Chapter One

A meaningless sacrifice

Konahagakure no sato. The most powerful village in the Five Great Shinobi Nations. It was night, the full moon hung in the sky, surrounded by stars, of many colors, red, blue, white, and yellow. All was at peace. It was never meant to last. A being of unfathomable power attacked. It's form was of a great fox, nine tails swayed in a hypnotic yet terrifying manner. The fox assaulted the village mercilessly, entire blocks fell to the swings of it's strangely human-like arms, it would grab and either crush those unfortunate enough to be caught in it's grasp to red paste and crunched bone. It made no distinction between man or woman. The old and sick. Not even children were spared. The village leader. The Yondaime Hokage would soon save the village, everyone hoped, everyone pleaded. But the village would not be saved without a sacrifice. That of his son. His very humanity, even his soul would be sacrificed to protect Konoha. That was the price of the Shinigami. And yet, Death was not without a sense of mercy. Ancient and eldritch it was, it pitied the child. And would bestow upon him a gift, from another reality entirely. All it needed to do was acquire the gift.

(?)

Alex Mercer knew that this day was coming. No...not Alex Mercer. He died a week and a half ago, He was just a creation of Mercer. Could he even be assigned a gender? Was he even alive? He had no heartbeat. He did not bleed. Bullets merely passed through him, or bounced off his form entirely. Not even the clothes on his back were real. Just biomass molded and shaped to resemble clothing. He looked to a mirror on the helicopter's dashboard, a gray hood concealed a majority of his head. He could see curly, dark brown hair under the hood. Blue-silver eyes stared back at him. His own eyes. He was clean-shaven. Not that he even possessed body hair. Or genitalia. He saw no need for those minor details.

He looked away, back towards the aircraft carrier, where he had just consumed both of his greatest enemies yet. The Supreme Hunter, the evolved form of the parasite that once plagued him. It once referred to itself as an "intelligent cancer". Then, the leader of Blackwatch, General Peter Randall. He smirked then, an odd sight for someone like him. Consuming someone granted him their memories, skills, everything that made them was stripped from their very soul. It was likely that, if he even possessed one, that his own soul proceeded to consume what remained of the human soul as well. Oh well. Such thoughts would likely be his last.

Randall, in a last-ditch effort to eliminate the virus that very nearly overtook Manhattan, had obtained a thermonuclear device, and had planned to detonate it in the heart of the city. Everything would be annihilated. Including Dana. His sister (or was she?) the one thing that tied him to the life he once thought the led. She had helped him so much... Then the original Mercer committed an atrocity that would never be forgiven. He realeased the Blacklight virus. A bio-weapon capable of horrifying damage. A nuke might reduce a few mile radius of land to an inhospitable crater, and spread radiation around for a few more miles.

But a virus? It could spread. It could traverse entire continents with the advent of world wide air travel. A single infected host could potentially spread it to a major population center. And the bodies would pile up. Blacklight was unique in that it was entirely impossible to create a vaccine for. Mercer had spliced the genetic code that offered the common cold it's immunity to every attempt to cure or vaccinate, into the Blacklight virus. With no vaccine or cure option available, the armed forces would be forced to euthanize infected. Obviously, some people would be opposed to that, dissent would blossom into existence, eventually metamorphosing into outright hostility and violence, the military would fighting a two front war, killing any infected in an attempt to prevent any more spread of the disease, and then there would be the resistance effort, the soldiers would likely break under the duress of being forced to kill their own countrymen, and eventually, society would collapse entirely, anarchy would reign. And the virus would spread further still. Until nothing remained but corpses. Genius.

But it was not meant to be. The virus was released on domestic soil. And nearly everyone in Manhattan would die because of it. He was the virus. When Mercer had broken the vial containing the Blacklight virus in Penn Station, it entered his body through the bullet wounds in his chest. Mercer's fresh corpse was consumed nearly instantly, every cell, every tissue, even the bones were broken down into their basest components, Biomass.

But there was no more time to reminiscence about the past, he had arrived. The plan was simplicity itself. Drop the nuke into the Atlantic Ocean a few miles off the coast, then get the fuck back to Manhattan and hopefully, he would get to watch the fireworks. He gently pulled back on the control stick, until the heli came to a stop. He glanced down at a small lever, with a blinking light above it. "CARGO RELEASE" was written underneath it in a rather annoying shade of bright orange.

