Author's Note -
Hi, I'm TopHatKing - this is the first time I'm making one of these… I've read a couple, and I'm a big fan of the franchise I'm making this about - Naruto. That said, I'm no doubt going to be wrong about a lot of this stuff, 700 or so chapters is a lot to remember. In any case, please enjoy, and if you don't, feel free to let me know - I'm honestly entirely new at this, so any constructive criticism is welcome, including if it's borderline hate - but keep it borderline, please, there's no point in writing something that doesn't tell me how to improve.
(P.S. Starting this story in a flashforward, so the story presented at the top won't be seen until pretty deep in. Sorry if you're not a fan, you can skip to chapter 2 if you don't like that sort of stuff.)
Konohamaru
Konohamaru ran over Konoha's rooftops as another gigantic dragon-shaped katon Jutsu parted around the edges of the village, the enormous sealing array visibly buckling under the crimson flames. He cursed as he saw part of it crack, a wall of fire spilling out into the empty streets before fizzling away, quenched by yet more seals.
Behind him was the hokage tower, but the Hokage hadn't stayed there for months, at least. Instead his eyes turned to the large bunker ahead of him, grey and squat and next to impregnable. For what must've been the tenth time that day he looked up at the sun; Iwa would be there to help at dusk.
It was barely noon.
His feet lightly set down in front of the bunker's entrance and he nodded to the two chunin guards before flashing his vest showing his identity - only force of habit, any henge would be stopped by the thousands of seals in the area. The only person strong enough to break them would be the man currently hurling fire at the village.
Kind of a moot point, Konohamaru mused as yet another colossal Jutsu exploded behind him, flooding the corridor in front of him in harsh light. If Uchiha Madara was inside the base, no guards would be able to stop him.
He increased his speed once more as he heard the piercing shrill of the alarm - the primary barrier had been broken, they only had minutes before the strongest shinobi on the face of the planet would be parading through their streets like a god of war, razing everything to the ground. As he reached the Hokage's chamber - predictably empty of the Hokage - he silently thanked the decision to remove the civilians from the area. He felt a sudden breeze from behind him, and turned to see Sakura standing there, looking incredibly grim.
"He knows we have it," she stated, the tiny blue diamond on her forehead catching the light oddly. "He's here for Shukaku." Konohamaru grimaced - there really wasn't any other reason for Madara to be antagonizing the only enemies who could stand up to him if they didn't have it after all, but it still felt like saying it made it true.
"He won't have it." Konohamaru said, sounding more confident than he felt. "Where's Hinata?"
"She's with the Hokage," Sakura said, eyes slowly turning a shiny black and the skin around them becoming modeled. Konohamaru looked on in jealousy, wishing he had the chakra control to use Senjutsu like she did. "I'd better get out there as well." Sakura calmly stated, before blurring away far faster than he could see.
Konohamaru shook his head and began to run to the planning room - the second place the Hokage should be in such an emergency, and almost certainly where Hinata and the Ichibi Jinchuriki were hiding.
The guards let him in without a second word, and he slipped through the stone doors. In the center of the room there stood a large table with a map of the elemental nations, depicting their forces (blue) and Madara's army (red).
The board was nearly ¾ red, with unaffiliated parties (grey) scattered here and there.
In the chairs around the table sat the village elders and strategists, with Tsunade sitting on one end, too tired to keep up her youth Genjutsu, and Hinata on the other end, holding a small bundle in her arms.
Konohamaru leapt over the heads of the onlookers and landed next to Hinata, sparing a quick look at her son's sleeping face before giving her a short bow. "Hinata-sama, where is Naruto-nii?"
She opened her mouth to answer but shut it when an almost imperceptible breath of wind flowed through the hall, followed by the sounds of pots opening and hair straining. Konohamaru turned and looked into the eyes of the Hokage.
The man's normal, bushy ponytail was long gone, the hair-jutsu taught to him by Jiraiya years ago making it an incredibly large mess of constantly moving strands. The ink-pots he normally held corked at his waist were wide open now, strands of his hair dipping into the ink before resuming their task, writing glowing seal after glowing seal into the stone walls. His orange vest hung over his navy blue shirt, sleeves rolled up as his hands blurred into hand-seal after hand-seal, the marks on the walls disappearing into faint white lines one by one. His belt held four long-bladed kunai, more for show than anything else, and of course his sturdy clay inkpots.
