Namikaze Minato glared heavily at the Fūin no Sho and gripped the rough parchment hard enough that it crinkled. He couldn't find anything that would work!
His wife, Uzumaki Kushina, contained the most powerful being on earth, the Kyūbi no Kitsune, which held a deep grudge against humanity. She was pregnant and was expected to give birth in a few months, and while giving birth, the seal that held the Kyūbi within her could fail, and the godly being would be unleashed upon his home village, Konohagakure. Of course, the seal probably wouldn't break, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.
If he wasn't safe, then he would be very, very sorry.
Kushina's seal used her chakra to maintain itself, so the only way that the Kyūbi would be released would be for her to die, but if someone else somehow managed to drag it out of the seal, it wouldn't be able to be sealed back in her due to the nature of the seal. Kushina's seal was perfect but required the Kyūbi no Kitsune to be transferred to and from her rather than released and recaptured. Mokuton jutsu were the best way to go about sealing gods, and that was what he was looking for.
Suddenly, he spied something on the scroll, and his eyes lit up with delight. It was a mokuton jutsu called Bijū Yokusei no Jutsu, the one the Senju Hashirama, the Shodaime Hokage, had used to capture the Kyūbi and have his wife seal it within herself! It was perfect!
He scribbled down the instructions and noticed that it did not actually require a kekkei genkai, which was the rare ability of a person to use an ability that can be passed down through genes, but instead simply careful control of suiton, doton, and a small amount of yōton chakra. Minato sighed in relief when he realized that he could actually use the jutsu if he practiced enough.
Namikaze Minato was the Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure, its fourth (and in his opinion, best) leader. Uzumaki Kushina was the Nidaime Jinchūriki no Kyūbi, the second container of the great nine-tailed god. Their son, who they planned to name Menma, was to eventually become the Sandaime Jinchūriki no Kyūbi and possibly even become a Hokage in his later days.
Minato rolled up what he had copied in his neat, flowing script and tucked it away in his jacket. He tenderly picked up the Fūin no Sho and walked across the wooden floor of his office to place it within the hidden compartment in the wall. He then checked to see if the fake scroll that he had set out as a decoy had been tampered with and then used his famed Hiraishin no Jutsu to disappear in a yellow flash.
Minato appeared in front of the door to his and his wife's house and stumbled over the doormat, slamming into the door and pushing it open before falling to the floor of his house with a loud thud. He glared at the mat, which had a welcoming 'welcome' on it and swore that it had been moved just so that he would trip and fall.
"Kushina!" He complained, and he heard his wife giggling from the kitchen.
She had beautiful crimson-red hair that reached her lower back and warm lavender eyes, "I can't - believe - you actually - tripped! Hahahaha!" She wheezed between laughs.
"Haha," Minato grumbled as he picked himself up. His face suddenly turned serious, "Kushina, I need you to teach me how to seal the Kyūbi."
"Ah, that," Her face turned grim as well, "I'll show you the seal that my grandmother used on herself, but you can't finish it until after Menma-kun is born. You'll need to take a sample of his chakra."
"That's what I thought. Can I start learning now?" Minato asked, but then spied a rather plain-looking book in Kushina's hand, "What's that?"
"Oh!" She lit up happily, "This is Jiraiya's new book! It's called Dokonjō Ninden! Do you want to read it? I'm considering naming Menma Naruto instead…"
The seal had failed, and the Kyūbi no Kitsune was released, wreaking havoc upon Konoha. The giant fox and its nine tails had killed hundred upon thousands of shinobi, and Minato could only hope that the ones he knew were alive.
He had just defeated a masked man with the Sharingan dōjutsu, the signature kekkei genkai of the Uchiha clan, and he had discovered that the Kyūbi was being controlled by the Sharingan itself by looking at its eyes.
Minato stood atop Gamabunta, the great toad summon boss, and held his newborn son, Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, in his arms. He was going to seal that Bijū even if it was the last thing he would ever do.
"Bijū Yokusei no Jutsu!" He cried, and great vines that quickly grew into massive and thick trees wrapped around the Kyūbi. The great Bijū roared and struggled, blasting its prison again and again with the signature technique of the nine Bijū, the Bijūdama, "Kushina, now!"
"EVERYONE LEAVE! QUICKLY!" Kushina screamed, and then put her hands into a seal, "Kongō Fūsa!"
An impenetrable barrier erected itself between the other shinobi and Minato, Kushina, Naruto, and the Kyūbi, held together by glowing golden chains, "Kongō Fūsa!"
This time, the sealing chains wrapped around the fox, who had just begun to break its prison. It roared in rage but could barely attack or even move, "Minato, do it!"
"Kyūbi no Kitsune…" He shouted, molding his chakra and letting it explode outwards into the air around him. Minato placed the seal on his son's stomach and allowed it to drag a bit of the baby's chakra into it, "Fūin!"
The Kyūbi's eyes widened in fear and rage, and the seal began to pull its chakra, "No! Kamidammit, not again!"
Minato swore he heard the fox's roars form themselves into words as the great Bijū was sucked into the seal on his son. Baby Naruto suddenly began to cry and Minato's world swam before him.
