him louder, and louder, and louder. He tried to throw his all into the fight. But his all was not enough. He brought out the demon, heeded its calls, its promises of power. Perhaps he should have let the Rock nins kill him then. Konoha may have had more survivors.

The demon came out and destroyed the rock nins swiftly, but Kyuubi wanted more blood and more pain. Naruto had spent too many years under Jiraiya learning how to pull the demon's chakra out at will, and now the seal was too weak. Naruto was too weak. He had watched his team and friends be killed right before his eyes. He was numb inside. He had no more will left. He became blind to the world.

Kyuubi took control. Chakra gushed out of the bewhiskered boy into the shape of a nine-tailed fox. The Kyuubi returned to Konoha to finish the job it had started over a decade earlier. It destroyed everything- every building, every road, every person.

And then its chakra waned. Naruto regained feeling, and he hurt. The seal was reinstated, weak, but holding back the Kyuubi once more. And still, Naruto hurt. He remembered finding himself laying on the ground amongst the destruction. He knew it was the villagers' blood upon his body. He knew he was the cause of every death.

The sky clouded up and it began to rain and storm. And he cried, cried for what he had done, for his carelessness in guarding the demon.

He wanted to die. He had broken his promise to himself. He had allowed himself to become weaker than the demon in will power and determination. It had won control, even if the control was brief, it was devastating. All of Konoha had paid for his mistake. Their nightmare, their fear that the Kyuubi would return to kill them all, it had been the last thing they had all seen before the red chakra had destroyed them. Their terror must have been great.

Naruto knew not how long he had laid there on the muddy ground. He cared not. It could have been hours, days, or weeks. He did not know. He did not move. The weather changed from sun to clouds to rain to sun, again and again, but he took no notice. The sun and the moon switched positions in the sky, and still he did not see. Consciousness came and consciousness left, but he did not remember. He did not move for comfort. He did not move for water, nor food. He wanted to die and to die of thirst and starvation was the most painful way for him at the moment, and he believed he deserved the pain and the suffering for all that he had inflicted.

But Kyuubi still would not let him die. Could years pass and he still be laying there waiting for death? Would Kyuubi ever release him from his misery?

Naruto finally found some will power. His blue eyes opened in determination. If Kyuubi would not let him die to face his punishment in the afterlife, Naruto would have to begin it now. He would give up everything that he cherished. He would work solely for the benefit of others, leaving nothing for himself. Everything he did, every good, selfless act, would go to redeem his guilty soul, little by little, so that when he did finally die, perhaps his soul would not be as stained by the blood of innocents as it was right then. He would fight, but never for himself. He would fight for all those souls he sent early to their judgement, and maybe then, after he had saved enough lives, repaid his debts to the world, shed enough of his own blood for the blood others had shed unwillingly for him, he would have redeemed himself.

The last jutsu he would ever use would be a sealing jutsu to lock up all but the necessary flow of chakra in his body. He would earn his salvation with his own two fists, by his own power. No chakra meant no chance of Kyuubi ever gaining control of him again. He had shut the door that was the beast's way out.

Yet, even so, in his own eyes - Kyuubi locked away or not – Naruto's soul was still as tainted as a demon. And now, in all the years he had left, he would become a Demon of Redemption to save his very soul.

O0o.TBC.o0O

A/N: Kinda dark, ne? I'm not saying that Naruto really is responsible for killing everyone, only that this is how he is thinking. He is holding himself responsible, even though it was actually Kyuubi doing the killing.