Fanfic / The Demon Spiral

It was just a dream...

A Naruto Alternate Universe Forum Quest by Gorilla Fingers, found here on Spacebattles.

A young Naruto gains the opportunity of his dreams when the Hokage himself allows him to join the Genin Academy. So he sets out to make friends, revive the Uzumaki clan, become the greatest ninja ever, and maybe steal birthdays. Only one thing's for certain: Naruto simply will not settle for becoming anything less than legendary.

Tropes

• Adorably Precocious Child: Hanabi, who talks like she's in her 30s, is as naive as you'd expect for a little kid, and adores her older sister.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Karin and Kurotsuchi both appear during the Chunin Exam arc. Kurotsuchi punches out Naruto and Karin defects to the Hidden Leaf.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Downplayed with Naruto. He's not exactly smart, given he starts with Intelligence as his lowest stat. But in this continuity, he's smart enough to complete the genin exams on his first try.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Naruto has a significantly better relationship with Sakura and Sasuke in this universe. The former because he supported her pursuing a relationship with Sasuke when her "best friend" Ino told her to give up. The latter because Naruto befriended him before the Uchiha massacre and after, promised to help Sasuke kill the perpatrator, Itachi.
• Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed, but Hiruzen is stated to be "slightly darker" (though still benevolent) in the story. As for why, see below.
  • And then there's the Nine-Tails, who, while a very looming threat early on, is plain evil in this setting. Think less of Kurama and more of Sukuna, and you have Demon Spiral's take on it.
• Adaptational Wimp: Power levels are lower than canon Naruto, with Hiruzen's duel with Orochimaru at the Chunin Exams being an example of peak-level ninja power.
• Adapted Out: Word of God is that Danzo Shimura does not exist in the story, and Hiruzen was more willing to make shady decisions (although not to the extent of Danzo).
• Addictive Magic: Cursed Seals act like this; they give you power, but the more you use them the more you want to use them, and the more they corrupt you.
• Alpha Bitch: Ino always had shades of this in the Academy, but it comes out in full force when Ino tries to tell her Girl Posse not to pursue Sasuke and disowns Sakura as a friend when Sakura refuses to give up on him.
• Appropriated Appellation: When Naruto hears that he's technically Kushina's bastard (because she never got to marry Minato before the Kyuubi attack happened), he happily calls himself a bastard of the Uzumaki clan, ignoring any attempts to tell him that it's not something you're supposed to be proud of.
• Betty and Veronica: The Sasuke-Sakura-Ino love triangle, with Sasuke as Archie, Sakura as Betty (the sweet clanless underdog who gets bullied for expressing her interest), and Ino as Veronica (the well-connected clan girl who expects to be able to marry him because of her political status and is more pushy about flirting).
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Shikamaru is a talented ninja, but he's set his sights on an unexceptional chunin career and is holding himself back so no one will expect too much of him.
• Brutal Honesty: Asuma's reasoning for putting his team up for the Chunin exams. They're absolutely not ready because the two boys are unwilling to make a proper effort, and he can't train it out of them because the problem is character flaws and not skill, so he's tossing them in the deep end to give them a reality check.
• The Caligula: Yagura is still Mizukage in this AU, and while he's not in focus, a few omakes have shown that he's really not fighting with all his kunai. He is paranoid to an insane degree, destroying the Seven Swordsmen out of sheer paranoia (Zabuza and Kisame survived by going missing-nin before he could kill them) and regularly purging Hidden Mist's higher society. The only people he trusts are the ones obviously kissing his butt in order to point him at their enemies. An omake from his perspective shows he does have a Freudian Excuse, as he was originally made Mizukage because they thought a young child would be an easily-manipulated puppet ruler, who couldn't just be assassinated because he was a Jinchuuriki.
• Child Prodigy: Hanabi is an Itachi-level prodigy who was able to defeat Hinata in a duel fair and square.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Sasuke becomes the head of the Uchiha clan while still in the Academy due to the Uchiha Massacre. Though he isn't actually leading anyone, he still has to participate in politics as the Uchiha clan head.
• Cool Versus Awesome: A battle between the heirs of the Hidden Village of Stone and Sand; one a wielder of a rare Kekkei Genkai, the other a Puppet Fighter that is also incredibly cunning. Ultimately, Kurotsuchi wins the bout.
