Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, I don't claim to understand what the writer is thinking. This is written for fun, and enjoyment on my part, I make no money off of this in any way, shape, or form. Enjoy the story.
Prologue: The Attack
She felt like crying. It had been a hard couple of months, watching her son in near constant pain from forced growth spurts. Kyuubi had done what he could to lessen the effects, but the near constant growth compounded his pain. Naruto was now nearly a foot taller, and had gained twenty pounds. She didn't understand it at all, none of her family had ever been forced into something like this before.
"He is getting worse, Jiraya," Kushina whispered, looking at the notes Minato had left on the sealing. She knew it was hopeless though, both she and Jiraya had come to understand that trying to remove the Kyuubi seal, while the Beast was present, would kill both her son and the Kyuubi and unleash the Beast. The failsafe that her family had built in did not work anymore, and with each passing day the Beast sent more power into her son, weakening both seals.
"I have a couple ideas that may help," Jiraya sat across from her not liking the scowl on her face. It was not like Kushina to give up. The last few years, and watching her son literally age before her eyes must be hard on her. He was five years old, but looked almost ten.
"You know, it's not good to scowl like that," Jiraya commented as she looked at what he had been able to decipher from Minato's notes. How he had managed to get the seal matrix from the Uzumaki Vault was beyond him, considering the seal array that Kushina's family had designed to protect it.
"Tell me that when my son isn't in danger," she snapped. "Because of my mistake, because of Minato's own selfishness our son is in danger!"
"Kuhsina," Jiraya began. "It wasn't selfishness…"
"He didn't think!" she roared. "You and I both know that we could have fought the beast, I might even have been able to contain him! Instead he took it on himself, to change his son's life and mine."
"Kushina, we thought you dead, and we had no idea about the second seal that you had already placed on him," Jiraya almost yelled back. It was a sensitive subject he had with his considered daughter. She had told him after the sealing everything, and had led to him being banned from the Namikaze lands for several years. "If you had told us before the attack…"
"Jiraya, there is a reason my family kept it a secret," she snapped. "It destroyed an entire civilizations because it was fun in its eyes. It killed member after member of my family that tried to contain it. We didn't seal it away to have its powers harnessed. No one needed to know!"
"I am sorry, Kushina" he said, slumping back. "He wanted to do what was right."
"He should have banished the Kyuubi and waited for me, now we might have to deal with the Beast in ten years," Kushina cried out, tears appearing in her eyes. She was scared; she hadn't been this scared since she left Whirlpool all those years ago. She loved Minato, she loved her son even more, and the darkness that was slowly tainting him.
"Now this is where selfishness came in handy, you almost died giving birth to Naruto," Jiraya reminded her. "If he hadn't fought the beast, if he had waited for you he might have lost you both. What would he have to fight for then?"
Kushina sniffed lightly. When Naruto hurt it reminded her of so much she lost. Her husband was dead, her son injured and aging rapidly because the Beat's presence. "You fight because you must…"
"Madara would use me again," the Kyuubi said from the shadows, "And injured, for all the strength of you Uzumaki, one of you can only do so much. Your son might have lived, but I know you probably would not. Would you truly leave him alone?"
Kushina looked at the red gold beast, a strange mix of both horror and amazement blooming in her chest that her son's powers were already so advanced. The Juubi's taint was almost gone, and the Fox Lord, the one that had received the last of the Juubi's powers would soon be whole once again.
"Is he sleeping?" she asked.
"I hope so," the Kyuubi gave what would be the equivalent of a shrug, an odd roll in his powerful shoulders. "The nightmares have been getting worse, and the last time I saw the seal one of the markers had almost faded from view."
The conflict between the seals had not sealed the Kyuubi as Minato had thought it would. It tied the fox to his blood, literally creating a summons. It was the nature of the seal; it was how the first summons had been created if what Kushina told him was true. How she knew so much about sealing, he would never understand.
There was still so much he didn't know about the woman from Whirlpool. Her family had essentially closed off the borders for years, and then in a last ditch effort contacted him to smuggle out one little girl with red hair and violet eyes. She had been crying the day they were leaving, staring in horror as her father handed her a live blade and a scroll and told her that she would carry the Uzumaki name proudly. He then turned from her and never looked back as his daughter cried. They could hear the sounds of fighting as they were leaving. And in one final blaze of glory, the Uzumaki ignited their chakras and the village of whirlpool disappeared, taking whoever had attacked them with them.
"I will have to check on him later…" she was about to put the notes down when a blast of chilling wind ran through the house. She snapped to attention.
"No." Kushina whispered.
"Hello mother," the gravelly, disembodied voice of her son greeted her, "Aren't you happy to see me?"
AN: Thanks to my Beta HurricaneAnna for all the work and getting me not to tell everything in the world.
