I really enjoyed the premise behind 18 Tails, but it was done poorly. Things were either cliché, low quality, or both. I couldn't stand it, so I left it behind for other projects. I'm still no pro, but I'm going to give this thing one more chance as it has the most views, favs, follows, and reviews of any story I've posted (so far) and I do like it myself.
Image credit to Santos33756.
I don't own Naruto or anything, really. Feel free to review as I go through and make a better 18 Tails. Enjoy.
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"What are we going to name them, Minato?" asked the tired red head who was nearly asleep on the hospital bed.
"How about after the land of Whirlpool, Kushina?" asked her husband, his sapphire eyes looking on his wife with a curious mixture of love and pure exhaustion. The last nine months of his life had been tiring, but, after the next nine minutes, he would be able to take a long needed rest.
Kushina stared at her family, all three with sunshine hair and eyes of the deepest blue. She could only hope that they got her personality if they got their looks from their father. Raising her hand to her newborn little boy's head and rubbing the singular tuft of hair on his head she said, "Naruto," and the boy began to laugh. She moved her hand to her beautiful baby girl's cheek and said, "Naruko," while the girl grabbed her hand and began to suck on a finger. "Minato, I love you. Seal that beast away, and I'll be here for them." She faded into a fitful sleep.
Minato took her hand and held it tight, for the final time, before he gently kissed his wife once on the lips. He left the building and, with tears raining from his storm blue eyes, he summoned a humongous toad. "Let's do this, Gamabunta." He jumped to the amphibian's back, and the boss toad jumped toward the danger at hand, a beautiful and merciless form of nature, a golden-red nine tailed fox of a massive size. It was unfortunate that no one saw a man with a black cloak and a single rotating eye leave the room with a bloody kunai, leaving Kushina with a slit throat and the attending nurse with much less.
As the toad jumped overhead, shinobi stopped fighting to watch their leader, Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage, enter battle. They expected to see his famous jutsu, either a rasengan or the legendary hiraishin. Instead all they saw was a burst of red and blue energy and a smoke screen as the toad left. When the smoke cleared, all that remained was a single blond baby boy. The boy wept, for he no longer had the warmth of his mother or the touch of his father. Whisker marks appeared on his cheeks, one line at a time, and a red light shined through the blanket where his belly lay. As the light dimmed and disappeared, the boy turned to sleep.
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"Jiraiya, what do you mean?" asked Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage.
"I'll say it again. There are three souls here, and one seems to be slowly shrinking. However, it will take years for it to be absorbed. My best guess is that two of the souls belong to Naruto and his sister, and the third is the fox itself. Over time, the children's souls should absorb the Kyuubi's power and knowledge. If anything, due to the Kyuubi's steady regeneration of chakra, they should both absorb at least nine tails worth of chakra." The white haired men looked into the crib where Naruto lay. The boy moved restlessly, even in his sleep. Old eyes turned to look at older eyes and they contemplated what had happened.
"How can Naruko's soul absorb chakra without a body?" pondered the newly reinstated Sandaime Hokage.
Jiraiya had no answer, and there was silence for a moment. "Now what do we do about the boy? I can't bring him with me. He would ruin all cover I may have with my spy network and his life would be in danger," said the sannin.
"Well, I can't adopt him either. It would draw too much suspicion to him. We can't have him used as a weapon or targeted as a threat. I suppose all we can do now is to put him in the orphanage and look out for him for as best as we can."
"Do you even know what you're saying?" Jiraiya asked, giving Sarutobi an incredulous look. "The first thing those civilians did when they saw him was try to 'kill the demon.'"
"You're right, Jiraiya, but what else can we do? We'll call him Uzumaki, after his mother, so at least Iwa doesn't target him. Other than that, well, only Kami knows." Both men sighed at looked at the infant, innocent and naive, yet seemingly conscious of the troubles ahead as he held his hand out to the world, trying to block it. He cried softly, through his fitful sleep.
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"I'm going to kill you!" shouted the now enraged Naruto. This thirteen year-old stood over the body of his teacher Iruka, acting as the last boundary between him and the traitorous Mizuki. Both had been his teachers at Konoha ninja academy. While Iruka had been one of the very first teachers to pay attention to him and truly try to help him succeed, Mizuki had been the opposite. Mizuki had singled Naruto out for abuse behind the scenes, giving him bad matches in spars and slightly worsening his scores on tests. But up close, Mizuki had been just as kind to the boy.
That's why, when Naruto failed the test to become a genin, he didn't question Mizuki when the traitorous teacher told him of an alternate test to pass. It was "simple" according to Mizuki. Steal the forbidden scroll from the Hokage tower, bring it to this location, and learn a technique before being found. It would prove his stealth, planning, and ability to learn.
