Turmanarmo: Welcome dear readers to my latest story, in honor of Naruto's Birthday. This will most likely be a two shot story and I hope to release the second part around a week from now.

Tsunade: Well I bet you can't do it. How long have you been working on this story so far?

Turmanarmo: (mutters) Off and on for a little over a year.

Tsunade: Exactly. Anyways, Turmanarmo does not own the Anime/Manga Naruto or any of the characters contained in it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go prepare for the inevitable disaster that will come when I win this bet.

Turmanarmo: *sigh* Whatever, without further ado, here is the first chapter of With a Family. I hope you enjoy.

-September-4-Hokage's-Office-

Minato awoke with a start at his desk; he had been taking a short nap so that he would be a little less tired when he got home to Kushina. Sure, he loved his new job, but this first year as Hokage had been killer. Not only had he been dealing with a pregnant Kushina at home, but he also had to do all of the paperwork going through the village. Some days Sandaime-sama would help him, but today he was out of the village, taking advantage of his retirement to look into a rumor that his wayward student Tsunade was in the area. Minato sighed as he thought, 'Only one more month and Naruto will be born. Then in another two I can finally appoint my own advisors, and I won't have to do all of the paperwork by myself.'

During the first year as Hokage, it was apparently customary for him to do all of the paperwork in Konoha. That way, he could decide what matters he felt needed to be handled directly by him and what he could delegate to the council or his advisors. Sandaime-sama and his advisors, since they were still all alive, would become the 'elders,' basically a second advisory group for the Hokage to use if he or his advisors felt they needed another opinion. He was looking forward to that time, partly because he would have (slightly) less work to do, and partly because he would not have to listen to Danzo (and to a lesser extent Homura and Koharu) talking down to him at every meeting, unless he desperately needed their assistance.

The blond Kage frowned as the memories of what had awoken him finally came to the surface. He had been dreaming about the birth of his son. In that nightmare of a dream, something had gone wrong and he had been unable to stop the Kyuubi from escaping and destroying the village. His first thought was to dismiss the notion as folly, since he would be maintaining the seal himself and he had been taught Fuinjutsu by three of the greatest living masters in Konoha. Kushina had once joked that he must be part Uzumaki since he picked up the skill so easily; she had even grudgingly admitted that he was better at it than she was.

As he thought about it, he remembered something his friend Shikaku had once told him. "It is always better to have a backup plan in a situation that could become dangerous. Sure you wasted your time thinking it up in the first place if nothing bad happens, but if things do turn sour, it is far more troublesome to not have that plan."

Minato considered what he would do if he did have to fight the Kyuubi and scowled, 'My only options would be to destroy it, which may very well be beyond my ability, or to seal it into a new Jinchuuriki.' Shuddering at his next though, he realized, 'Naruto would be my best bet as he is half Uzumaki, but without prior preparations, I would not be able to seal all of the Kyuubi. Moreover, my seal would end up being a weaker version of the potential seal since I would have to create it with Chakra instead of actually drawing it out. The only option I could see would be to use the Shiki Fujin to decrease the amount I had to seal as well as give me enough chakra to finish sealing the remainder. No, wait, maybe I could use sage mode to boost my reserves enough to seal the whole thing. Then I would use the Hakke no Fuin Shiki to seal the rest and hope that since it was such a strong seal to start with that it wouldn't be too weakened.'

The Yondaime nodded as he decided that his friend was right, that would be a troublesome outcome. He needed to make sure that he had a plan for if the worst happened, and he knew just the people to help him plan it. Creating a Kage Bunshin to finish his paperwork, and hoping he would not get into too much trouble for doing so, he flashed off to his home.

-September-4-Namikazi-Residence-

When he arrived at his house, he found Kushina busy in the kitchen and sighed. She had yet again ignored the doctor's suggestion that she stop doing so much work since she was so far along. He flared his chakra lightly to warn her that he was home before he walked behind her and hugged his wife.

"You are home rather early dear, I'm not quite finished making the ramen yet." Shaking her head in exasperation, she continued, "You know, I still blame you for the fact that I have cravings for the stuff. I never seemed to like it so much until I had your child growing inside me."