  • In a battle that makes even Naruto excited, we have the right hand of Zabuza, an assassin that uses ice to fight against a genius of effort that is a ascending taijutsu master capable of using the dangerous but powerful Eight Gates. Like in canon, the one to triumph is the Kekkei Genkai user.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Naruto tends to get on the wrong side of these a lot, such as his fights with Sasuke and Hinata. Luckily his Healing Factor means he bounces right back.
  • For non-Naruto examples, Hanabi apparently gave one to Hinata, and Sakura gave one to Ino during their spar.
  • Predictably, Team 7 gets steamrolled by Orochimaru. Not only the sneak attack of the latter ruined any chances of a coordinated effort against him, he early on manages to trap Sakura, making her a non-factor in the fight, and, separatedly, fends off a Naruto fully possessed by the Nine-Tails and a Sasuke who awakened to his Sharingan.
  • A lot in the Chunin Exams, mainly the battles between named characters and mooks. Of note, however, we have Kiba against Zaku, where the latter only manages to connect one single blow -admittedly one that stopped Kiba's Fang Over Fang, but still -before being mauled near to death. Meanwhile Dosu faces Gaara, who managed to figure out how to null sound ninjutsu thanks to the aforementioned fight, and swiftly dispatches the Sound Nin with a Sand Coffin that instantly kills him. Lastly there's Naruto's fight against Kin, which ended up being the shortest fight in the bracket with the latter getting her arms crippled by the former's shuriken barrage before she could get an attack off, causing her to surrender almost immediately.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Sasuke is this in his duel against Lee. Although he fairs considerably better than in canon, and even manages to put him through the wringer a few times, he still is in heavy disadvantage without his Sharingan and, in a meta level, the playerbase knew Lee still was holding back —which, in-character, becomes evident when he releases his weights and uses the Gates against Haku.
• Cycle of Revenge: Wouldn't be Naruto without some. The Uzumaki Clan got caught in a nasty one; their founder started a feud with a lord by eloping with the lord's daughter (and a lot of valuables), and while his son calmed the feud by giving up his dad's body (he'd died of natural causes), his son was affronted by the blow to clan pride and restarted the feud by killing the lord's son. Hajime Uzumaki, a later clan head, then calmed the feud again by killing most of his relatives except his grand-nephew Souta, who he instead made his successor despite having forced poor Souta to watch his father be killed. Souta, naturally, grew up with a major grudge against Hajime and created Jinchuuriki seals and massacred Hajime's branch families to destroy Hajime's legacy.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The setting borrows heavily from Confucian principles... which unfortunately means that Sakura is not only looked down on for being Clanless, but for her parents being merchants, since Confucians (who missed a few economic principles) believed that merchants, who made a profit without creating anything, were cheating people who did make things for a living. Luckily, Naruto doesn't care at all about economics or politics and encourages her to chase her dreams regardless.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Sexy no Jutsu makes its debut in Naruto's evaluation against the chunin Izumo. It actually works, despite getting a penalty to the roll because Izumo is gay.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Akamaru is able to sense the Kyuubi's chakra in Naruto, though he's unable to identify it beyond it being bad juju.
• Evil Tainted the Place: The Uchiha compound, post Uchiha Massacre. It's so bad that priests have only managed to cleanse a couple buildings after years of work, and Gorilla_Fingers has indicated that traces of the evil chakra will remain for centuries to come, like a supernatural Chernobyl. Naruto runs afoul of the ghosts when going to check on Sasuke, though the exorcists save him.
• Evil Versus Evil: Orochimaru against a Naruto fully possessed by the Nine-Tails. As in canon, Orochimaru is the one standing tall at the end of the exchange, although part of it may be because of the Nine-Tails nearly ripping Naruto's stomach apart in his attempt to take out the seal restraining it's power. Good Thing You Can Heal indeed.
• Friendly Rivalry: Naruto has one with Kiba. There's no hard feelings and Kiba even wishes that Naruto would be on his team.
• Forbidden Dangerous Technique: Unleashing the power of a Tailed Beast. They are some of the strongest beings in the setting, sure, but they are also unmistakably evil. If the Nine-Tails is any sign, giving them any space will only end badly for the jinchuuriki and the people around him.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Souta Uzumaki was desperate to erase his predecessor Hajime's legacy to the point of massacring Hajime's branch families and creating the Jinchuuriki Seals because Hajime traumatized Souta by killing his father in front of him when he was a kid as part of a coup.
