The Broken Seal of Eternity

I don't own Naruto or any of the places, characters, etc. This story is only for entertainment purposes.
A big thank you to Vamp Chic for Beta reading my work!


Chapter 1- Shooting Stars


Naruto lay on his back, resting the back of his head on his hands, his arms spread out behind him. He gazed up at the crisp, clear night sky, looking up at the stars. A night like this was perfect for stargazing, one just had to find the right place to lay. In this case, it was on the rooftop of someone’s building. He didn’t know whose it was, nor did he care.

Ignoring the rough tiles beneath him, he squirmed about to get as comfortable as he could, then he brushed a stray strand of his blonde hair from his face. He looked up at the myriad of glittering stars, entranced by the brilliant specks of light. A cool wind blew over him.

All at once he saw a shooting star streak across the sky. A shooting star was not unheard of, but this one was a little… different. It was bigger, brighter than any he had ever seen, a blazing streak of green fire that lit the night sky. He watched the beautiful spectacle, until the shooting star fell beyond his sight, obscured by the trees. From beyond the trees, he thought he saw a blue flash as the star’s green tail slowly vanished. Then, moments later, he thought he saw another flash, far in the distance. But how could that be?

Surely it was just his imagination, yet why was he suddenly filled with a strange sense of unease? Naruto mulled it over for a while, but thinking wasn’t his strong point. He eventually shrugged, deciding that he’d been up there long enough. The unease, after all, was felt deep in the pit of his stomach. A slight rumbling informed him that the source of his unease might simply be that he hadn’t visited his supply of ramen in a timely matter, so he stretched, and made ready to leave.
Naruto stood upright, stretched again, and made his way across the roof. To their mutual surprise, he came across someone else. She was a genin, by her manner of dress and her youthful appearance. She looked a little younger than him, a year or two his junior, a slender girl with black hair and soft, dark eyes. She wasn’t anyone he knew. She gasped when she saw him, startled when they nearly bumped into one another. Obviously, her mind had been elsewhere, if she had been unaware of him.

She immediately bowed her apology, “Forgive me, I did not see you!” Her voice was timid, uncertain.

Naruto nervously rubbed his hand behind his head, “Uh…”

She looked up, “I’ve heard of you…”

Naruto put his arms behind his head and laughed, putting up a bold front. Nevertheless, he was ready to run for it if she were to scream for help or decided to attack, but she made no further moves toward him. She simply stood there, looking in his direction. At first, he thought she was staring at him. Not an unusual reaction, actually one that was more generous than what he usually got. But he gradually realized that she wasn’t, in fact, staring at him. The stars were reflected in her eyes, she barely noticed he was there.

Naruto took a step sideways, but she barely registered. Her eyes flickered to him for a moment, noting his motions. “Are you alright…?”
She shook her head slowly, “Nightmares… A star of green flames… Calling… His voice is calling…” She sounded out of it. Almost as if she were in a trance. Naruto decided to leave discreetly before she snapped out of it, and grew angry at his presence. He quietly slipped away, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, toward his home. Toward the one thing that occupied 90% of his mind right now, noodles!

In another place, the fox rumbled nervously in its prison. “Stupid, weak kit…” But oddly, its spiteful grumbling held an undercurrent of worry.

***

Naruto lounged about with the others in his team, bored, until a familiar figure leapt down out of the trees.

He and Sakura immediately loomed over the hapless nin, shouting, “You’re late!”

Kakashi merely laughed, and explained, “They were having a roasted garlic special today, how could I resist?”

Naruto asked, “If they had a roasted garlic special… then why didn’t you bring us any?!”

Kakashi laughed nervously, rubbing his hand behind his head. Then he held a bag out upside down, and Naruto watched in horror as a few crumbs fell out of the bottom of the bag. “Heh… heh… I guess I got a little hungry on the way…”

Naruto looked down, defeated. His stomach rumbled angrily, the temptation of food needed to be satisfied, but alas, it would have to wait…

“We have a mission today.” Kakashi announced. “It’s a little unusual. We need to be prepared for anything!”

Naruto stared at him with curious enthusiasm. Sasuke yawned, not really caring.

Kakashi explained, “We’re going to investigate a strange cave that was found opened up by one of our scouts a few days back. His report was unusual. We had no idea that a cave like that was located around our village.”