Chuckling, Minato stuck his tongue out at his wife playfully as he replied, "Well at least we know he has good taste in food. However, I am home early because I need to talk with you. Can you please go sit down?" He pressed on despite her objections. "As soon as I finish what you were cooking here, I will be out to eat with you."

Despite her protests, she did eventually leave to let him finish for her. After enjoying the meal, Minato looked across at her seriously and said, "Okay, now I need to go get one more person to help out with this meeting, so I will be right back."

Kushina rolled her eyes as her husband flashed out of existence. However, she couldn't help but laugh at the confused and put out face their new guest was making when he returned a while later.

"Sorry Shikaku if I interrupted your post meal napping, but I have something important to discuss and I believe you would be helpful in figuring out the answer." Minato said through his nervous smile.

Shikaku muttered a "Troublesome" before sitting down at one of the more comfortable looking chairs and paying attention to his friend, knowing that it must be important for him to be acting like this. Minato sighed before saying, "I was thinking about the birth today and I realized something. On the off chance that we are unable to keep the Kyuubi sealed inside you Kushina, I would not be sufficiently prepared for resealing the beast."

Kushina looked shocked before her face morphed to a visage of pure rage as she shouted, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU BAKA! My baby will be fine and you will be there to make sure of that! 'tebane"

"I don't want to hear you two worry warts discussing horrible futures you dream up for my child!" As his wife stood and stomped out of the room, Minato smiled wanly at Shikaku while shaking his head fondly.

Shikaku tilted his head in confusion, "Shouldn't you go after her?"

"A few years ago I might have, but I have come to realize she just needs some time to cool off. If I follow her now, I will end up being the thing she vents into." Minato grimaced. "Regardless, she will be back soon."

Sure enough, a short time later Kushina stomped back into the room before plopping down with a huff, biting out, "I really have to be here, don't I? Otherwise you two idiots might decide to do something stupid."

Minato would have smiled at his wife's comment if not for the serious nature of the topic so instead he replied, "Thank you. Now where was I? Oh yes, in the event the Kyuubi has escaped the seal, what would we do? I don't have much of a plan yet, but I know that the best choice for the new Kyuubi Jinchuuriki would be our son, due to his heritage."

Shikaku looked thoughtful before saying, "Well based on my limited knowledge of Fuinjutsu compared to you, I would assume you would be able to make some preparations beforehand. Also, are there any specific requirements to perform the sealing?"

"Well that one is a bit more difficult." Kushina replied, "Yes you can prepare the seal in advance, but the earliest it can be prepared is 24 hours. Otherwise, it would need to be recharged with Chakra to prevent degrading. That option is not ideal, but it is still preferable to making the seal completely from Chakra in the first place."

"I plan to use the Hakke no Fuin Shiki as it is the strongest seal I know and we have actually managed to improve on the original design a bit." Minato hummed thoughtfully, "That one would require me to place Naruto in a sealing alter within proximity to the Kyuubi and then either draw or create the seal on him before expelling Chakra to activate it."

Kushina sighed before continuing, "Of course, preferably you would have at least three seal experts to power the sealing, as the Kyuubi's chakra must be passed through a filtering medium before it enters the host seal. If the required number is present, then you can separate your Chakra from your body and extend it outwards to do the processing. However, if there are not enough individuals to do this, then you can pass the Kyuubi directly through your own body and Chakra to act as the medium." She frowned before glaring at her husband as she realized what this meant for him, "That will undoubtedly lead to Chakra poisoning and overload. Minato, y-you would DIE, dattebane."

Shikaku grimaced as he said, "So basically you need Jiraiya-sama, Minato, and Sandaime-sama all at their best to perform the seal normally. We unfortunately do not have a large number of Shinobi with reserves high enough to safely contribute as well as skill in sealing knowledge."

Shikaku stroked his goatee as he continued, "So the biggest issue we have would be making sure our best Shinobi are not worn out or killed by the Kyuubi that is attacking the village. That poses quite the issue. If we hold anyone back to prepare for the sealing we would likely take many more casualties than necessary, but if we let them fight, there is a chance that they would not be able to assist in the sealing. This would leave whoever performed it with no option but to sacrifice their life."