  • Part of the reason Ino is so determined to marry Sasuke that she sabotages her own friendship with Sakura is because, as a female clan heir, her uncles are constantly on the lookout for some excuse to disinherit her. Marrying Sasuke would allow her to leave the line of succession gracefully and still help her clan, thus easing the social pressure on both her and her father.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When a casual conversation leads to mentioning the possibility of a curse or possession courtesy of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Naruto becomes distraught at the presented evidence, spiraling into a panic attack until Shino clubs him on the back of the head to snap him out of it.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Actually averted with Hinata and Hanabi, despite their family making them literally fight. Hinata dotes on her little sister, and Hanabi in turn adores her big sister and wants to become Hinata's bodyguard after Hinata becomes clan head.
• The Great Offscreen War: The Asano and Kurado clans have a war over taxation (in brief, the Kurado are leasing a port from the Asano and refuse to pay their taxes), with both asking for Konohagakure's help. The Asano end up getting it, while the Kurado hire various mercs and missing-nin. None of this has anything to do with the pre-teen Naruto, though Kakashi and Maito Gai particpate. The Asano win.
• Gut Feeling: A very downplayed Hate at First Sight - when Naruto first sees Gaara at the pre-Chunin Exam banquet, his immediate instinct is to get in a fight with him, and once Gaara mutually locks eyes with him he can feel the same goes for the redhead. Considering the respective Tailed Beasts sealed inside the two that are exerting influence on their hosts (one much more than the other), this makes perfect sense. Nothing comes of it though, and when the two meet later in the Royal Forest, they have a somewhat stilted though generally civil conversation without much malice.
• Ignored Epiphany: In an omake, Ino almost realizes why Sasuke would be disinterested in marrying her (doing so would essentially make the Uchihas a branch of the Yamanakas since all future Uchiha would be descended from Ino), but fails to make the connection that Sasuke would be worried about the same politics that she was (needing to marry down so their spouse couldn't usurp their family name and social influence) and that Sasuke wouldn't want an Arranged Marriage that would be almost solely to the benefit of his wife's clan.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Teams remain the same as canon despite Naruto no longer being 'dead-last'.
  • The Rookie Nine still go to the Chunin Exams in their first year as genin. For Team 8, it's because normal genin missions don't provide them with enough opportunity to exercise their primary specialty, tracking. For Team 7, it's because three very active and ambitious genin would stagnate or start causing trouble if they were kept back, and for Team 10, it's because Choji and Shikamaru are holding themselves back and need a wake-up call about the need to give their all to being ninja.
  • Sasuke still is marked by Orochimaru, although Naruto avoids getting sealed.
  • Amusingly, some of the matchups in the Chunin Exams end up being similar to canon. Zaku still has the snot beated out of him by a member of Team Hinata (Kiba rather than Shino) and Lee still falls against a bloodline user -although it is the much more merciful Haku in comparison to the Ax-Crazy Gaara. And in some less amusing examples, Dosu faces Gaara in a more official fashion this time around and things end pretty much the same as in canon, and Hinata and Neji still face each other.
  • Four canon match-ups are likely to happen in the Tournament Arc: Naruto and Neji, Sasuke and Gaara, Temari and Shikamaru and Ino and Sakura.
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Naruto doesn't realize his Healing Factor isn't normal until he tells Choji not to worry about getting hurt because whatever it is will heal up in under an hour, much to Choji's incredulousness.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Ino is very smug about her political and social knowledge, but her declarations that Sasuke would obviously choose her to marry because she's from a clan and that her father would prioritize placing her on a team with Sasuke over cementing the Ino-Shika-Cho alliance are rather quickly proven wrong; Sasuke comments that he'd prefer to marry a clanless girl to prevent his wife's clan from superseding his (he doesn't need money or political clout because the Uchiha already have those), and the canon teams are preserved, largely because the reasons for grouping together the other two teams (creating a specialist tracking team for Team 8 and affirming a clan alliance for Team 10) remain the same.
• Little Professor Dialogue: Hanabi speaks very formally for someone still in the single digits of age.
• Lovable Coward: Choji is a sweet kid, but his performance as a ninja is hampered by his reluctance to risk himself in combat.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Karin happily betrays the Hidden Grass village because they had used their sheltering of the remnant Uzumaki branch family to extort them to the point where they outright worked Karin's mother to death.
