Prologue
Death and Life
Stars shined brightly over the village in the forest. Screams, shouts and the crackling fire filled the area, the smell of smoke and death heavy in the air. All the destruction was caused by the great nine-tailed fox demon, the Kyuubi. It had finally broken free from it's seal, it's first taste of freedom since the time of the First Hokage. Minutes ago the Fourth Hokage teleported himself and the Kyuubi away from the village so he could deal with it without risking more damage to Konoha and more importantly the people living there.
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"Why does Naruto have to be sacrificed?!" Kushina cried out, using all her strength to keep the fox bound to the ground with her chakra chains while she held her baby to her chest.
Minato sighed, unhappy with what he knew he had to do and the burden he needed to place on his son, so soon after his birth, "Naruto is the child of prophecy that Master Jiraiya spoke of, I'm sure of it, and that masked man will bring calamity to this world. Naruto will need the Jinchuriki's strength for what the future holds for him..." He then activated the Shiki Fūjin and ripped the Yin half of the Kyuubi's chakra away, sealing it within himself.
Minato immediately felt the after effects of using the Kinjutsu, but pushed away the weakness and used a set of hand seals to summon an altar. He carefully took Naruto from Kushina and placed him on the altar. Kushina watched this all happen with great sadness and her focus on the chakra chains waivered for just a moment. The Kyuubi seized the opportunity and lashed out with his now free claw, trying to kill the child before the sealing was completed. Kushina threw her body over Naruto as the claw came down. It impaled Minato, who was kneeling before the alter, through the stomach and pierced Kushina's back.
Minato focused chakra into one hand to hold the claw back and prevent the Kyuubi from killing Kushina and Naruto. He took a few shallow breathes before speaking his last words in life, "Kushina... take care of him and make sure he grows up strong... And make sure he knows how proud I am to be his father... and how much I wish... I could have seen him grown up... I love you both." He coughed up blood and with his free hand he flew through a series of hand seals to activate the Hakke no Fūin Shiki, the yang portion of the Kyuubi was drawn into the baby as a result.
The great fox roared in anger as it dissipated into the seal while the Fourth fell to the ground, no longer breathing. Kushina fell to her side, her breathing slowed and her mind clouded with a light headed feeling as the blood flowed out of her wound. She slowly dragged herself to the child, pulling him against her and weeping quietly as darkness overtook her.
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Birds chirped in the clear morning light while the sounds of construction echoed in the rebuilding village of Konoha. The cleanup of the chaos caused by the Kyuubi had begun and there was a mixture of sadness, pride, and determination in the village. Luckily for the village, the hospital was in a section that had been relatively untouched by the attack, so casualties were far lower than they could have been.
In one of the rooms a woman with long red hair was beginning to wake up, she groaned at the light coming through the window. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around the room, smiling slightly as she saw the blond baby asleep in the crib to her right. She felt happy that Naruto had made it, but still felt a great deal of sadness at the loss of Minato.
"You've been out for a while, Kushina-chan, I'm glad to see you awake again finally!" Spoke a voice to her left, startling her.
Kushina turned and saw a dark haired woman holding a similarly dark hair baby which caused her smile to grow a bit, "It's good to see you safe, Mikoto-chan. How long have I been out?"
"It's been eight days, you were starting to have us worried... Sarutobi will probably be here shortly, he mentioned he stationed some Anbu to inform him when you woke up." Mikoto explained in a friendly manner.
"Is he... Hokage again, then?" Kushina asked softly, feeling a wave of sadness as she looked down and willed herself not to cry. She felt the Uchiha grasp her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze, which made her look up to see the concern in Mikoto's eyes, "This isn't how it was supposed to be... I should be here with Naruto in my arms and Minato sitting next to me, spending time with our friends and enjoying our growing family... That masked bastard ruined everything."
The air in the room seemed to chill a bit, filled with killer intent as she thought about the masked man, causing both of the babies in the room to start crying. Kushina snapped out of it, reaching over and grabbing her son, while Mikoto comforted Sasuke, "I'm sorry, Naru-chan... I didn't mean to scare you."
Naruto almost immediately calmed down, staring up at his mother as she spoke to him. She smiled, looking at his blond hair and bright blue eyes, while he grabbed at her red hair and played with it, "You're going to look so much like your father when you grow up..."
"Indeed, he takes after Minato very much it seems." Hiruzen spoke as he walked into the room with a relieved smile at seeing Kushina finally awake. "Good morning, Kushina-chan. How are you feeling?"
"I'm alright, I suppose... has anyone had a chance to look at Naruto's-"
The Hokage held up his hand, cutting her off, "Mikoto, could you give us a few minutes alone? There's a few delicate matters that need to be discussed."
Kushina shook her head and spoke up before Mikoto could respond. "It's alright. I trust her, she can stay."
Hiruzen looked at her for a moment, then nodded as he closed the door, "Alright, but what we are discussing here is currently classified as a S-rank secret. None of this will leave the room unless I say so. Understood?" Once he got a nod from both of them he continued, "Naruto is currently perfectly healthy, and his seal seems to be holding fine. I plan to have Jiraiya look at it though when he comes back, I sent a message to him to return as soon as he's able. Given your skills with Fuinjutsu it would be good for you to take a look at the seal as well once you're able Kushina, a second set of eyes wouldn't hurt with something as important as this."
Kushina looked relieved at the information and nodded at the request, but Mikoto didn't entirely understand the situation, "What seal?"