Minato frowned as he replied, "Hopefully we can deal with the Kyuubi quickly then. If not, I would prefer all three of us to assist in the defense to minimize casualties. I can use sage mode or the Shiki Fujin to increase my reserves so I can handle the sealing if the others are exhausted. As a Hokage and Father, I would gladly lay down my life for my village and my family."

Kushina rounded on her lover and shouted, "OH NO YOU DON'T, 'TEBANE! If this situation comes to pass and we have to sacrifice someone, why can't you let Sandaime-sama or Jiraiya do it! Just have one of them hold back a bit if it comes down to it. I'm sure two of you together can handle Kyuubi without increasing casualties too much. I will most likely die from losing Kyuubi anyways, and Naruto will need at least one parent. You have to take care of our son!"

Minato sighed, noticing the shimmering tears on the verge of spilling from her eyes, "Alright, you raise a valid point. So if it comes down to it, then someone else will seal it. I will send a message through the toads to Jiraiya-sensei asking him to return to the village. Once he and Sandaime-sama return, I will fill them in. However, I will let them decide who will do it in that case; it is their life to give after all."

Shikaku nodded before grimacing and asking, "Okay now that you have that worked out, you are still failing to plan for many scenarios. What happens if both of you die in some way, what will happen to Naruto then? What if we can't even seal the Kyuubi for some reason, or it escapes before we can? What if Naruto die-."

The aura of doom in the air forced him to choke off his next words as he glanced up at his two friends. He honestly wasn't sure what was more terrifying, the death glare being sent his way by Kushina, or the terrifying 'battle stare' that he could see on Minato.

With a mental 'Troublesome,' he continued, "Regardless, I suppose we know what you would do in that last situation. As to the others, if it leaves or we can't seal it we will just have to make sure Kyuubi doesn't do too much damage to anything before we can find another way to deal with the situation. I am concerned about what happens to your son if you both die though."

Minato grimaced as he said, "That is a scenario I had also put some thought into, but unfortunately, I honestly don't know. I would hope that someone would adopt Naruto and help to raise him."

Shikaku frowned as he replied, "That is unlikely my friend, Jinchuuriki are generally chosen from the relatives of the Kage in other villages for good reason, to keep power centralized. The council would never stand for the imbalance of power created by anyone else adopting him."

Minato looked put out as he replied, "I understand their reasons I suppose, but isn't there any way we could get around that issue."

"It could work if you faked the death of your own child and claimed you chose the child of one of your friends as the Jinchuuriki I suppose. The council wouldn't be happy about it, but they wouldn't risk taking a clan heads child away." Shikaku muttered, "The inherent problem with that is that most of your close friends are public figures who would not be able to claim they hid the pregnancy for that long. Inoichi and my wives are currently pregnant and are due to deliver sometime later this month so either of our families would be the easiest to lie about, but it would still pose numerous problems."

"Unfortunately, I really can't think of any other options than the following." As he adopted a grim visage Shikaku counted on his fingers, "You could let the child grow up as an orphan ward of the village. You could attempt to create a cover story where he was born as a twin of someone who gave birth close to that time. Alternatively, I suppose if there is someone who you trust intrinsically who … Well, maybe not, that is too farfetched to ever work."

As his head tilted in curiosity Minato inquired, "It can't hurt to bring it up, what was your idea Shikaku?"

The scarred tactician grunted out, "I was thinking that you might know someone who is single who could adopt him. I had only been considering your friends who were married beforehand. If they are a single man, they could claim they had borne a child without their original knowledge. They could even claim it was with a woman who conveniently does not have any records and died the night of the attack. A woman would be harder to pull off unless they happened to be out of the village for the last several months, but it could work if you knew someone who fit that bill."

Kushina scoffed as she said, "None of those plans would ever work. I refuse to let our son be raised alone, and I agree with Shikaku that it would be nearly impossible to fake Naruto into another family like that. Even if Yoshino had the birth insanely close to my own, you would have to hide all the details about the birth from everyone until the risk of mine had passed. That would be basically impossible for someone like the head family of a major clan."

"What about the other option then, surely there is someone we could find to adopt him?" Minato asked warily.

"As to that, the only person I can think of who we know and trust on that level that is not married is Jiraiya. As much as I believe he is a good man at heart, I am not sure I trust him to actually be the father to our son. Help teach him and look out for him, yes. To be his parent though, not in a million years. So I say we just do everything we can to make sure you are there for him."