"Report - what does Enma see?" Naruto said as the seals on his exposed skin cropped up. In a less serious scenario Konohamaru might have joked about a festival, but this was no laughing matter. He focused and looked through the eyes of his clan's unique summon, who was currently embroiled in a fight with what looked to be a horde of Ame-nin. Enma turned his head to the side, feeling his summoner's mental presence, and looked upon what appeared to be an enormous snake crashing into the enemy shinobi, tearing them apart like a scythe through grain.
"Orochimaru has engaged the enemy." Konohamaru told the Hokage, "Wait… it's just Manda." Enma continued to scan the battlefield, narrowly avoiding a rather sloppy doton Jutsu as he went. His eyes locked on the huge snake's pale summoner engaged in a taijutsu bout with an orange masked man before both shot away, the masked man avoiding the barrage of smaller reptiles hurled by the snake Sannin. "Orochimaru's stalling Obito…,"
The world flashed yellow, and Konohamaru gasped as he felt Enma's midsection rent by a blade. The monkey king desummoned himself instantly, avoiding death, but the flash was proof enough as it was.
"The fourth is here!" Konohamaru yelled in fear, and Naruto's eyes narrowed in fury. "...So, father, you'd even go this far?"
Naruto
The Hirashin was a mysterious thing. His father had invented it, recorded it, and used it to greater effect than most jutsus… ever. The "Flying Thunder God" as it was so aptly named, was truly a devastating technique - its yellow flash announcing death for Konoha's enemies over the years. Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage, the "Yellow Flash"... these things fit together like building blocks. However, the Hirashin's greatest secret? It isn't that great a technique in combat. The ability to teleport from point A to point B in an instant, almost undetectable fashion is useful, sure - but only if you know how to properly place the markers.
So when Naruto finally cracked the code and learned to do it, he was understandably disappointed. He expected to be able to move like his father, instantly, wherever he wanted. What he got was not having to walk places as much. Useful, sure, but Minato's true genius lied in the placement of the Hirashin markers, not their creation.
Still, when managed by someone with the genius of Minato, the Hirashin was deadly, and the markers were almost undetectable. However, there was a single tell, unbeknownst to anyone but Naruto. A single millisecond before the hirashin activates, before the flash, before Minato pops into existence like an avenging god, there is a hyperconcentration of lightning Chakra in a single spot - just the tiniest moment of prediction, for an experienced sensor.
For just the tiniest moment, Naruto felt the little trickle of lightning chakra, that tiny buzz at the edge of his mind right above his child, the objective of this raid.
He moved.
The technique he had created over the last few years had begun as a pet project, even before his father had swapped sides - something to impress the genius, something he could do that his father couldn't. And then his father had betrayed them, and the pet project became a gamble for survival.
The Hirashin, complicated and confusing and brilliant as it was, focused on the idea of going from point A to point B. Naruto wouldn't say it was a bad idea, and once upon a time he would have settled for it, but it wasn't an option anymore. The number of shinobi in the world that could stand up to the Yellow Flash in the world could be counted on one hand, and absolutely none of them were on their side. They WOULD lose the war if he didn't come up with something.
He spent days trying to create his own Hirashin, a Flying Wind God instead of a Flying Thunder God, but it just didn't work - Wind just wouldn't conform to the guidelines of the idea, wouldn't even let him take the first step in his own direction. And then Minato began to strike.
Nobody could stand up to him - armies crumpled in the face of his speed, Nuke-nin keeled over on the spot before firing a single shot. The 4th great shinobi war seemed all but lost.
Then the breakthrough came, but not from Naruto - Neji Hyuuga, prodigy and Jounin of Konoha was captured and his pupils removed to try and discover the secrets of the Byakugan. When only his pupils were taken, his vision became impossibly powerful - instead of being limited to his clan's normal abilities, he could see everything around him from every angle - perfect vision of everything happening, all perceived at once.
Despite the technique's drawback of aging the user at an incredible rate, Neji was able to drive back Minato's assault, returning the war to balance. Pushing himself to the end, Neji died of old age days before Madara and Minato's current assault.
Thanks to Neji's sacrifice, Naruto cracked the code.
Wind couldn't be bound, only directed - lightning flashed from one place to the other in an instant. Wind could replicate the speed, but lacked the intense purpose - meaning it was perfection.
Naruto only had to set an area, mark a place with seals, and he could move freely at the astounding speed of a Hirashin.
And, of course, in a battle of elements wind trumps lightning.
