His arm was gone. He had just battled like a demon, slaughtering his ruthless enemy Kabuto, and finally ending the war that had started with the Uchiha clan, and his arm was gone. He wasn't sure, but he would've sworn that he was bleeding more now than he had ever bled in his life. It was spewing and seeping, thick dark arterial blood was pouring out of his open shoulder. His arm was gone, inside the belly of a now destroyed foe, and it was never coming back.

"God..."

He turned in the direction of the voice to find Sakura emerging from behind a rock wall, her hand pressed against her mouth. Her skin was paler than normal, a make-shift tourniquet wrapped tightly around her left arm. She too had lost a lot of blood.

"Naruto."

Despite the cuts and scrapes of battle her skin remained the flawless marble that it was. All his thought,s all his senses, all his energy became immediately and totally focused on her. The world became a tunnel of darkness with her, the light, at the end.

"Naruto!"

"I'm so... cold."

He entered a world of black.

"Patient is stable."

Stable.

"Begin sowing the wound."

Arm.

"Sakura, the needle please."

Sakura.

"Beginning sutures."

Pain. Pain! PAIN!

Sakura Haruno stood in the doorway of Naruto's hospital room. The breeze through the open windows barely moved the curtains, but it was enough to keep pushing Sakura's pink hair over her eyes. The hair would slide gently enough, picking up the tears that stuck to her eyelashes and absorbing them before falling back to it's normal place on the side of her face. The operation was a successful one, they had closed the wound and stopped the bleeding before it was too late, but Naruto remained in a comatose state.

"He'll be fine in a few hours. His body's just replenishing his blood. You know him, he'll be up on his feet in no time."

Sakura heard those words only minutes ago from the lips of the fifth hokage, and even though he would no doubt be awake again soon, she knew inside that Naruto would never be the same.

"What?"

He stared past the hokage and into the opposing hospital room wall. Unwilling to digest the cold truth he had just been fed.

"Naruto I'm sorry. Your right arm's been completely severed. It will be nearly impossible for you to perform any jutsu at all."

Naruto felt his eyes drop slowly from the wall and fall into his left hand. Hot tears began to form, but he refused to let them fall, choking back his sadness he sat up.

"Eh, I didn't need that arm anyway. I'll just work on my Tai-jutsu, I'll still become the hokage, you'll see!"

Tsunade tried to smile, but her mouth just wouldn't work, her eyes did though, for she soon felt tears fall freely down her face. Naruto flashed her a left handed thumbs up and squeezed his eyes shut, not daring to cry as well.

Naruto stared up at his apartment's ceiling, his mind adrift inside his skull. He recalled a world that seemed like an eternity ago. He recalled a time when he was among the most powerful shinobi in the world, a time where he was on the running to become hokage. Now he couldn't even tell if it was him back them, he felt like an entirely different person. His arm was gone, and with it 16 years of jutsus, fighting, even writing. His life seemed hopeless and full of darkness.

His ceiling fan blades swung in a perfect circle, the buffeting sound not bothering him, not even registering in his mind. The know at his door didn't either. The voice however did.

"Naruto?"

"Sakura."

"Can I come in?"

Who was he to decide, this wasn't his house. It was Naruto's, the man with both his arms.

"Naruto."

"One moment." He got up off his bed and kicked through the trash and clothes that littered the floor of his room until he reached the door.

"I'm worried about you."

Naruto stopped, his hand just lightly grasping the doorknob. Her worries plagued him more than any of the ghosts of his past. He put on a fake smile and pulled open the door.

"Why?"

She was greeted by his typical grin, but she could see through the mask, she knew what troubled him.

"Lee told me you haven't been showing up to spar."

Naruto said nothing.

"Naruto... I know being Hokage was your dream... but maybe it's time to-"

From behind Sakura, a mail carrier walked into view, a small envelope in his hand.

"Naruto Uzumaki?"

The boy nodded and the mail man handed him the letter, no sooner had he walked out of sight then Naruto ripped it open.

"Naruto?"

It read,

'Can help with arm problem. Come to the sand village at once.

-k'

"Sakura, I'm sorry I have to leave."

"NARUTO WAIT!"

But he was already gone.

Naruto had trekked across the land to the sand village in record time, a cure to his condition was fuel in his body, energy in his soul. The k undoubtedly stood for Kazekage, and Naruto desperately sought the guidance of his old friend. When he finally entered through the city gate, he was greeted with old friends and familiar sights, but he had no time to gawk at the memories of a dead man, especially when reincarnation could be at hand!

Speeding past every obstacle, Naruto quickly found himself in the Kazekage's office.

"Naruto?"

"Gaara, I'm here." Naruto was out of breathe, and the words were hard for the hokage to hear.

"What a- uh, surprise to see you."

"Surprise?" If not Gaara then-

"If you'll excuse me old friend, I am off to a most important meeting. Do you carry a manner of great urgency?"

"No. No, you... you go ahead. It can wait."