The two males grimaced as they realized Kushina was not going to back down on this. Shikaku also groaned out, "there is of course also the issue of DNA and appearance, he may end up looking nothing like his adoptive family, especially given the decent chance that he will display Uzumaki trait for red hair. If his legitimacy as there child is ever questioned, his DNA would be tested and that would clearly show him as yours.

Minato took on a thoughtful look before shaking his head and said, "Okay then, I suppose that is the best we can do for now. If you do manage to come up with a way to not have someone sacrifice themselves, be sure to let me know Shikaku."

With that, he reached over and grabbed his friends shoulder before porting them both to the other's home once again. Once Minato returned home, he noticed that at some point during their conversation his clone had dismissed itself since it had managed to finish the paperwork for the day. He sighed in relief knowing he had managed to avoid being discovered in his ploy, unless his ANBU ratted him out. However, his mind was still plagued by that last issue they had discussed. He realized Kushina and Shikaku were right about the difficulty, but he could not dismiss the feeling that he would end up dying that night. He desperately wanted to make sure he had someone to send his child to if that happened. The only question was who.

'Wait, there is someone we dismissed. I know it isn't the best bet given everything they've been through recently, but Kushina would probably approve of them slightly more than of Jiraiya-sensei. However, just to be safe I think I will talk to them without her permission. I just hope I can convince them to take him in, I honestly believe it would be good for the both of them.'

-September-18-

As the following days passed, Minato went about preparing for all of the contingency plans he had put in place. He informed Jiraiya-sensei and Sandaime-sama of the plan. Once that was taken care of, they worked on improving the seal even more just to be safe. In the end, they managed to find a way to make the seal actively shield the presence of the Bijuu. This was so that, unless they were specifically looking for it, most sensors would be unable to tell that Naruto was a Jinchuuriki. Minato also came up with an idea to seal away a small portion of Kushina's Chakra in the seal as well. This way she could at least meet her son one more time when he was grown up.

A pair of Minato's Kage Bunshin had also been working secretly on a second seal around the clock. He dearly hoped that this seal wouldn't be necessary, since it would be the seal that would be required if Naruto were to be successfully adopted.

Minato had spent some time thinking about this issue, and he had come to realize that regardless of what he did to allow whoever adopted him to do so discreetly, it might not last. Even if he altered Naruto's general appearance to match that of the adoptive parents, there could still be an issue if his true parentage ever came in question for any reason. The ensuing blood test would easily prove the child was Minato's and Kushina's. That wasn't even the worst scenario though. If by some chance it was discovered that he was also the Jinchuuriki, it could cause a lot of trouble, regardless of his choice of parent. This seal would ensure that never happened and that Naruto would remain protected.

He had recently finished the seal and had come to terms with the fact that Naruto would effectively no longer be their son if this happened. Now he just had to bring up the nerve to ask the person he had selected. It had to be before the Nara or Yamanaka births came due so he could secretly ask them as well if he failed to convince his target.

-Morning-October-10-

When the day of Naruto's expected birth finally came, Minato was still nervous despite his planning. All the preparations were made, and all he had left to do was draw up the seals. He just hoped that all his worrying was for naught. He had even managed to convince his chosen parent to adopt Naruto if the worst happened.

They had been rather opposed to it at first, though that was largely due to their circumstances and the idea of Minato dying. Since the adoption was to remain secret, he asked them to standby in the shadows and go through with the plan if Minato had to sacrifice himself. They would swoop in after Minato died, kidnap the child, and apply the genetic Seal he gave them. Then they would 'abandon' him in a public place where he would be quickly found and taken to the hospital. There a DNA test would determine who the possible relatives were and if they had died. Then everything else would take care of itself.

-Evening-October-10-

When Kushina's water had finally broke, his stress and worrying had skyrocketed. Thankfully, the birth moved along without too many issues, so Minato began to relax a little and actually sighed in relief when Naruto was finally born. Seeing Naruto for the first time made him forget about everything clouding his mind. Thoughts of how much he would be willing to do for this babe filled him. Knowing no one could love a child quite like their mother, he realized he could never fathom Kushina's love for their son. His own seemed impossible enough to comprehend.

