Deep in the cold heart of the city, a graphic scene is set in a burning wedding chapel. Corpses are strewn about the burgundy carpet and bodies hang limp in and over the pews.
A young man, blonde, around his late 20s is looking down at his bleeding bride to be. She is young too, also in her 20s, though no older than 27. There is blood covering her face and abdomen. Her belly is round and full; pregnant with his child. He's lying on his side, beside her. He tries to get up, realizing that he can't. He looks down at his legs and sees it filled with bullet holes.
You're not getting out of this one Minato…he thinks in desperate humor.
At the far end of the chapel, near the entrance are a group of men in red suits and ties. Something about these men screams that those suits were white when they bought them. In each of their hands are sizable Tommy guns. Their faces are donned with breathing masks, helping them survive the smoky fumes that permeated the chapel's space.
They step closer to Minato, who is desperately thinking of a plan. Think. Think. Think. He's got nothing. He reaches behind his suit lapel and pulls forward a derringer.
The red suited men laugh at Minato's puny gun as they tower over him, ready to end him and his wife.
"You shouldn't have done what you did assassin. You piss off important people when you don't obey," the most imposing one says insultingly.
Minato merely smirks. "Hey, history's heroes are always the rebels, right?"
"We'll see you in hell!" they yell as they take aim.
When your heart starts beating faster and blood starts being pumped through you like crazy and it seems like time has slowed down, that was Minato at this moment. He took the opportunity and pulled the trigger on the derringer, splattering the head of one of the red suited men. The blood and brains spray in the eyes of the other men and Minato wastes no time shooting them down too.
His eyes pan the blazing bloody carnage around him, until his gaze falls back upon his wife, Kushina. The blood coming from her forehead splits like a river when reaching the bridge of her nose. Her eyes open, revealing a pair of deathly serene, violet eyes. They stare deeply in Minato's.
"Honey, I don't think I'm going to make it," she says to him.
"You don't know what you're talking about sugar," he says as he pulls out pack of cigarettes. "We're gonna be fine."
Kushina shakes her head softly, as she lay dying. "No, no baby, I can feel it, I'm going to die." Her eyelids droop slowly before snapping open, wider than before. "Naruto," she says as her blood smeared hands hold on to her stomach. "My baby!" she screams. Tears mix with the warm red blood that uglied her naturally beautiful face.
Minato stares down at the face of his lover. Ashes tumble from the cigarette in his mouth, though he doesn't inhale, as if dying made you forget how to breathe. He both did and didn't believe what had just happened to him. But as the saying in his profession went, "if you can imagine being hit, you're going to get hit."
His vision is fading. Everything he sees is a blurry imitation of what it ought to be. He wanted the last thing he sees to be his wife's beautiful face, but with death snatching his vision, he couldn't even have that. As he now lay dying alongside his wife, he can barely make out a figure of something entering the chapel. He can hear them. They are trying to say something. What is it? He couldn't tell you. The rider of the pale horse was taking everything away from him.
This is my only chance… he thought.
He coughs throaty, raspy cough. Unmistakably that of a dead man's. He raises his hand slowly so that the figure can notice it. As its shape draws nearer, he points to a silently weeping Kushina.
'Get her out of here,' he tries to say but the flaming smoke air has taken his voice and he can only mouth it.
The stranger understands regardless and lifts Kushina out of the burning wedding massacre.
Naruto… the truth is, Kushina isn't going to make it. Without parents to raise you, life will not be easy. But hey, look on the bright side; now you won't pick up those nasty traits that allow hell and misfortune to follow you forever, like your pop. And when you grow up, I know you'll be the man that people look to for inspiration. You can't die, not now, not here, not because of the sins of your elders. You're going to grow up and do something I couldn't. You're going to make your own future!
These were the last thoughts in Minato's head as the chapel came crumbling down in a burning heap. And these last thoughts let him die in peace.
Cut to 17 years later
A black BMW rolls up nice and smooth in front of a rotting and torn up building. Graffiti of street art and bubble lettered tag names are drawn up the sides and the windows are all boarded with wood. Three men step out of the car and stroll up to the door. Two of the men get on either side of the door, guns at the ready. The third of them steps up, chest out, and kicks the door in, snapping one of the hinges broken. The door swings open meagerly as the men step inside, cautious and aware. A cold and dismal gray and sepia reign over the interior of the building's hallway. The tattered floral wallpaper hangs over, torn and messy. On the right, a small room with nothing in it but upturned chairs, old newspapers and ashes.
Directly ahead of them was a staircase. The two men looked back at the last of them, obviously the one in charge. He gave them a firm nod and they turned to take the lead upstairs. Up the steps, they enter a hallway not unlike the last one. The close in on a door numbered "502."