He thumbed the lever, and the nuke was dropped into the sea below. 'Time to get the hell out of here', thought Alex. He jerked the stick and the heli was immediately turned away from the nuke, and he headed with full speed back towards Manhattan. He glanced down at his wrist, he had taken a digital stopwatch from one of the many dead soldiers back at the carrier. It read "00:36". 36 seconds left until detonation. He could see the carrier on the horizon. 22 seconds. The Empire State Building was visible now. It's spire light blinked red, slicing through the dense fog. 12 seconds. He wouldn't make it to a safe distance. 5. He would die here. 4. He'd never get to see Dana again. 3. No...it didn't matter. She'd never accept him for what he was. 2. He was a monster. 1. He deserved to die. 0.

All Mercer knew then, was a bright light, an unbearable heat, and the strange sensation of feeling your entire body liquefy under all the force of the sun.

(Manhattan, Battery Park)

The mushroom cloud was visible to all in Manhattan. The fireball lit up the night, brighter than the sun, the moon, and all the other stars in the sky combined. A reporter hurriedly snapped a photo of the cloud, It would make for an excellent front page photo! A mother and her children stared, awed by the light, and the sound. A priest looked to the cloud, and uttered a fearful prayer for all souls in Manhattan.

Elsewhere, the helicopter had crash landed near Battery Park. Mercer was no more. Just a few bits and pieces of black and red biomass. A crow landed near a larger puddle. In another world, the crow would be consumed and Mercer would be reborn. But not here. Death, had other plans. The Shinigami appeared above the crow. It's baleful yellow eyes glared at it. The crow didn't stand a chance. It dropped dead before it could attempt to make a meal of the puddle. The Shinigami's hand, an inhuman pale gray, made contact with the puddle. It was swiftly turned into a simple black and red orb. It resembled a marble in appearance, with an odd red aura surrounding it. The Shinigami placed the orb into it's vestments, and made off to the Shinobi World. Mercer in tow.

(Hi no Kuni, Konahagakure no sato.)

"Minato, don't!" Kushina's desperate cries for her son were not heeded. Minato had her son, her precious little boy, in hand and was planning to seal the Kyuubi into him. 'No!' Try as she might, she was far too exhausted, her body too damaged by the forceful removal of the Kyuubi, she was effectively paralyzed from the waist down. She was powerless to stop this. She could nothing but watch in mute horror, as Minato summoned the Shinigami. It's form hung over him, his soul in it's grasp.

"SHIKI FUJIN!"

The Kyuubi was robbed of it's Yin chakra, and it was made evident by it's sudden decrease in size. The Sharingan, once dominating it's eyes had vanished shortly after the Shinigami appeared. Fear, was now evident in it's crimson gaze.

"FUIN!"

The Shinigami's hand impaled Minato then, depositing the Yin chakra in his body. It then rushed towards the Kyuubi. Minato slumped forward, his soul ripped from his body. His face was skeletal, his skin morphing into a pallor, that one would find on a months old corpse. The soul, was then consumed by the Shinigami, a noticeable blue light, shining through it's throat.

The hand grasped the Kyuubi fully then, a seal coming into existence on Naruto's stomach, and the dark red Yang chakra of the Kyuubi was now being siphoned into it. But the fox would not go down without a fight. It raised a paw, and a claw was extended towards the newborn. It would not be sealed again! It would have it's freedom!

Kushina would not stand for it. A burst of adrenaline surged through her veins, and she leaped into the path of the claw. Pain. Agony. A spray of crimson decorated the grass, as well as Naruto. His eyes opened then. And Kushina saw an intelligence, a comprehension that was entirely unsuited for a newborn. He looked towards her.

Those blue-silver eyes... that hair that was brighter than the sun. Kushina so desperately wanted to say her last words to him. A mother's loving words. But it was not meant to be. She felt herself growing weaker and weaker, her vision dimming more and more. She was released from the claw, for it was no longer there. The Kyuubi was sealed into the boy. Her last vision, was of the Shinigami lowering it's hand to Naruto, a strange black and red orb in it's grasp, before darkness overcame her. And then a piercing light.