Realizing he had a task to complete, Minato turned to Kushina to perform the retightening on her seal. However, he quickly stiffened up when he felt an unknown presence appear out of nowhere and looked to see the bodies of Biwako and Taji hit the floor at the feet of a masked man holding his son. Then he heard the words that confirmed his worst fears: "Yondaime Hokage Minato. Back away from the Jinchuuriki, or your son dies at the ripe old age of one minute."

Minato's mind raced, 'How in the world did he break through the barrier without alerting me? Does he have a space-time Ninjutsu that works without markers? Regardless, I need to be careful.' Kushina's pained grunting interrupted his thoughts as the seal continued to breakdown. "Kushina!"

Just before he could turn to do something, he saw the masked man grasp a kunai, "I said back away from the Jinchuuriki, or don't you care if your son dies?"

Minato growled out protectively, "Let go of my son." He prepared to attack, but gasped in horror when he saw the Masked Man shrug before saying, "If you insist." As he tossed Naruto into the air.

Minato reacted on instinct and used his famous speed to swipe Naruto out of the air before he could be impaled on the Kunai. The man's smirk could be felt as he said, "You live up to your moniker, 'the Yellow Flash' well enough, but what will you do now?"

As he heard the telltale sounds of the paper bombs igniting, he quickly moved to separate Naruto from the blanket. At the same time, he teleported them both to a safe house outside the village. Minato just barely managed to outrun the explosion as he leapt out of the house and rolled to protect his child. However, his mind was already working on the problem of the man who had forced him to use the Hiraishin in order to separate him from Kushina. He promptly teleported to another of his safe houses and laid Naruto in a crib so that he could go save his wife before it was too late.

Unfortunately, he arrived with only enough time to quickly grab his wife and Shunshin away before the Kyuubi smashed her. Once he confirmed that his wife was indeed alive for now, he turned back to glare at the masked man. He vaguely registered her plea for him to be careful while stopping the Kyuubi, but his mind was busy racing for information about what was going on. Who was this Masked Man? What was his ultimate goal? How had he known when and where to attack? Was he alone or were there others working with him?

As a stream of questions zipped through his mind, he quickly disappeared to land within the shack where he had left Naruto. Telling his wife not to worry and to stay with Naruto, Minato gathered the supplies he would need for the battle. He had the unsettling feeling that the sacrifice would be needed after all. In addition to the Kyuubi, he now had to deal with this Masked Man, whom he knew far too little about. The fact that he was able to slip through high-level barriers and take out several ANBU without raising any alarm as well as control the Kyuubi was disturbing, and it had him on edge.

When Minato arrived back in Konoha, he saw that the masked man had somehow summoned the beast inside the village. He considered flashing to the Sandaime to inform him of the situation, but the Bijuudama the beast had aimed at him put a stop to those plans. Muttering some choice words in frustration, he prepared to teleport the attack away with his Space-time Barrier. When it made it to him, the attack slowly slipped through the barrier and appeared several miles back in a barren area of the forest.

As he considered the implications of the power behind that blast, he suddenly sensed something behind him and quickly turned to attack his pursuer. However, much to his shock, his attack slipped right through the man's head almost as if he wasn't really there. Yet he was still physical when he grabbed Minato's arm.

The Masked Man seemed pleased as he said, "Your opponent is me, and I have just defeated you." This prompted a vortex centered on his eyehole that began sucking Minato in before he flashed to one of his emergency Kunai.

As he began considering the implications of the man's newly revealed ability to seemingly become intangible, he saw a similar vortex open in front of him. This produced the same masked man who hissed, "You won't escape me."

Glaring at his opponent, Minato thought, 'So he does have Space-Time Jutsu as well! I suppose that or the intangibility explains how he entered the barrier and killed the ANBU without fuss. I cannot let him catch me since he attempted to pull me into another dimension or something when we touched. I cannot figure out how he could do all of the things he has done tonight. He almost reminds me of Uchiha Madara with all he can do, but that doesn't make sense. Shodai-sama killed him long ago. Regardless, I need to stop him. I know it is a long shot, but maybe I can get some information out of him during this battle.'