As Gamabunta disappeared and Minato collapsed, Kushina jumped caught Naruto as she fell herself, and the last thing he thought was, 'I feel numb…'
"Chakra void!" Hiruzen hissed as he rushed over to Minato and his wife when the barrier collapsed. He cursed when he saw the symptoms of the horrid thing. Their skin was rapidly paling and they were breathing extremely heavily. They had used not most, but all of their chakras, and if they weren't treated immediately, they could die.
He hissed and pulled out a scroll with a seal on it. He had reserved it just for this occasion. It would take several years of stasis in order for them to regain their chakras enough to survive. Hiruzen didn't want to waste fifteen years of their lives, but it was either that or death.
He weighed his options and then decided that stealing a few years of life to let someone live was better than having them die too young to experience beyond those years. He sighed and sealed the two almost-corpses into the scroll.
He stared at their son, Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, who had bright blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes just like his father. Strange, black, whisker-like markings etched themselves into his cheeks, and Hiruzen lifted the boy up.
The council would not be pleased by the news.
"..." The shinobi council was silent, and then Inuzuka Tsume spoke up, "Are you saying that for all intents and purposes, Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato are dead and their son is the new Kyūbi Jinchūriki? And that the conditions of the Yondaime and his wife and the fact that Naruto is their son is to be treated as an S-Ranked secret?"
"Yes," Hiruzen sighed, "If we let everyone know that Naruto is Minato's son, other hidden villages will send their shinobi after him, and if we tell everyone in the village, the information is eventually going to get leaked. As of now, only the clan heads are allowed to know about this. You are not even allowed to tell your spouses."
"And if we tell everyone about their conditions shinobi from other villages will try to destroy the scroll?" Nara Shikaku drawled.
"Yes. I will leave the secrets of how to open the scroll with my successor, and if I die before I can tell anyone, there will be a scroll in a secret compartment within the secret compartment that the scroll will be held in," Hiruzen explained, "Am I clear?"
"Hai!"
"Good. Also, please don't spread around that Naruto is the Kyūbi Jinchūriki. I'd much rather if he didn't grow up hated, feared, or ostracized. Things like that drive a jinchūriki to kill," Hiruzen sighed again.
"Hai!"
"All of you are dismissed except for Shimura Danzō," The clan head Shunshin'd away.
The scarred man limped over to Hiruzen, "What do you need, Hiruzen?"
"I would rather if you didn't recruit Naruto into Ne, Danzō," Hiruzen said, "We are going to start to train him early, but not as a Ne shinobi. Kushina had scrolls on how to control the Kyūbi's chakra, so the most we can do is supervise him while he figures that out. His father was a genius, and I'm sure he will be as well."
"You should tell Hatake that Naruto is his sensei's son. The boy is a prodigy, as is young Uchiha Itachi, so we should probably pair those three together," Danzō suggested, "And I hear that one of the younger Hyūga branch members is a genius. Neji, I think. We could put the four of them together with Kakashi as the sensei, and they would be perfect weapons."
"Indeed they would. That is a great idea. We'll see what we can do and wait for them to show their skills. In the meantime, we should probably push up the academy standards. We lost far too many shinobi, and we should probably stick with few good shinobi than mostly cannon-fodder," Said Hiruzen, "And it would probably help if we had someone like you on staff. Now, don't turn them into mindless drones… just ready them for battle. It would be good for Konoha."
"I agree. Tell the Uchiha and Hyūga heads about this, and inform Hatake of the situation."
"I will. Sayōnara, Danzō."
"Sayōnara, Hiruzen."
As Danzō left the building, Hiruzen looked out the window and at the moon, which shone a bright silver, 'I hope I'm not making a mistake.'
Dictionary:
Fūin no Sho - Scroll of Seals
Kyūbi no Kitsune - Nine-tailed Fox
Kyūbi - Nine-tails
Konohagakure - Village Hidden in the Leaves
Mokuton - Wood Release
Jutsu - Technique
Bijū Yokusei no Jutsu - Tailed Beast Suppression Technique
Shodaime Hokage - Honored First Fire Shadow
Kekkei Genkai - Bloodline Limit
Suiton - Water Release
Doton - Earth Release
Yōton - Yang Release
Yondaime Hokage - Fourth Fire Shadow
Nidaime Jinchūriki no Kyūbi - Second Power of Human Sacrifice of the Nine-tails
Sandaime Jinchūriki no Kyūbi - Third Power of Human Sacrifice of the Nine-tails
Hokage - Fire Shadow
Hiraishin no Jutsu - Flying Thunder God Technique
-kun - a term of endearment towards the male gender
Dokonjō Ninden - The Utterly Gutsy Ninja
Konoha - Leaf
Shinobi - Ninja
Sharingan - Copy Wheel Eye
Dōjutsu - Eye Techniques
Bijū - Tailed Beast
Bijūdama - Tailed Beast Ball
Kongō Fūsa - Adamantine Sealing Chains
Kyūbi no Kitsune: Fūin - Nine-tailed Fox: Seal
Kamidammit: Goddammit
Kyūbi Jinchūriki: Nine-tailed Power Human Sacrifice
Yondaime: Fourth
Jinchūriki: Power of Human Sacrifice
Hai: Yes
Ne: Root
Sayōnara: Goodbye