They approach the door the same as they did the one outside. The two ready on either side as their boss kicks the door in. The boss is unnerved as all he sees is an impossibly black room. He draws a shiny Beretta M1951 and holds cautiously as he makes a slow enter into the void. His footsteps echo to the two men in the hall. Both hold their handguns tight with both hands. Their boss's footsteps stop. Both men are hesitant to do something about it. They exchange looks and nonverbally agree to check at the same time, on three.
One…
…was all they could get to before the room exploded into orange burst of destructive flaming hell. The walls of the room tore down, giving way to the eruption's might. The men, all rolling on the ground, all suffering, could feel their burns sticking to their skin. The hell of napalm melted away at their bodies.
From the outside of the building, where the warm colored napalm death could be seen contrasting with the dull gray of urban decay, a young blonde man whistling "Twisted Nerve," is casually strolling from the back of the building and towards a carbon black BMW parked out front.
He pulls on the driver seat handle. It opens.
Pfft. What idiots, someone could've snagged their shiny fucking car. He thought.
He gets inside, not closing the door behind him. He pulls a coin out of his pocket and goes, "Okey-doke, to steal or to kill, that is the question."
He flips the coin. It rings in the air. It lands in his palm and he closes it over his other hand.
When he lifts his hand he sees, the profile an older gentleman staring at the edge of the coin.
"I guess, we're stealing this pretty picture," he says as he turns upside down in the car. He pulls a switchblade from his person and carves at the plastic under the steering wheel. He peels it off, and examines the collective of wires for a moment.
He notices two identically colored wires, not connected to each other. He brings his knife up to the wires and cuts them cleanly, making sure they don't fray too much. He pulls them gently from the respective spots and begins to work on placing the two together until he senses a presence behind him.
He whips around, quickly drawing a black revolver, a thoroughly customized Enfield No.2.
The barrel of a Desert Eagle stares him dead in the face. He looks up at its wielder; a man dressed in a gray jumpsuit with a black vest looks square into the young man's ocean blue eyes.
"Don't move a muscle," the vested man finally says.
The young man knew by this guy's dress that he was a copper. There was no two ways about it. This was shootin' time.
The young man clutched the trigger, sending a bullet through the officer's chin and blasting the jaw portion of his face off. The young man twitched as blood splashed on his face and clothes. His black tee was now splattered with pig's blood all over the chest area. There are also small patches of it on both legs of his black jeans.
"Shooting confirmed!" the young man heard a voice say from beyond the alley.
Shit, more coppers are coming. Damn. Damn. Damn. They're going to be coming after me. I better abandon this thing and make a run for it.
He crawls out of the car's seat and over the dead officer's body.
The young man hauls ass out of the car and starts booking it down the street, but it's not long before he sees another cop. He shoots this cop down too and keeps running. This sucks. His feet are stomping at an uncomfortably swift pace. Sweat is dripping from his head and raining down on his lower face, while matting his blonde follicles to his forehead. As he picks up the pace, he can barely hear a siren over the sound of his own stifled breath. He looks behind him and sees Konoha's finest chasing after him.
He takes a desperate look over his shoulder.
He looks ahead at the empty, dull, dead, decayed, corpse like street in front of him.
He slows his sprint to a jog to a stroll before stopping completely.
Had there been something, anything else, he could've used to get out of this situation, he would've. A pedestrian. A driver. Just, someone in the wrong place at the wrong time, would've been perfect for this. But no. The projects are projects. Nothing but unfinished projects.
A cop car rolls up to his side. His Enfield is hidden from view of the police.
Another cop dressed in the jumpsuit-vest combo steps out of the passenger seat of the car.
The young man, raises his hands up above his head as the copper says nothing and proceeds to arrest the young blonde.
Once metal cuffs are slapped onto the young man's wrists, he's stuffed inside the back seat of the car, restrained.
As the car starts forward, the cacophonous ruckus of semi-automatic handguns shattering the front window of a police vehicle mangled the silence.
The young blonde twists and writhes in the back, watching the two officers' bodies jerk from being plugged with bullet holes.
For a second, relief flushed the young man's feelings of despair away. But only for a second as he realized that his "savior" could've just as easily been allied with the men who tried to kill him in his "apartment" (he was squatting). Concluding that he couldn't do anything but wait, he sits patiently until he sees a young pink haired woman approach his car door.
"Hola!" she says to him.
"Um, muchas gracias," he replies, nervous about not knowing much Spanish.
The young woman, about his age, possibly older, giggled. "I like men that speak different languages."
The young blonde blushed. "What a coincidence, I like women that save my life."
She giggles again. "You're funny, I'm glad you're not some square like the last scrub our boss wanted," she says as she helps the young man out of the car.
"Your boss?" he asks, skeptical of her. People with bosses normally weren't too fond of him.
"Yeah. A real fucking psycho, but a nice guy otherwise," she said as she helped unlock the handcuffs.
The young man looked ahead of the cop car and noticed a young man with blue hair and a gun shining at his side.
Who were these people?
And then at that moment, a voice from behind the young blonde says in a familiar tone, "Naruto Uzumaki, the Son of Death! How've you been?"