With the plan in mind, Minato decided to ask, "I am not sure exactly who you are, though it is clear to me you are quite talented with all you destroyed tonight. However, I do have a question for you. Why did you attack Konoha and extract Kyuubi?"

The masked man chuckled as he said, "Oh, a compliment from the Yondaime. I am honored. As to my why, well what should I say? It was for fun, a part of my plan." He continued as he attached a chain to his wrists, "To start war or bring peace. Whichever you prefer works for me, I am a very accommodating individual."

At this, Minato realized he wasn't likely to get anything out of this man and decided that this threat needed to be taken care of now, before he could cause any more harm to Konoha. So he charged at his opponent to make sure his theory was correct. As he slipped through the body and was caught by the dragging chains, Minato quickly warped away. With a smirk he thought, 'Got it. He uses some ability to become temporarily intangible, but materializes at the precise second that he counterattacks. Therefore, I need to trick him into thinking he has the lead and hit him at the absolute last second. I could try to simply outpace him, but I think I have a better idea. I will use my Hiraishin Second Step.'

As they charged again, Minato waited until the perfect time before flicking one of his kunai at the man and watched as it began to phase through him. He formed a Rasengan in his right hand as the man reached for his left side. A split second after the Kunai left his head the man's hand met Minato's own arm. However, the instant he touched and tried to activate his warping ability, he was sent crashing into the ground courtesy of a Rasengan to the back from the same man who had just been in front of him.

As the dust settled, the man jumped back and Minato was treated to the disturbing sight of his arm sort of melting off. The man began ranting about not letting Minato catch him off guard again, so Minato decided to prove him wrong. Using the new Hiraishin marker he had placed on the man's back with the Rasengan, he flashed right in front of the masked villain. A contract seal spread from the kunai Minato had jammed into his gut.

Minato almost rolled his eyes when the man said, "A contract seal?! Are you trying to pull the Kyuubi from my control?" Honestly, he was not even sure why he dignified that with the response of, "No, I already did."

Jumping back, Minato heard a similar rant about retreating until he could come back and take the Kyuubi later begin. He briefly considered flashing over to jam a Rasengan into the man's gut and shut him up. However, the danger of the man having prepared for a repeat attack stayed his hand.

Minato sighed as he decided this was not the time to be overthinking, so he quickly flashed back to the village to see if they had everything under control yet. When he arrived, he was glad to see that the Kyuubi had been driven outside of the village and was currently fighting three large battle toads, courtesy of Jiraiya-sensei. It seemed that Jiraiya-sensei and Sarutobi-sama were the main ones fighting as well, probably in an effort to minimize casualties. Though, as planned Jiraiya was doing most of the work so the Sandaime could do the sealing. He was also pleased to notice that the damage to the village seemed to be largely restricted to the edge, which meant that the overall impact of this event might be relatively low compared to what he was expecting.

When he approached, he realized that Jiraiya was quite exhausted from the fighting. Gritting his teeth, he moved faster, hoping to end it before they were so tired they couldn't help. To make things worse, they both did something incredibly stupid that he never expected to see from them. Sensing him, they glanced back rather than focusing everything on their fight. The Kyuubi noticed their lapse in judgment and seemed to grin viciously as a well-timed swipe of a claw and a tail at his distracted foes sent them flying. Based on the way they impacted and the fact that they were not moving, Minato suspected they had been knocked out. His calm façade nearly broke as he mentally cried out in frustration at how messed up this whole situation was.

Resolving himself to his fate, he glanced over at Shikaku who was looking at him with horror as he realized the implications of this as well. Minato smiled solemnly and quickly jumped atop Gamabunta, ordering him to pin the Kyuubi for a second so he could teleport him away from the village to the sealing area.

When he arrived, he quickly grabbed Kushina and Naruto. Kushina, stubborn as always, set up a barrier to hold the Kyuubi. While they prepared, Minato gulped as he prepared to face something worse than his own death, his angry wife. Sighing, he began, "Kushina, there has been a minor change in plans. When I arrived on the battlefield, Kyuubi managed to knock out both Jiraiya-sensei and Sarutobi-sama, meaning I am alone for the sealing. I believe you know what that means."