Everything had gone well until Iruka showed up and both realized Mizuki had set Naruto up. There was no test. Mizuki had just gotten Naruto to steal the scroll so that he had an excuse to kill him and then take the scroll! Iruka had been caught off guard and now it was between the two of them – chunin and academy failure.
"Just try it demon! Once you're gone the village will consider me a hero and I'll get a fair amount for the scroll too! It's a shame about you, Iruka. You were a good coworker besides your like for the brat here, and now you'll also have to die."
Naruto felt a new sensation gather around him. His teeth lengthened and whiskers set deeper while his eyes turned a deep red with only a gleam of blue shining through his slit pupils. An armor of ethereal red chakra surrounded his body and a single crimson tail formed from the chakra behind him. He crossed his fingers and growled in a feral voice, "Kage bunshin." Every visible speck of land was covered in solid Naruto clones and, as Iruka watched on, Mizuki was beaten within an inch of his life. Naruto stood over his once sensei with newly formed claws and set to deal the finishing blow. Iruka yelled out to him to stop him from killing Mizuki.
"Stop it, Naruto! He may have information we need!"
One of Naruto's clones came over to him and held his arm back. They glared into each other's eyes and the red chakra dissipated. The fangs receded a tad as did the claws, but they were now more notably prominent than they had been before tonight. Instead of cutting his throat out, Naruto merely knocked Mizuki out with a back hand before walking over to Iruka.
The still injured chunin teacher stumbled to his feet. "Naruto, thank you. Now close your eyes." Naruto did so and felt something being attached to his head. He thought he knew what it was and he certainly hoped he was right. "You can open them now. You are now an official ninja of Konoha!"
Naruto opened his eyes, reached up, and felt the cold metal of the hitai-ate attached around his head. It was a little large as it was Iruka's own, but that connection made it that much more important. He smiled, as did his remaining clone. "Thanks Iruka-sensei!"
"You're welcome Naruto. You deserved it after tonight, especially listening to me despite using that power." The chunin looked fondly at his student. "We need to go to the Hokage's office and explain this mess. First, though, release the clone."
Naruto closed his eyes, crossed his fingers, and tried to release the technique only to discover it was already canceled. Frustrated with seeing the "clone" still there, he tried again, this time putting all of his remaining chakra into the effort. A new shroud appeared around his body as he focused on the technique.
"Naruto?" Iruka questioned in concern. As the blonde strained, the sky above flashed and thundered until lightning struck the clearing in which they stood.
The lightning's flash had blinded Iruka for a second, but as his sight came back he noticed there were changes to his favorite student. There were now nine tails that waved from his body, the body itself appearing roughly sixteen and without any of Naruto's previous baby fat. His hair was only a tad longer than before, but both the tips of blond hair and blond tails had a gradient from their golden color to a dark strawberry blonde. Naruto also exuded a new feel. It wasn't a dangerous or malevolent feeling, but one of raw power. It gave the instinctive feeling of "I must be careful around this person."
Across the clearing there stood a figure who released a similar feel. This version of Naruto had long blond hair with small red highlights down its length. It also had nine tails with similar highlights. Finally, however, this Naruto had certain... distinguishing characteristics. Her bust was large for sixteen, her face was certainly attractive, and her proportions were perfect.
"Hello," spoke the girl and Naruto's foxlike ears perked upwards at the soft voice. 'Wait, since when did I have pointed ears?' he thought. He looked at his new body in disbelief. He appreciated the muscle, but was confused by the tails and, apparently, ears. He sighed deeply, breathing in through his nose, and noticed he could smell the faintest traces of the animals that had passed by in the last few days. His eyes, despite the dark of the night, could see every detail of the girl, and he heard the quietest rustlings of some small animal in a tree on the other side of the clearing. Instinctively, he knew, almost as if he could imagine its outline, that it was a squirrel and her family, settling down for the night.
He looked at his female version. She looked very much like his Oiroke no Jutsu form, though without the pigtails as her hair draped naturally down her back. He reached his hand behind his head to ask a question as he normally did, but found a tail had already subconsciously done so.
"Don't ask questions right now, Naruto. We need to talk to the old man now," she said.
Both Naruto and Iruka were shocked to see a seemingly autonomous shadow clone. They nodded dumbly and Iruka put a hand on each of their shoulders to, with the last of his chakra, shunshin teleport them to the Hokage tower.
This is the first chapter of my redo, as you can see. There has been an only minimal change to description and the like, but I hope it is still an improvement. The biggest changes will come with the Biju's lore.
Anyhow, review what you liked and didn't like and how it shapes up to the original.