• Never My Fault: A large part of Ino and Naruto's falling-out is that Ino had the audacity to call Sakura a bad friend for not falling in line when Ino arrogantly declared that no one else had a chance with Sasuke and that she had to back off because she's clanless and her parents are merchants.
• Odd Friendship: Naruto manages to make friends with Shikamaru, Shino, and Sasuke through sheer kindness and persistence. It's sadly subverted with Ino, as they currently have a falling-out over Ino's treatment of Sakura.
• Oh, Crap!: Naruto's reaction when Sakura tells him that the man who just whooped their asses last night was none other than the rogue Sannin himself, Orochimaru.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The duels in the Genin exam. We only get to see the ones Naruto's involved with, but Sasuke got a clean sweep, Hinata only lost to Sasuke, and Sakura beat Ino so hard she actually got a relationship flag with Sasuke for it.
• Parental Substitute: Iruka has started to play this role for Naruto.
• Precious Puppies: Baby Akamaru is quite adorable and popular among the girls in the Academy.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Neji's win against Hinata. He clearly surpasses her in almost everything that mattered in their fight, but, because of his bitterness towards his position as a Branch member, he focuses in attempting to break Hinata herself. Unfortunately for him, she doesn't break even after being made all but unable to use the Gentle Fist, even expressing pity for his fate. In the end, all that fight did was made him look as someone who is easily swayed by grudges, while also making enemies from Naruto and the remainder of Team Hinata.
• Power at a Price: The Cursed Seal. It grants it's user an incredible boost in power, but also slowly corrupts it's users, in a way that is almost parallel to someone using drugs.
• Rebel Leader: The role Zabuza plays in this AU. His faction is even allowed to participate in the Chunin Exams on the grounds that Zabuza has declared himself the true Mizukage, and if the Hidden Leaf were to decide that only his or Yagura's loyalists would participate, that would be choosing a side in the civil war.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Jiraiya summons a toad and pays them for their services, Naruto expresses surprise that they take coin. The toad in question, offended, asks the following:
  Toad: "Well of course we take coin. What do I look like, some kind of animal?"
  Beat, Naruto stares at them incredulously
  Toad: "Don't answer that." -disappears into smoke-
• Secret Art: A big deal is made of these for clans, since keeping their tools of the trade secret is vitally important for both the clan's health and their usefulness. Lacking these is a notable disadvantage for any aspiring ninja, with Naruto and Sakura being big examples. It's also Played for Laughs, with Naruto getting frustrated every time a conversation with his friends about their training and such gets immediately stonewalled by "clan secret" as an excuse. Shino, in particular, had many of his early interactions with Naruto defined by this, and the normally stoic boy appears to take some amusement messing with Naruto this way.
• Secret Relationship: Naruto and Hinata's relationship has to be conducted in secret, because Hinata is essentially Leaf nobility while Naruto is an orphan whose only claim to a title is being the bastard child of a nearly-extinct clan. They plan on going public with their relationship when Naruto is officially made Head of the Uzumaki Clan.
• Schizo Tech: Averted. In comparison to canon a consistent Edo Jidai tech level has been applied to the setting as a whole for the sake of grounded and consistent worldbuilding.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • When Naruto finds out that Sakura likes Sasuke, and furthermore is being discouraged from pursuing her crush based on her social status, he dedicates himself to helping her.
  • Sakura in turn becomes one for Naruto and Hinata as a way to pay back Naruto for supporting her crush on Sasuke as well as indulge her romantic side.
• Shout-Out: Zaku boasts about "the power of two hands" against Kiba and Akamaru when he stops the Fang Over Fang. Like the person who first said this, however, things didn't end well for him.
• Wake-Up Call: Asuma invokes this towards his team -or, more specifically, towards Shikamaru and Choji. The two of them have great potential as ninjas, but have issues that hold them back, much to Asuma and Ino's frustration - their laziness and cowardice, respectively. He puts Team 10 in the Chunin Exams hoping that the intensity of the event will help them start growing out of these mindsets and give their all to become ninja.
• Weight Woe: Hinata runs headlong into this, a confluence of her natural insecurity, beauty standards for women of the era, the high standards of nobility, and a fear of losing her mother's looks, to the point of nearly turning towards anorexia. Naruto, upon catching her in the middle of a fainting spell, immediately sets her straight by pointing out the dangers of such an unhealthy mindset when being a fit and capable ninja is her job, and also saying he won't care how she looks when she grows up and will still love her.