I do not own Naruto in any format, this is a fan fiction.
In the world of the elemental nations exist five villages, each is tasked with the protection and aid of the nation it is located. Our story takes us to the one named the land of fire, contrary to the name it has some if the most beautiful forest anyone could imagine, the village is called Konoha, or the village hidden in the leaves. They had just finished fighting what came to be known as the third shinobi world war. The hero and leader of this village is a man respected and admired as one of the heroes of said war, Minato Namikaze the fourth hokage.
Minato is married to a particularly beautiful lady, named Kushina and since she is the last of her clan she retained her clan name, the long feared and acknowledged Uzumaki Clan. But what this lady had in beauty was equal in her devotion to her family. All was as happy as can be and she like many young wives, wished to have a child of the man she loved, the guy was born eight years after the war, and a few years since the marriage had become cold. It was the hope that this child would strengthen the bonds of their marriage but sadly it was not so.
Minato had taken his duty as leader of the village very seriously. If it meant that he did not spend as much time with the woman he loved was the price of keeping Konoha safe, he paid it gladly. Every waking moment was spent making the village financially secure and strong. This however as mentioned before left little to no time for romance, thus the passion that once united them grew colder and colder. Kushina of course blamed her husband need to be acknowledged and respected.
Eight years passed and the marriage was a shadow of what it was when it first started, Naruto bore the brunt of his mothers resentment, she fed him, made sure he was healthy, but never played with him or celebrated Hus birthday. The laws of the village made her do these things for child abandonment was a very harshly punished crime.
The other thing that Kushina had was a dark secret, in her was sealed one if the feared tailed beasts. These beings were nine in total, and the strongest of them was inside herself, the feared Kyuubi no Kitsune. Kyuubi had grown to dislike most humans since he felt that he was used onlynas a tool for his hosts benefit, but that changed when Kushina was pregnant with her son, Naruto Uzumaki. There was a light in this child that calmed him and made him feel like this child was very much like he was his own. He sang songs to the child and watched him grow, guarded him from illness.
But after watching how Kushina talked about her unborn child, he could stand being in her no longer. He used the connection between mother and infant to transfer himself to the unborn child. This caused the child to have whisker marks on his cheeks. Kyuubi was the one that taught him everything his mother should have. Just like today he was teaching him how to walk on a tree. Little did they know that a demon from another plane of existence was watching the child from that very same tree.
When young Naruto was exhausted from his lesson the demon jumped from the tree the thing was hideous, it was as nothing young Naruto had ever seen. The demon punched into his little chest hoping to pull out his soul and devouring it, but as soon as he was reaching for the child's soul he saw something that looked like a fox made of fiery energy, it had nine magnificent tails. Kyuubi killed the demon, but not before he mortally wounded Naruto.
Kyuubi in his despair called to the heavans to save his precious little boy, but no answer came. Knowing that he did not want to live without him, he linked his soul with Naruto's and thus when he died Kyuubi went with his soul. The heavens did in fact listen to the mighty Kyuubi plead for the child's life but they could not save him, for they had a very special plan for him. Instead of being sent to be reborn in this world, they sent the soul to the dimension that connected all other dimensions the nexus of the universe.
Most would picture the dimension where Naruto was sent to be a heaven, and in truth it once was. But demons had found out that souls gave them immense power and were to them the single most delicious thing ever, specially human souls. The oldest demon there beat all others under his control and thus he became their king. The people in the nexus called him the old one. Where majestic landscapes were burned ruined remained. In the nexus was the last bastion of hope,the guardian of all creation, this place was called Nexus City.
As the guards took their post, they saw the arrival of a new soul, the guards hoped for a mighty warrior, one that could defeat the old one and his demons. Instead they saw a young boy not even in his teenage years. The child was covered in what looked to be a fiery cloack, when they tried to touch the child a voice almost a growl was heard. "You will not harm this child while I exist, he is my precious boy and I shall see all that try dead, before I let someone as much as harm him. Do not fear my boy. I shall protect you."
The voice had looked at them and it looked like the face of a fox made if fire. The guards did as anyone would do after experiencing such a thing. They screamed as loud ajs they could that a demon was inside the city. The Commander of the Knight was sent to deal with the disturbance the guards were causing. He saw the child, and saw the way this supposed demon cradled the infant which such love and tenderness. "Answer me truthfully are you a demon and do you mean us harm?"
Seeing that this man was indeed a veteran fighter and very skilled, from his strong demeanor to the scars that covered his face and arms, and not attacking him or Naruto. He calmed down. "I have been mistakenly called a demon but I am not. If you do not mean to harm my boy, I am no danger to you, I only fear for the life of my precious child." The commander smiled, "Fox, we mean you and this child no harm, let us treat him, for he seems injured by a rather nasty demon." The fiery cloak disappeared and the man was allowed to take him to a doctor.