With that Gaara nodded and exited, leaving Naruto in the room with the Kazekage's war adviser, his own brother-

"Kankuro... you sent the letter."

"Of course."

Naruto stopped to think. He had known Kankuro for sometime, and in all those years he never struck Naruto as being a man who cared deeply for anyone, except for maybe his family. Yet here he was trying to help.

"Why?"

Kankuro walked across the office to be face to face with the man who was once Naruto. His eyes hid no sympathy.

"Your sorrow troubles Hinata, who in turn troubles Gaara, who in turn troubles me. A troubled leader is not a very good one."

Naruto nodded and Kankuro walked to his side, inspecting the stump that was once Naruto's arm.

"It's repaired well, but it will still be hard to do..."

"Do what exactly?"

"Fix you... of course." Kankuro turned away from the boy, scratching his chin in thought.

"And how do you intend to do that?"

"Must you ask so many questions stupid?" Kankuro walked across the office to a scroll shelf, he pulled out a small scroll and the entire shelf moved, revealing a doorway into a secret room, "I said I'd fix your problem. That's all you should care about."

"That's all I do care about."

Kankuro walked into the small doorway, looking back at Naruto.

"Then follow me."

Sakura woke up on Naruto's bed, the covers and sheets twisted beneath her. She had slept a restless sleep. The sun was shining and she was alone, which meant that Naruto had not returned. When he said he had to go, she had assumed he meant he'd be back shortly and the girl had stayed to comfort her friend. But the hours grew late and it grew darker and darker, and she finally fell asleep. Her parents were probably worried, but she couldn't find it in her heart to leave just yet. This room held a lot of memories, some good, some bad, but she had never seen it at this hour. The sun gleamed in through the blinds and the apartment looked calm, serene, almost blessed.

Then the door opened.

"Naruto?"

Tsunade entered, looking around her eye's quickly found a tired Sakura lying across Naruto's bed, she raised an eyebrow.

"Lady Tsunade! It-It's not what you think!"

The hokage chuckled and shook her head.

"Do you know where our knucklehead is?"

Sakura stared down at the bed beneath her, her mind clouded and confused. Where on earth had the boy gone, and why?

"No. He left yesterday."

"Did he say where he was going?" Tsunade looked around, her trained ninja eyes searching for the cause of Naruto's departure.

"He got a letter, and then he just left. He just left."

The hokage nodded.

"Come with me." Tsunade turned to leave, a troubled Sakura got up to follow.

"Where are we going?"

"The post office." The duo exited the apartment at a brisk pace, and soon found themselves at the bottom of the building, "We can figure out where that letter came from."

"Lady Tsunade, why are you looking for Naruto?"

"I think I might have found a way he can do jutsu."

Sakura stopped in her tracks, her heart skipped a beat. The news was extraordinary.

"But... how?"

Tsunade stopped and turned to face her apprentice.

"A forbidden technique used to perform the shadow clone jutsu. One I found after months of search, if he can pull it off he can create a clone with a one handed seal, then invert the clone, mirroring himself. He can then use the clone's left hand to perform other jutsus."

"Thats genius! But... a one handed seal? Why is it forbidden?"

The hokage turned and started walking again, and Sakura followed.

"We use two hands for an even displacement of chakra, in order to do a one handed seal, he would have to focus all his chakra through one of his arms."

"But overloading the chakra lines could... cause his arm to..."

"Explode."

Sakura gasped, then dropped her head. A series of choking chuckles escaped through her harsh sobs.

"What a great Hokage he'll be then! They could call him the warrior stump! Ha!" If she said anything else, she remained unheard through her sobs.

"Take off your shirt."

Naruto pulled his shirt up over his head, then tossed it carelessly to the floor, revealing his sutured shoulder in all its disfigured glory.

"I'm gonna explain what I'm gonna try to do, but I doubt you'll understand it."

Naruto nodded, the insult lost on him.

"You use to be a lot more fun kid."

Kankuro pulled a few scrolls out from a cabinet on the far side of the room, then opened and spread them out on a table in the center.

"You know how my puppets work right?"

Naruto nodded.

"Lines through your fingers."

"More or less."

"But what does that have to do anything?"

From under the table Kankuro pulled out a box, the box was full of various junked puppet parts.

"Still confused?"

"Yes."

"Are you really that dense? We're gonna make you a wooden prosthesis one that will move and react just like the other."

"How? My chakra lines were severed with my arm."

"We can stretch them out from your shoulder and permanently seal them into the wood."

"Will I be able to perform jutsus?"

"Most likely."

"Than lets do it."

Kankuro was silent for some time.

"There's one more thing. stretching your chakra will feel like I'm pulling your veins out through your arm... and I can't use anesthesia because it will cut off your chakra flow."

Naruto's throat went dry.

"If you do this, it'll hurt more than anything you've ever felt."

"I doubt it... I've been hurt a lot... don't be such a wuss. Let's do this."

more to come, read and review