I just remember reading somewhere that Yahiko and Naruto were supposed to be really similar or something. And then this popped in my head.


Dying sucks. Below a dark pouring sky, a spiky-haired ginger lied face-up on the ground, dyeing the earth red with his blood. Blood pouring freely from a huge gaping wound on his chest, right where his heart used to be. The warm rain battering his body now felt ice-cold. His eyes, once a clear sky-blue, were now glassy and unseeing.

His chest hurt. He couldn't breathe. Everything was so dark, everything was so cold. It was like sinking into an unfathomably deep, vast ocean. Yep, Yahiko decided that dying definitely sucked major balls.

But despite it all, the ginger wore a content smile on his face. He had saved his precious people, and that was all that really mattered. Nagato, Konan...Take care...

Yahiko passed on. Nearby stood a sobbing bluenette and a shell-shocked redhead. Konan fell to her knees beside the corpse, wet, grieving tears marring her beautiful face. Nagato meanwhile stared across the valley, his wide rippled eyes trained on a certain man. A dying man who ripped free the sword stuck through his heart. Yahiko's sword.

Hanzo coughed up blood, the red liquid running through his rebreather. This couldn't be happening. He was Hanzo of the Salamander! Everyone fled on sight of him! He was the strongest of them all! Nagato ripped him to shreds and flattened his army in a scream.


"It's a healthy baby boy!"

"I'm a father!"

"Naruto...I finally get to see you."

Meanwhile, Yahiko's first thought was HOLY SHIT I'M ALIVE?! He remembered what last happened last happened to him. People couldn't survive without their hearts, could they? And he lost a lot of blood too.

He supposed that now he was in a field hospital or something. But did his pals really have to put him next to some lady giving birth? It's a happy occasion, to be sure. But they were so loud. And Yahiko really wished whoever it was picked a better time for having a kid. Maybe peacetime. Ame right now was anything but peaceful.

Then suddenly there were screams. Yahiko instantly tensed. Wherever he was, he supposed he was under attack. His shinobi instincts told him someone or something was about to grab him. Yahiko spontaneously willed himself to dodge, but his body refused to listen for some reason.

'Oh yeah, I was insanely wounded wasn't I?'

'But man, my body sure feels weird', Yahiko thoughtlessly tried to say, but all that came out was WAAAAAAAA!

Wait what?

Yahiko immediately shut up and opened his eyes. All that awaited him was blurriness. Blurry moving blobs.

'Great. Now I'm mute and blind.' He was practically a cripple! How was he supposed to keep being a ninja? How was he supposed to protect his friends and achieve his dreams?

"Yondaime Hokage Minato, step away from the jinchuriki. Otherwise your son will just live to the ripe old age of one minute..."

At least he could still hear things- hey wait a sec, he knew that voice. That deep apathetic drawl, filled with arrogance that looked down on everyone like they were beneath them. It was the tone of bastards, and Yahiko recognized this specific voice to be the bastard who claimed to be Madara Uchiha. That bastard was full of shit and only wanted to use him and his pals, so the ginger kindly told him to fuck off and never come near them again.

'Man, I knew I should of killed that shady motherfucker. Threatening to murder babies and messing with jinchuriki- wait jinchuriki?' Yahiko paused at that thought.

Ame didn't have jinchuriki, or did it? Was he in a coma or something and then we got one? How long was he out? And wasn't Minato a kouhai of his? Yahiko remembered news saying that the Yondaime was a student of Jiraiya-sensei too. A student that the perv got after he left them to return to Konoha. Wait, Kages usually stayed at their respective villages. And Yahiko never heard of Minato running anywhere outside of his village since he became Hokage.

'Where the hell am I? I'm not in Ame am I? Am I in Konoha? Why am I in Konoha?'

"W-wait...Just calm down."

"Speak for yourself Minato. I'm perfectly calm."

Yahiko then felt curiously weightless. Then something fast smashed into him, but actually caught him gently? And then there was a loud BOOOOOOM. And then he heard something of a zip (or was it a zoop?), before everything was quiet again.

Yahiko inwardly sighed. Just what the fuck was going on?


Yahiko winced as he heard the soft cries of the lady next to him (her name was Kushina or something?), although his mind was on another matter. That Minato guy had left, but both of these people seemed to be referring to him as Naruto. Their kid they just had. Unless said kid was the quietest newborn ever- yeah no. Yahiko could hear the breathing of only two people in wherever he was now. Himself and Kushina.

Yahiko was distracted from his thoughts when a crying Kushina suddenly held him close to her chest, and he was then overwhelmed in softness. Wow her boobs were huge! They were probably larger than hi- wait that didn't make any sense. It was at this point that Yahiko was forced to consider the idea that he was Naruto. That he was somehow a newborn baby. The newborn baby boy of a fellow student of Jiraiya and a lady he was 99% certain from previous dialogue was the Kyubi jinchuriki until a few minutes ago.

Did he die? Is this that reincarnation thingy Nagato was always yammering about?


"...If I try to imagine surviving...and the three of us...living together...I can't think of anything...beyond 'I'd be so happy'" A dying Kushina said softly.

At this point, Yahiko couldn't help it. He bawled. For a war orphan like him who never knew his parents, having parents who loved him had always been a dream of his, at least when he was younger. And when he heard Minato spout out some savior of the world stuff (like Jiraiya-sensei always did) and heroically resolve to sacrifice himself as well, Yahiko cried even harder. Sure it was a bit weird for him to consider people basically his age as the loving parents he always desired as a child, but it was the feelings that mattered. He didn't see them as his parents, but their love definitely moved him. They were willing to die for him. They were definitely now precious people of his.

Suddenly, he felt it. Something was coming, and would be upon him in an instant. Something he just knew would instantly destroy him. Something he couldn't dodge no matter what 'cause he was a powerless baby. He then heard one of the most sickening crunching noises in his entire life. The sound of torn flesh and crushed bones. The sound of death.

Yahiko shivered, naked in the cold night air. He could feel his breath. He did not die again. Those two must have taken the hit for him. His dread mounted as he heard the pain-filled gasps and sputtering coughs. Something thick and wet dripped on his tiny face. Blood.


"And...Make friends...it doesn't matter how many...Just make sure they're real friends...people you can really trust...even a few is enough!"

They were crying. He was crying. Yahiko listened intently on every last word of life advice. Actually, he found that he was exactly living that sort of life before he died.

"...I really wish I could be with you longer...I love you..."

The last of their dying words trickled away to silence. It was unbearable agony. He could literally feel their pain, and his own. He wanted to scream. So he did. Like the baby he was.

His childhood dream had come true, for all of three hours. Yahiko swore to repay those two somehow. And he always repaid his debts. He also swore another thing.

That masked fucker was so dead.


AN: lemme know what you think.