So that is what leads us today to find Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze with his knee harshly buried in the gut of Minato Namikaze, the latter man's face at his ultimate technique being thwarted for the first time accentuated by the air being driven from his lungs. Naruto watched in glee as a glorious moment of realization passed through his father's face…
Before the blonde-haired man was shot like a ball out of a cannon directly onto the wall of the bunker. Naruto immediately snapped his fingers, and dozens of elegantly drawn symbols spiraled into being on the wall, six of which slid out from it and created a cube around the shocked ninja. The others began to glow. And smoke.
Naruto watched as his traitorous father's Hirashin fizzled out against the wind-chakra based walls, the last attempt to escape before they gave, dozens of high-power explosive seals in a tight and enclosed space.
The imprisonment seals gave way and the former Hokage fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, unconscious, severely burned, and crumpled like a . Naruto snapped his fingers once again, and another of his creations - the human storage seal - unfolded, compressing his father into a pocket dimension on a piece of paper.
Well damn… Kuruma spoke from Naruto's mind. You didn't even need my help…
And that was the man that sealed you away. Naruto responded smugly. Kurama didn't respond, but Naruto's mind was suddenly flooded by impressions of growling, and a slight feeling of… embarrassment?
His face lit up like a lantern when he realized what he just did. He just socked it to the legendary Yellow Flash, secured him for capturing, and made Kurama feel inadequete… all under his own power.
Naruto silently thanked Neji for his sacrifice, and the began to silently dance, a huge grin on his face. As he spun around, he stopped.
The council had been watching him open-mouthed over the whole exchange. A moment of awkward silence ensued, everyone but his wife looking at Naruto with confusion and sheer astonishment. Hinata just shook her head in silent wonder at Naruto's strength. To defeat Minato that easily, even with a surprise attack… Did they have a chance?
As if to bring them all back to reality, the entire base shook, the heat inside increasing substantially as another supercharged Katon jutsu carved its way around it.
Naruto pointed at the council suddenly, his air of seriousness returned. "Madara's knocking at our doorstep, we need to activate plan B!" He yelled, hands immediately beginning to hammer out seal after seal - Rabbit, Ox, Boar, Tiger…
"But what about Iwa?" Tsunade yelled, slamming her fist into the table. "We asked them for reinforcements, they're heading here right now!"
"They'll be heading to a crater if we don't make a move!" Naruto yelled, pushing a considerable amount of Chakra into his voice. Tsunade sat back uneasily, clearly distressed about the situation.
"My father may have been borderline unbeatable up until today, but he's never been able to cause the sort of widespread destruction and horror that Madara can. Those goddamn eyes of his are unmatched, and if he gets his hands on the Ichibi we're looking at a being comparable to the Sage of the Six Paths…" At this he trailed off, looking utterly uncertain. "As is, I can hold him off and escape, but that'd require the rest of you to get out of here too. Take as many men as you can, and I'll join you when possible."
He turned to Hinata, softness entering his eyes. "I'm sorry that it has to be this way, but Madara can't get his hands on Boruto… it'd be the end."
Hinata nodded, eyes, wet with tears. "Be safe out there," She said softly. "Just please… come back." He nodded slowly before pulling her into a warm embrace, feeling her and his son against his chest. Hinata was a ninja, but the pregnancy had been rough on her body… Hyuuga women were clearly not the sturdiest of people.
Hinata silently pulled away, tears on her cheeks. Their eyes remained locked for a time, before the sound of a Doton Jutsu rang out from behind them and the escape tunnel opened in the floor. Silently, the aged shinobi of the council began to slip in one by one until only Tsunade was left. She looked him dead in the eye, and he knew what she would say even before she said it.
"Give that bastard hell. For Jiraiya."
At this his face became dark, and he began to shrug off his shirt, the orange jacket sliding to the floor soundlessly. His scarred chest lit up with seal after seal, drawing in and stabilizing his chakra, and he silently opened the pathway between him and Kurama, letting the Bjuu's chakra meld seamlessly with his own.
"For Jiraiya." He snarled lowly, the orange chakra-cloak, plus-shaped pupils, and deeper whisker marks only being overshadowed by the huge amount of pressure his presence exerted.
The Godaime nodded, her aged features pulled tight with determination. She silently entered the tunnel as another of Madara's Katon Jutsus rocked the earth, and Naruto turned and began to walk towards the violence, towards the surface.