Kakashi said, “Also, he stated that there was an unknown presence in the area, but he couldn’t tell who or what it was.”

Naruto was distracted from Kakashi’s briefing when he noticed the girl from that night, a week ago, when he had seen that shooting star. She looked ill, and she was very pale. She staggered forward, to wherever she was going, and seemed to cringe away from the bright sunlight on that gorgeous day. As he watched, she stammered past another nin, nearly colliding with him. She stammered a weak apology, as she resumed her way forward, almost falling to the ground.

Naruto took a step toward her, but then he staggered forward from the massive blow that Sakura delivered to the back of his head. Her recent training under Tsunade hadn’t helped any! “OW!! What was that for?!” Naruto complained.

Sakura said angrily, “You shouldn’t stare at a girl like that! Besides, if you don’t pay attention you’ll miss what Kakashi is saying!”

Naruto protested in a gentle manner that was very unlike his usual self. “But she’s…”

Sakura shouted irately, “Naruto!”

Naruto rolled his eyes, “What? I can’t look at a girl without being smacked, but it’s okay for you to swoon over Sasuke all the time?”

Sakura smiled, “That’s… different.” She swooned over Sasuke for a while.

Naruto knew better than to push that line of conversation. He turned back to Kakashi, and saw that his instructor was watching him with a sweat-drop behind his head. Sasuke muttered, “Idiots…”

Kakashi smiled, “Right then. Let’s go.” He turned and proceeded to lead the way.

Naruto sighed, and followed. While they were leaping through the trees to wherever their destination was, he inched closer to Sasuke, and asked, “What were we supposed to be doing?”

Sasuke sighed, “If you had been paying attention, you might know.”

Naruto said, “But… I saw that girl again, and she looked really sick.”

Sasuke paused for a moment, surprised. “What girl?”

Naruto explained, “I don’t know her name. I saw her around a week ago when I was watching the stars, and she was acting kinda weird.”

Sasuke asked, “And where were you doing this, Naruto?”

Naruto looked sheepish, he rubbed his hand behind his head. “Uhh… heh… heh… That isn’t the point!”

Sasuke gave him strange smile, “Naruto, don’t tell me you’re smitten. Trust me, girls are more trouble than they’re worth!”

Sakura came rushing up from behind, she had fallen a little behind. “Sasuke-kun~!”

Sasuke sighed, “See?”

But right as Sakura caught up with them, Kakashi abruptly found them. “Down there, a stranger!” He gestured for them to drop to the ground, and they complied.

The stranger was walking very slowly along the ground, looking around as if searching for something. He was Short, and had a youthful face. He looked like he might have been around fourteen or so, but Naruto couldn’t really tell. For one thing, he was wearing a battered and trail-worn traveling dark colored cloak that was so ancient it might have been in the family for generations. He had to wonder how the cloth had lasted so long that it had gotten in such a state. What little he could see of the boy’s clothes was no less strange. It was made of some kind of form-fitting blue material, with a slightly more bulky gray-white armor covering his chest and lower regions. His black hair was largely concealed by a turban with two strands of cloth that trailed behind, and he wore a massive scarf that was loosely draped around his shoulders, also trailing behind him with his every movement. He had a sword strapped across his back in a battered sheath.

But what entranced Naruto was the boy’s face. It wasn’t just that it looked pretty, a word that Naruto wasn’t inclined to use to describe the face of another boy, and a fact that made him feel strange. It wasn’t the strange black scar that cut diagonally beneath his left eye, or his large, grey eyes. It was the emptiness of the expression. It was as if he truly felt… nothing. Hadn’t felt anything for a long time. It made him shudder.

Despite the fact that they made so little noise dropping from the trees, the boy immediately shifted his gaze to fix on them. Naruto could have sworn that he had started moving even before they had landed, but how could that be? He saw the boy’s gaze linger on him for a moment.

The boy said in a soft voice that was entirely devoid of emotion, “Leaf symbol. Same as the other. Based on the quickness of the response, there must be a community nearby.” The boy turned away from them, and continued walking as he had been before.

Kakashi approached the stranger, and he stopped a few paces from him. Kakashi asked, “Hoy? Are you lost?”