The doctor was quite surprised at what he found. The child was healing on his own, the only problem he had was the residual energy of the demon that had attacked him. His body simply could not cleanse itself of the energy. The doctor called for the aid of one of their most prestigious mages, a man that went by the name of Merlin. He looked at the child and recognized why the demon energy wanted to take over the child, he had something they never expected, a child with a fully functional magic core. It simply was too much temptation for the energy to lose it's grip on.
Merlin having raised his staff he began casting an elaborate spell, the spell made the energy burst into flames and with a horrific scream it burned till there was nothing left."The demon was no ordinary demon he was the former general Azrael, the one that tried to murder the old one. This child must be special that even in death he would still try to take him. He might just be our salvation if trained properly I propose that Commander Rayudo trains his body, while I train his mind. It would be a horrible waste not teaching magic, specially given how strong he may become."
"Merlin, we have never been able to see eye to eye, knights don't always trust mages and mages hate knights for past incidents, but I agree. He must be trained to his full potential." So as Naruto was asleep they decided that he would live with Merlin and his adopted daughter Arturia. Rayudo would teach him the ways of the knight, while Merlin educated him, and taught him the ways of the mage. This made both men think the same thing, this was going to be a challenge, but what could come of it, could be the salvation for all.
The following morning Naruto was asked if he was hungry, he told the nurse that he was starving. This made the young woman laugh, and bring him a cart full of food. He began eating and by the end the nurse was suprise at the sheer hunger he was showing, by the way he ate the food, the nurse was almost afraid if he asked for seconds. The cook was beyond happy, finally someone showed the proper appreciation to the effort he placed cooking that food. The man was a muscular, tall bald man, with dark brown skin, he was named John Marion Stevens, but he preferred to be called Jean Marie.
Merlin showed up after Nature thanked them for the meal and clean clothes. "So you had breakfast already, good, good. I am Merlin and I will teach you about many things, one of wish is magic. Another person will teach you how to defend yourself, we wouldn't want to be easy prey to demons now would we?" Naruto had been an avid reader, specially fantasy stories. He was smiling and jumped up from where he had been seated. "Wow, you mean you are the actual Merlin, like the one that was with King Arthur and his knights of the round table?"
"The very same, now come one and follow me, I need to get to know you better and show you were you will live." Naruyo began to follow but not thatwuietly, he simply was a boy full of questions which made Merlin laugh. He answered most if them, till they saw a young girl his age practicing with a sword. Naruto saw that she was about to fall and cut herself. He ran as fast as he could and caught both her and the sword. The sword was heavy so he let it fall to the ground, and that was when the girl waked up, only to hear a question,"Are you alright?"
"I am fine, but could you please let go of me, and who are you?" Merlin was quite surprised at his actions, he was already behaving like a Knight and he had no training. "That is what I been wondering myself, the young man asked me so many questions, I never manage to ask him his name." Merlin was clearly amused. "I'm Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki and sorry for this but it seemed that you might injure yourself so I had to act, sorry if I offended."
The young girl was blushing, "No offense taken, and I am grateful for your act of kindness, but father why did you bring here." Merlin told the two to sit in a bench near a rather comfy looking home. "Well you see young Naruto us going to be my student, and he will also be a student of your teacher, Arturia." She was caught completely by surprise. "So what is he going to be a knight or a mage?" This cause Merlin to laugh and he looked at her and smiling he told her he was going to be both.
Arturia showed him around husbnew home, and explained the house rules. Why did he have to be told the order when people may take a bath was something he did not need to here. Kyuubi was quite insistent about proper behavior. He did however found out later that the water was cold, when he took his bath, Merlin was laughing quite loudly as he hear the string of complaints Natuto had about how cold the water was. "Well at least I won't have any trouble teaching him the benefits of knowing fire magic."
Kyuubi appeared in his dreams like always and began to teach him his own brand of magic. He told him that this particular skill was going to make learning a whole lot easier. He began teaching him the shadow clone jitsu, being inside two ninjas for such a long time, he managed to learn quite a few techniques, and he knew his boy might actually need it. "That us enough practice, sweet dreams, my little Naruto." Naruto complained that he was not so little till he felt Kyuubi rub gently his hair and sing him the lullaby he often did.
"Hush little baby don't say a word, cause papa Kyuubi will watch you soar, through the clouds you will fly, and you will see wonder no one can, hush little baby don't shed a tear, cause with papa Kyuubi you don't feel fear. Hush little baby till sun is high, cause papa Kyuubi will guard you all your life."