Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, but I did enjoy writing this.

Cyclone Gate

Chapter 1

For Want of a Claw

X00 Years Ago…

'I'm back…!'

A cloaked figure lurched up in surprise as the light streaming in from a nearby window echoed the spring morning to the world. Wind whistled in through the cracks in the plaster walls wracked shoddy by impact fissures in the floor of the house. The figure's pale hands rubbed each other to regain some semblance of warmth and familiarity. The cloak, spread wide, covering both flesh and rock, bent to form around the figure's lithe body as it stood up to stretch its worn muscles.

'I never expected it to actually work. I'm in one piece and feeling better than I ever had when I was still young. That... thing… sent me back here. I only hope the damn thing kept its word. After all, never trust a snake you didn't raise yourself… What?'

The figure muttered at the flash it assumed was the sun and decided to venture outside. The thing would never let him live it down if the trip was rendered pointless by his sloth-like overconfidence. In the morning light, finding the door outside wasn't a problem, though getting out the blocked door was another issue entirely. Reluctant to use any jutsu for fear of attracting unwanted attention, especially at such a crucial juncture in the plan, the figure braced itself against the door and with a heave and rush of chakra, the entrance gave way in the most spectacular example of ridiculously excessive strength since Tsunade's legendary post-peeping beatdown of Jiraiya all those years ago. Having not expected to awaken with such poor control and even more so to have knocked the entire wall down, the figure could be forgiven for his lapse in judgement and instinctual shinobi speed whisking him away to the direction where the lights were flashing boldly even among the morning sunbeams. There the figure saw both what he'd never expected to find and what just made his little chess game all the more fun.

'The Sage is… real…? He's actually real and out teaching jutsu to village children? Oh, this is precious…Kukukuku…' the figure ruminated quietly near the edge of the distant forest across from the tiny village. The chuckling only grew louder as he meandered on through the forest, whipping his head back and revealing long black hair under the hood. With his pale hand, he pushed his hair away from his face, further exposing his pale skin to the environment. Amid the narrow features were purple and black markings arcing around his narrow eyes, eyes of gold that glistened in undiluted joy at his fascinating discovery…

_*_*_*_*_*_

"Mr. Sage! Mr. Sage! …why can't you stay? Why can't you?" The children the Sage taught basic elemental jutsu to ran after him to plead for him to stay, becoming more desperate with each couple of feet he walks closer to the edge of the town.

"I'm sorry kids, but I have an important meeting that I have to go to and I don't want to be late!" the Sage intoned, his kind and authoritative voice lending itself to the reluctant goodbyes from the young men and women he spent the morning with. Humming to himself, he picked up speed until he was but a mere blur across the plains. Concentric-ringed eyes narrowed in concentration as thoughts of the task ahead bounced around in his genius mind.

'Ever since I started my journey to teach the world about chakra, never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be summoned by the Four Guardians. I may be the possessor of the Rin'negan, but even I don't know exactly why living beings contain chakra! Heh! Seeing one of the Gates to the Mirror World will be quite a treat!'

The Sage came upon a large jungle in the distance, his eyes detecting large masses of spirit chakra amid the trees. Accelerating even further, he leapt into the underbrush, concentrating all his reflexes to be able to weave under, over and around the roots, branches and trunks of the mossy vegetation. The trees themselves were very large, about ten men in width and also the home to many species the Sage planned to meet later to talk about contracts with. Finding himself with meetings upon meetings that were only brought on by himself hadn't quite swamped him over, considering his great speed, but he wondered if he shouldn't hire an assistant before it got any worse. The Six Paths' Sage slowly decelerated from sprinting to slide just in front of a frog the size of the kids he played with earlier. Man waved to frog. Frog waved back.

