Prologue

Naruto slowly opened his eyes and from his position on the foot of the first Hokage saw his best friend on the other side. Sasuke was unconcious, lying on the other side of the Valley of the end, in front of the statue of Uchiha Madara. Naruto slowly tried moving his arms and legs, but he soon regretted it, wincing from pain at every move he did. His sight was blurry and out of focus, his wound from the Chidori wasn`t bleeding much but it was still there. He tried getting up again only to feel more pain, he slumped back and began thinking what should he do next.

After a few minutes of thinking, he saw no other choice than to swim across, and somehow climb the walls of the Valley, and then hope to run into someone friendly.

He gathered all his strength and decided to get up. He managed to get himself into a sitting position, but the bain was almost unbearable. He the heard a vaguely familliar voice,

"Stop moving" the voice said in a somewhat annoyed tone.

"W-who...who`s there?" Naruto asked wincing in pain when he tried to turn around to locate the source of the voice.

"I must be the unluckiest Demon in existence, to have such a dumb human for a vessel." said the Kyuubi.

Naruto`s eyes widened at the realisation and he immediatley started thinking

`Oh no, he somehow got free, I`m in no condition to fight him... but i have to, at least to buy some time before he goes back to Konoha...´ his thoughts were interrupted when he heard the great demon chuckling.

"Your thoughts are both brave and stupid, but you have just confirmed my previous remark, I am still within you, only now we have a better... connection so to speak, so we can now mentally communicate at any time. Now rest and let me heal your broken body while you sleep, the Uchiha isn`t going anywhere."

After a few moments of thinking about it, Naruto mentally shook his head and thought,

`No, i made a promise that i would make sure Sasuke reaches Konoha alive, and that`s exactly what im going to do´

Ignoring all the warnings and threats he heard in his head, he slowly, with a lot of pain got to the edge, pushed himself off the statue, and rolled to the water. After a few deep breaths, he got up to his knees, and tried to at least stay floating in one place with a small amount of chakra he had left. He managed to painfully crawl over to the other side, coughing up blood along the way, completely ignoring the demon lord in his head.

Sasuke was lying motionless on his back,slowly regaining conciusness. Slowly opening his eyes and trying to focus on what is happening, he remembered all about the battle he just barely survived. He could barely move out of exhaustion, even though the pain wasn`t that bad. Hearing someone coming towards him, he slowly managed to take a kunai from his holster on his right leg.

"You idiot," Naruto started, seeing that Sasuke is still alive," now I`ll have to drag you all the way back to Konoha."

Sasuke was furious on the inside, he was just beaten by the dead last of the academy, his cursed seal was constantly repeating one single sentence:

`Orochimaru can give you power, power to kill all those who think they are better than you..´

Naruto got close to Sasuke`s left side,barely standing, his knees shaking, blood slowly dripping from the corner of his mouth, indicating severe internal bleeding. Sasuke struck with all the energy he could muster at the time, and threw a kunai from his right hand at Naruto`s head. Because of his blurry eyesight, he didn`t hit between the eyes like he wanted to, instead, the kunai made a slash on Naruto`s left side of the neck, cutting his carotid artery.

Naruto`s eyes widened in shock, his hands instinctivley flew and grabbed his own neck to stop the blood from leaving his body. The dirt was soaked in blood as Naruto was walking towards the river, completley disoriented. He fell into the cold water, and the current carried him out of sight.

5 minutes later

Kakashi was rushing towards the Valley of the end, getting there as soon as possible was only thought in his head. When he came to the edge of the cliff, he saw Sasuke at the bottom on the other side of the river, trying to climb was nowhere to be seen. His one eye widened in horror when he saw a large pool of blood by the river. He figured out what happened when he saw that the trail of blood was leading to the river. His mind was torn, he could search for Naruto and leave Sasuke at the mercy of Orochimaru, or he could retrieve Sasuke, but it would start raining soon so even if there would be a trail to follow, it would soon disappear.

After a few seconds, one final thought went trough his mind before he jumped down,

`I`m sorry... Minato-sensei.´