His foot shattered the bunker door, the melted metal giving way easily before his superhuman strength. He looked around to see a scorched plain where buildings used to be, Leaf Shinobi desperately fighting White Zetsus and Edo Tenseis hundreds of meters from where the bunker stood, any ground nearer in danger of the ancient Uchiha's wrath.
Naruto looked around the ruins of his home, and felt nothing but pure scorching rage. Everything was gone. The Academy where he first perfected his pranking techniques, the Hokage office where he stole the forbidden scroll from which he stole the Kage Bunshin… The swings where his father pushed him, and told him to ignore the words of the other children, ignore the adults who couldn't see anything but the demon, who ignored the words of the hokage, ignored the words of their hero…
More than anything, he hated to see the ruins of Teuchis Ramen shop, abandoned though it was. He would never be able to show Boruto any of this, his children, their children, they would all miss out on this place that had given so much, that had been his life.
His killing intent spread out like a flood. Zetsus and Shinobi alike froze where they stood, the feeling of sheer, uncompromising anger flowing from the center of this wasteland weighing them down like a physical force. They could not move, they could not think, and as they strained against it, Naruto could feel all of them like ants under his boot… but they were not his target.
"MADARA!"He and Kurama yelled in unison, the chakra-enhanced sound shaking the earth to its bones. "FACE ME!"
"Well well well…" Came the dreaded voice over the battlefield, the man's tone unmistakeable. "It appears this little fox has grown some fangs." Naruto's eyes hardened further as the form of a huge, drill-beaked bird with purple, ringed eyes flew forth from a cliff, carrying a humanoid figure on its back. The summon landed gently a dozen meters from Naruto before dissipating into smoke, leaving the red-armored Uchiha to stare at him with those haunting eyes.
"You've grown, brat… to actually defeat Minato, and to be unharmed in the process?" Madara leaned forwards and licked his lips, smile growing impossibly wide. "You might actually prove to be a moment's entertainment… but don't you think you've gotten a little cocky? Standing there, calling yourself hokage, acting like you're Harashima…" His smile began to dissipate, followed by a scowl. "I can see it in your eyes… you think this'll be a battle, that you have a chance of winning. I founded this village, brat. I fought people with twice the experience in battle as you, and defeated them handily. Your claim to fame, that fox in your stomach, was my pawn!" Naruto could see the anger in Madara's eyes now, the annoyance at not being responded to. "Damnit, say something!"
Naruto simply charged forwards, an enormous ball of wind appearing in his hand. Madara simply raised an eyebrow, before bringing forwards one hand. "Shinra Tensei!" He yelled, the wave of force blasting Naruto backwards, and he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Madara's eyes widened; He had been talking to a Kage Bunshin!
Only pure instincts saved him from the fatal injury, turning around and activating his preta path, catching the enormous Bjuudama in his hand and absorbing it, feeling the incredible amount of chakra compressed into that single ball. For a single moment of clarity, as he felt the solid chakra beneath his palm, he knew he would have died.
Naruto's face telegraphed nothing but disapproval. "Damn… I wish that had worked." Madara simply began to laugh, throwing back his head. "I actually wasn't expecting such a simple trick, a surprise attack! Well, you won't get that opportunity again."
Despite himself, Naruto grinned. "No, I won't." On some unknown cue, both of them exploded into action, a vicious Taijutsu bout. Naruto gasped as Madara landed a punch with his Asura path, the metal hook on the limb slashing a chunk out of his side, activating his Soaring Wind Dragon Jutsu and instantly smashing the back of Madara's skull with a vicious kick, the man's body somersaulting forwards before coming to a halt, both men heavily panting.
Without warning, both clapped their palms together and became enveloped in their respective forms, Naruto cloaked in the image of a giant fox, Madara in the skeletal and armored form of his Susanoo. The killing intent going around the battlefield, the sheer pressure exerted by the two men began to force the closest fighers to faint, their unconcious bodies joining the fallen on the ground.
Both forms, giant fox and skeletal purple warrior, began to laugh, the sound like stone on stone as they charged one another, sword meeting claw in a blow that shattered stone and melted flesh…
Minato suddenly awoke, the cries of his infant son spurring him from the land of dreams. He shook his head, suddenly feeling confused. What was he dreaming about again?
The Ex-Kage sighed as he changed his son's diaper, the blond newborn going silent as he fell prey to tiredness. It was going to be a long night…
The stars twinkled above Konoha as Minato Namikaze walked outside, cradling his son.