"Hey there, Sagey! I've bin giv'n the job o' escortin' you to them higher-ups! My name's Gamasen. How d'you do, boyo? Follow me! Walk'n talk! Walk an' talk!" The frog bounded up and down as the Sage strolled at relatively the same pace, careful to avoid bumping into his guide. The man smirked at the harrowing tales of the Lily Pad Wars and chuckled to the sound of the recitation of the Oath of Flystew. Gamasen and the Sage shuffled up to an immense cave hidden in the shady depths of the forest, mindful of the great chakras within. A male's voice bellowed from beyond the glows of the cave interior.

"Akira, Sage of the Six Paths, come forward! We have much to discuss and only a short time in which to do so…"

_*_*_*_*_*_

The rain pelted the mountain mercilessly as lightning struck overhead from the view of the castle's balcony. A man in black armour studied the valley below him. As surveyor of his elderly father's territory, it was his responsibility to make sure his word was carried out to the letter. Carrying out the shogun's will was all the son had done for the past 35 years and for his daughter, he would endure 35 more exhausting years as the de facto leader of the shogunate before he let the bastard army of drugged up ingrates and their infectious delirium get even a foot into his homeland; what's more, if they managed to even slow down expansion, they would incur his wrath. The shogun's granddaughter would never have to share the same air with them within a hundred miles if he had anything to say about it, which he most certainly did.

Gently extracting a tattered scroll from a pouch on his belt, the shogun's son slowly unravelled the thin parchment, careful to leave the text as intact as possible from the seeping rain showers. Battered red ink sprawled across the page began to glow as swirls of crimson refracted off the man's eyes.

"So it's come to this…"

_*_*_*_*_*_

Hammering metal to forge a weapon takes more skill than most people realize. Crafting a new source of power is much the same in reputation. Doing both simultaneously and as the same entity, well, that was just implied overkill! Dunking the smouldering blade into the glowing water from the basin next to the forge, a shadowy figure grinned at its handy work and wiped sweat from its brow.

'Soon…very soon…I… I… will gain all that I deserve and the world will receive me! In all my glory...! Hurk! Hhcck! Ahh! Ptooie! My might will not fade into the forgotten past... The Flames of Oblivion will never stop burning... hack..."

_*_*_*_*_*_

12 Years Ago...

Foul breath and the chill of destruction were pretty much the nicest things one could say about the Kyuubi no Yoko, especially considering the overbearing heat its very presence brought to the lands of the Fire country. Ninja were just about everywhere you would think them to be when defending the hidden village they call home. Medic-nin tended to the wounded shinobi and kunoichi that were felled in combat, ninjutsu masters pelted the beastly fox with the elements themselves, and sealing specialists, well, they may have had the most difficult job of all. Considering the intricacies that go into making seals, being in such a stressful environment with your nakama being slaughtered was likely not a good idea, especially for the commander, the Hokage. "The Professor" Hiruzen Sarutobi stood atop the great chief toad Gamabunta with his former pupil Jiraiya and his own familiar, the monkey king Enma. Troubling indeed was this random attack which no one could have seen coming, but that which they must deal with anyway with the strength of the Will of Fire.

"Old man," Jiraiya intoned, "we don't have very many options without Minato. What could be keeping him from reporting back to you?"

The elder shinobi stroked his beard in thought. "Hmm, you're right. I haven't heard from him in an hour or so. He must be caught up with something, but we don't have time to ponder it now, especially with our forces dwindling. We have to act now. We'll go ahead with the Jinchuuriki plan-"

"That plan is pointless without Minato to occupy the fox while you summon the Reaper! Just because you have that turtle inside you doesn't mean you're invincible! This is a suicide jutsu we're talking about! We only get one try!"

"I appreciate your concern Jiraiya, but Lord Genbu has seniority over the Reaper in cases of sacrificial death for the cause of others."

"Oh? And who pray tell told you that?"

"I did," boomed a voice so authoritative that the toad sage couldn't help but stand to attention in front of the golden pillar of light emanating from the very ground itself, while the old Turtle Ninja simply smiled like a day free of paperwork was just around the corner.