Kushina proceeded to explain how they were attacked by a masked man with a sharingan who took her away, using Naruto to distract Minato, and weakened her seal to release the Kyuubi on Konoha, and then how the beast was resealed into her son, "Minato seemed to think the man was after more than just trying to destroy Konoha..."
"Hmm..." Hiruzen stroked his beard as he took in the new information, "This is another thing I'll have to talk to Jiraiya about once he returns. I'll have him dig up whatever information he can about this masked sharingan user. Madara is the only one we know of who had the skill to control a tailed beast, another enemy of his skill level would be frightening indeed..." He shook his head and then smiled at Kushina, "Try to relax and get some rest, I've got to go talk with some Anbu."
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It has been five and a half years since then, the village has been completely rebuilt and most of the village is back to normal. There was some suspicion directed towards the Uchiha clan about the Kyuubi attack, given that nearly everyone had seen the foxes eyes during the attack and they knew about the stories of Madara it wasn't unexpected to have this reaction.
A little blond haired boy was sitting at a table with his mother, who was trying to teach the energetic child to write. The boy was getting fidgety and decided to voice his complaints, "Kaa-san, what's writing got to do with being a ninja? If you want to teach me how to be a ninja shouldn't I be learning to throw kunai or something more exciting?"
The redhead smirked at her son, a plan forming in her mind to inspire the child, "True, throwing kunai is definitely something a ninja should know, but I think I'll leave that to your academy teachers. Besides, this will be a lot more exciting than some kunai in the end."
Her son looked at her in complete confusion, "How is writing the same thing over and over more exciting than kunai?!"
Kushina laughed and grabbed the ink, brush and a piece of paper, "Come with me, Naru-chan. I'll show you what's so exciting about doing all this writing." With that she and Naruto exited to the backyard of their rebuilt home. She wrote a relatively simple seal on the paper as Naruto watched curiously with a bit of skepticism. Once she was done she walked a safe distance away, set the paper on the ground and then went back to her son, "Now watch the paper." She smirked and then made the snake hand seal, activating the seal on the paper which caused it to immediately explode in response.
Naruto's eyes lit up as he grinned in excitement, "Wow! How'd you make the paper blow up like that?!" He ran over to look at the small crater the explosive tag had made.
Kushina followed him over, smiling at his excitement, and explained, "That was a fairly simple seal, something you learn to create when learning Fuinjutsu. Seals are a special kind of writing that are made with Kanji and a bit of chakra, once you are skilled enough in Fuinjutsu there's really no limit to what you could create with some knowledge and imagination. This is why you have to have really good handwriting, if you mess up part of the seal it could have no effect or even backfire on you."
Naruto's grin grew even more, "So I'll be able to learn to do explosions like that if I practice my handwriting?" He received a nod and he took off back towards the house, "Let's go, ~ttebayo!"
The redhead followed him back in, snickering to herself that he had picked up a variation of her verbal tic. As she entered the house she found Naruto quickly writing on his paper, she sighed and put her hand on his shoulder to get his attention, "Slow down, you have to learn how to do it neatly before you can learn to do it fast."
He slowed down a bit, though still going faster than necessary. She was about to say something when she heard one of the windows open up and a soft thump on the ground followed by a voice from the living room, "Hey, Kushina-chan!"
She turned around and shook her head as she walked into the room the sound came from, giving the intruder a look that was halfway between amusement and annoyance, "Do you really need to insist on using the window? We have a door, ~ttebane..."
The white-haired man just brushed it off with his usual smirk as he closed the window behind him, "Never mind about that, got something important to talk to you about involving Naruto. I was wondering if I could borrow him for about a month."
Kushina gave him an stern look, one that promised violence if the answer was wrong, "For what? You're not going to use him to pick up women again."
Jiraiya waved his hands nervously in front of him in a placating gesture, "N-nothing like that, you made your point about that clear last time." As he saw that he wasn't going to be hit, he calmed down a bit and regained his normal, carefree smile, "Actually I'm going to some peace talks in Iwa. Finally got some time off from working with my spy network and I'd really like to spend some time with my godson. I know it's out of the country, but since he's using the Uzumaki name rather than Namikaze, it should be completely safe. Besides, he'll be traveling with the legendary toad sage of Mount Myoboku, how much safer can you get?"
Naruto walked in towards the end of the conversation and he charged at Jiraiya, latching onto his leg as he spoke excitedly, "I get to go on a trip with Jiraiya?!"
Jiraiya smiled and ruffled the blond's hair, looking hopefully at Kushina, "Only if Kushina-chan gives the OK."
Kushina looked back and forth between the two nervously for a few moments before sighing, "Are you absolutely sure it'd be safe?"
Jiraiya nodded, "Yeah, both Kage's really want these peace talks to go through so they wont tolerate anyone doing anything stupid."
She thought for a minute before speaking again, "I'll allow it under three conditions. One, he has to work on his hand writing for an hour in the morning and an hour at night. Two, you won't let him out of your sight for a moment. Three, you wont try and corrupt him or use him to pick up women, he's too young for that." She finished the last rule with a stern look at the older man, "When do you need to leave for Iwa?"
He grinned at the redhead, "Thanks Kushina-chan, we leave in two days."
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Shiki Fūjin - Dead Demon Consuming Seal AKA Reaper Death Seal
Hakke no Fūin Shiki - Eight Trigrams Sealing Style AKA Eight Sign Seal
(Last Revision to Chapter on September 29, 2015.)