She glared at him as she responded, "You bet I do, it means you aren't doing this seal, I am not letting our son grow up as a hated orphan. I will just pull Kyuubi into me and kill him that way. You can reseal him when he comes back around."

Smiling sadly Minato responded, "Unfortunately I am going to have to disagree with you Kushina, I still plan to seal Kyuubi tonight, but rest assured, I will not leave our son alone. On top of my plan to seal a portion of our two chakras inside the seal as countermeasures, I have also arranged for someone to be Naruto's parent. They are waiting outside this barrier and will come inside once we are done to claim their new child."

Kushina looked something between horrified and livid as she shouted at her errant husband about how much of a baka he was for thinking that anyone would buy his idiotic plan. He almost winced at a couple of the insults coming his way and silently hoped that his son's temperament would be more like his own rather than Kushina's. Shaking off that notion, he focused on being still. He did not have much chakra left and if he was going to act as the filter, he would need enough to do a good job of it.

Soon he looked back up with what appeared to be nearly perfect sage mode. Much better than anything his sensei had been able to achieve as of yet, even with the elder toads helping him. Despite his proficiency at balancing the chakra, he couldn't hold it for long. Normally, stillness just wasn't his thing, but for this sealing, it was exactly what he needed.

Minato went through a mental checklist to calm his nerves and make sure he had finished all the necessary parts to this setup, 'Okay, I have written the key and stored it on Mt. Myoboku, though I had to swear the toads to secrecy about my plan so they don't tell Jiraiya. I have the seal right here and it is ready to be transferred to Naruto. I have also modulated my chakra to be a filter for Kyuubi, I am all set.'

At that, he laid Naruto down in the sealing alter and pulled the seal paper out of his pouch. However, as he kneeled down he noticed that the seal was already inscribed on his belly. He glanced over at his wife realizing she had done this while waiting for him to return. Smiling grimly, he looked back down and activated the Hakke no Fuin Shiki. As he felt the chakra burn its way through his network, he quickly stilled himself and tried to pull in some more Nature energy to keep the correct balance for the filtering.

After what seemed like an eternity, he turned to Kushina, who had been openly crying for some time now, and asked her to say her final words to Naruto. Once she was finished speaking, he grabbed her by her hand and whispered the name of Naruto's new guardian before he sealing her Chakra within the seal. He was mildly pleased with the look on her face; she seemed a weird mix of relieved and worried. He smiled one last time down at the child he had helped create before funneling what little chakra he had left into the seal. He glanced across the way at the incoming figure before mouthing 'Thank you' as he finally collapsed from exhaustion.

The last thing he saw as he faded was the blurry figure approaching the scene.

-Early-Hours-October-11-

Staring in horror at the bodies of the Hokage and his wife, the figure fell to their knees and began to shake. Despite their inability to tear their vision away from the scene, they vaguely registered the sound of wailing cries in the background. Once they realized what the sound was, the figure hardened their heart, shook their head, and stood to pick up the child. Staring into the infants eyes they said, "I guess it is just you and me now Naruto, I hope he is right and having me take care of you doesn't mess you up too much. Well I suppose we should go before anyone comes by and spoils the plan … son."

And there is the first chapter of this story. As I mentioned briefly in the Author's note in the beginning of this, I have been working on this story off and on (more off than on) since about July of 2014 when I started writing out some plans. The original first chapter was written sometime around the Naruto Sasuke fight towards the end of the Manga, but this story has changed a TON since then. This is also the 3rd or 4th rewrite of this story as a whole, it originally included some time travel elements and was just generally overcomplicated. It was also supposed to be part of a large multi chapter redo of the story with Naruto having been adopted, but I could never get very far beyond the 2nd or 3rd chapter so I scrapped that idea and went with what we have now. The next chapter will wrap up the mystery of who the mysterious parent is and may have some time skip elements to show how things changed due to this, but I'm not sure yet. Hopefully having this out here will give me the motivation I need to actually get that done.

Regardless, this chapter was a cool 6266 words and hopefully it explained everything I wanted it to without feeling too bulky. A massive thanks to FaithfulWhispers and John Smith (Plank-no-Jutsu) for betaing this monstrosity for me; they are responsible for making this readable/understandable. Please review and I will see you in (about) a week.