The boy slowly shook his head. “No…”

Kakashi blinked. “Where are you from? Perhaps…”

The boy shook his head again. “You must leave this place.” The utter lack of inflection, as if he lived in an emotional void.

Kakashi gave him a strange look, “If you want us to help you could at least…”

The boy put his hand on the handle of his sword, but he did not draw it. “You were warned. If you will not get out of my way, I will have to assume that ‘he’ sent you to stop me.”

Kakashi said, “I don’t know what trouble you’re in, but if it involves Konoha…”

The boy abruptly vanished, and Kakashi leapt to avoid a stroke from behind that would have sliced him in two right there! Naruto was stunned, how had the boy been able to move so fast?

Naruto immediately came to Kakashi’s aid, creating a large force of Bunshins to fight the stranger. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!”

While he was creating Bunshins, Kakashi and Sasuke engaged the stranger, starting by launching a flurry of shurikens at him. But the stranger easily dodged them, simply seeming to disappear and then he reappeared in several places around them. The moment he had enough Bunshins, Naruto directed them at the stranger, gloating, “Your speed won’t count for much if you can’t move!”

The replications all dog-piled the stranger, who seemed confused by them, in a pile of thrashing limbs and punches.

A sudden and unexpected wave of power smashed into the pile from above, destroying all of the Bunshins and leaving a huge crevice in the ground. Sakura screamed in fright as the stranger landed behind her, his sword blazing brightly with white light. A blow so quick that it was nearly invisible knocked her unconscious. Then the stranger glanced at Sasuke.

Sasuke leapt, and by some miracle managed to predict where the stranger would attack from. He twisted about in midair, and used his fire-breathing jutsu to engulf the area where the stranger suddenly appeared in flames.

But the stranger seemed unfazed by the flames. Or an attack from behind by Kakashi, which he easily deflected with a sharp backhand that sent Kakashi flying! Sasuke tried to attack with some more shurikens, but the stranger caught them effortlessly, and lashed out with the flat of his blade while in mid-air, sending Sasuke plummeting to the ground where he crashed, leaving a crater behind.

The stranger appeared behind Kakashi, sitting upon the roots of the tree almost in a dainty fashion. Kakashi was just rebounding from the blow by springing off of the tree. Naruto saw him snatch something from Kakashi as he sprang past, but then he vanished again before Naruto could see what he had taken. Naruto looked around cautiously, knowing he was next!

There was a breeze that brushed past him, his only warning of the impending doom from behind. Naruto leapt forward, and swung on a branch to deliver an upside-down kick to the stranger. But the stranger vanished again before he could connect.

Naruto instantly released his grip on the branch, and it was a good thing he did because a split second afterward there was a slash that cut diagonally across tree and branch. It would have killed him! As the top half of the tree slid down along the line of the cut, the stranger appeared atop the branch. He was reading a familiar book…
Kakashi’s angry protest cut through the noise of the tree crashing to the ground. “Hey, that’s my book!”

As the tree crashed to the ground, sending chips of wood flying as branches snapped, the stranger appeared in front of Kakashi, and hit him back at the tree he had just rebounded from. What kind of crazy boy was this, if he could play ping-pong with Kakashi?!

Naruto knew he couldn’t take chances with this one anymore! He mentally urged, “Come on, fox. I need more chakra!” A familiar red chakra flowed through him, giving him an orange aura, and a more feral look.

Meanwhile, Sasuke was picking himself up, holding his side as he rose unsteadily to his feet. He wasn’t done just yet!

But as Naruto powered up to Kyubi mode, he saw that the stranger was nonchalantly reading from Kakashi’s book. “Oh my… Oh! MY!” He had a very immature, almost girlish voice, when he bothered to have any inflection at all. The book fell from his suddenly trembling fingers. He looked around uncertainly, batted Kakashi back into the tree while returning his book all in one deft blur, and advanced a step toward Naruto.

Naruto shouted, “What is your problem anyway?! Just who the hell are you?!”

The boy paused, “I am…” Then he recoiled as if from a blow. He held his head in his hands, staggering backward. “I…” Then he screamed a girly scream, but it released so much raw power that it scattered all of them, creating a huge shockwave that smashed the trees to the ground within a mile radius.

When Naruto picked his battered body up and gazed at the wreckage left behind, the strange boy was gone!