Reflections of a Jinchurikki
Prologue: A Mistake is Corrected
The bijuu are beast of incredible power. When sealed into human hosts, their containers obtain incredible abilities. All jinchurikki have the ability to rapidly heal. All jinchurikki have the ability to draw on their demon's youki. All jinchurikki have the ability to transform into their demon. There is also a unique ability that each Bijuu grants its host, the potential power and complexity of the ability increasing with the number of tails the demon possesses. The zero tail gives the power to absorb energy. The one tail grants power over sand. The two tails grants control of the dead. The three tails gives mastery of water. The four tailed beast gives power over magma. The five tails gives unparalleled physical strength. The six tailed beast gives its holder unbreakable genjutsu techniques. The seven tailed beast gives its user the power to read and influence minds. The eight tailed beast bequeaths to its host superhuman coordination and speed.
The jinchurikki of the first eight demons have one thing in common; the bijuu they contain were sealed using techniques that allowed their tenants' chakra to mix with their own. Naruto's sealing was different. Rather than using a man-made sealing technique, the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, summoned a lesser God to seal the most powerful of the bijuu, doubting his own ability to do so due to the fox's immense strength. In doing so he tied the Kyuubi's fate to Naruto's own, intertwining their very souls. Namikaze Minato assumed that this would amplify any ability the Kyuubi might bestow on its container. He was wrong. The nature of the seal the Fourth used was fundamentally different than any seal ever used to contain a living entity, and while it allowed Naruto and Kyuubi's souls to overlap, is also robbed his son of the chance of ever expressing the special ability given by the demon fox, or even it's chakra. The supplementary Hakke no Fūin Shiki allowed Naruto to access the fox's chakra in an indirect way by breaking a tiny hole in the Shinigami's seal, though without their chakra mixing freely from birth every time the fox gave Naruto even a hint of chakra his body was damaged. He was less a jinchurikki and more a hermetically sealed vault with a tiny leak. True, the door could be opened upon command, but they really were separate beings, instead of the mixture that a true jinchurikki embodied.
Now, dear readers, we venture back in time to a night most terrible, to a village under siege by a walking force of nature. To a history that could have been, if only a single man had believed in himself, and his own abilities.
Namikaze Minato stood atop Gamabunta, the lord of the Toad summons. Less than a mile away stood the Kyuubi, king of the tailed beasts and the most powerful force on the mortal plane. The tall blond shinobi had been debating with himself for hours now over which sealing technique to use to contain the nine tailed demon, but now that he saw it in person, he knew. He had almost chosen to do something never attempted before in the ninja world; summon the shinigami to seal the beast. One he got his fear of the demon under control he realized that it might not be such a good idea to involve a god in the sealing of a demon. He had intelligence that suggested that the eight tails had been contained by a standard seal, so he assumed the nine tails could be sealed that way as well. He had already designed a standard seal that would do the job. The technique he intended to use was an array comprised of three Four Symbol seals, called the Juunisho Fūin. Minato thought that twelve might be a significant number in relation to containing a nine-tailed beast. It was an even number, which was always good to use on living beings, and twelve and nine were both divisible by three, which was the number of seals normally used to contain a demon. He knew for a fact though, that the no bijuu over two tails could be held with a three way seal. He hoped that twelve would be enough for the king of beasts.
Another reason the blond Hokage had chosen was personal, and selfish. He didn't want the final resting place for his immortal soul to be the Death God's stomach, undergoing an eternity of being continually digested. Any sealing method strong enough to contain one of the bijuu was enough to end the life of the person who performed the technique, but at least this way he would travel to the afterlife rather than become food.
Bracing himself as the monster approached, Minato began performing hand seals. In a sling wrapped across his back lay his son, young Naruto, freshly born less than a day earlier. Before coming to face the Kyuubi, Minato had placed him in a forced sleep technique which would hold up for hours. The strongest ninja in the world smiled a bittersweet smile for his wife, Uzumaki Kushina, dead of childbirth that morning, and another for the child who would grow up without either a father or a mother.
Quickly, he steeled his resolve and finished his technique just as the great beast was upon him. Leaping up, his palm glowing, Minato bitch slapped the King of Demons in the snout. He felt a searing pain travel down his arm and into his heart. Lifting his other hand, he placed it on Naruto's stomach. He screamed as the energy released by the technique tore his body into it's component atoms, causing a massive explosion and dispelling Gamabunta.
The giant fox became a tornado of energy, swirling violently, above young Naruto. It screamed in rage as it swirled into nothingness, being rapidly absorbed by the seal on the child's stomach. Then it was gone, and the night was once again calm.
Naruto's tiny body fell over fifty feet, and landed head first onto the rocky ground. When the Third Hokage found him minutes later, the young child was completely unharmed.
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Author's Note: Yeah, I started a new story rather than updating any of the ones I currently have going. Some of my readers will probably hate me for that, but I don't care; I like this idea too much to let it sit on the shelf. After seeing Gaara in the manga, I was always seriously disappointed that Naruto didn't have a special ability from the Kyuubi, so I'm going to make a story where he has one. Some of you will probably say it's overpowered, but the Kyuubi is the most powerful demon by far, so it should be strong. If you look at the title of the story, some of you might be able to guess what his ability will be. A free virtual cookie goes to the first person to correctly guess what it is. So, yeah, this story is going to be a lot different from cannon due to the change in Naruto. I expect it will be fun to write. Please read and review; I'm like a rabid dog, and reviews are the only vaccine that can cure me! ;)