"To hurry things along, I'll speak to the Reaper myself. Meanwhile, Jiraiya, you go fetch Kushina and her child, while I summon help for Minato. Hiruzen, be ready to execute the jutsu after you command the retreat on my signal."

Two Hours Before...

Speed is essential to being a ninja. That's a fact. As a shinobi grows in experience and might, speed becomes all the more important for warriors of the shadows. Minato Namikaze knew all that better than anyone his age. A prodigy among prodigies, with a growth rate exceeding the Legendary Sannin (his own pervy sensei included), becoming a shinobi feared by Iwa nicknamed the Yellow Flash of Konoha did nothing to hurt his reputation as a hero of the Land of Fire. That's not to say that the bright blonde jounin dwelled on such things, but when in a situation like the one he was in now, wondering if you can live up to your own hype is bound to happen, if only for a second amidst fighting for your life.

A zombie, that's what this guy had to be. It was the only logical explanation that came to mind. Whether resurrected by himself or by someone else, there was no other explanation that Minato could conjure up. Spooky stories from Jiraiya-sensei during far off missions in more obscure lands detailed myths of creatures that were far beyond normality, even for ninja. Zombies had instigated a bit of a sick fascination with the nature of death but for his spirit letting him know that part of heroism is sacrifice. His disturbing chains of thought subsided, only years later for that damn fox to show up, and sacrificial sealing jutsu to increasingly become the only effective option. Facing an ancient terror only made the apprehensions worse.

Minato tried desperately to activate Hiraishin, but to no avail. He can't be as powerful as he says he is to have been able to destroy all my seals and I feel like I'm running in circles in water in a dreamworld. I must be trapped in a genjutsu. Kai! Minato's eyes snapped open to see the dark, night field he'd been standing in and began to scan the area around him. ...wait, didn't I stub my toe on that rock? Huh?!

The swiftness of movement rivalled his own as their kunai clashed and Minato finally came face-to-face with the unseen factor of the night's events: a tall man in a tattered black cloak with long, spiky ebon hair and a coal mask with stylized red spikes painted over the eye holes. Both men grunted with effort as their grapple tested each other's prowess in battle while their eyes sought the other's intent of the soul.

The cloaked man backed off suddenly and grasped his mask with his left hand while his right tossed his kunai to the side. He then began muttering to Yellow Flash about random past events, seemingly innocuous things about legends that Minato thought if they were believed without skepticism the person in question would most certainly be loony.

"Do you know what this day has in common with the founding of the five village system and before that the very concept of the modern mercenary ninja? Do you? Or do you simply follow whatever paltry words your mentors spout?" The man at this point pulled his mask and cloak off, but kept his head down in a slouch. "What these three points in history have in common, my friend, is that the truth of the events is not the truth that the world 'knows' to be such a truth. Things that should be impossible to the world often are possible, because even though ninjas live in the shadows, there are always shadows under those shadows. No matter what secrets you know, there are still things beyond your reach that you will never know, simply because you are mortal. The past is lost to you and the future is forever out of your grasp. The only absolute truth of everything which the world can never refute is that to rule is to have power, to have power is to have knowledge and to make these everlasting you need the truth. Underlying that, to gain the real truth, you must have all of it and finally, to be all, you must be eternally immortal!"

"Just where are you going with this? And why are you targeting me? What do your crackpot theories have to do with anything? If you're what's drawing the Kyuubi here then I'll just have to end this and save my village!"

"Always the hero... Here's the deal. You're going to be the Fourth Hokage when little Hiruzen decides to retire. That should be pretty soon. As Hokage, in the place of an Ouryuu Guardian, you'll be charged with guarding the Central Gate. Sounds simple enough. You'll be exposed to all sorts of secrets that will change everything you know about being a ninja. I'm only giving you fair warning about the nature of the truth you know." The man then took his time to raise his head, crimson eyes glistening in the moonlight and the ecstasy of the gears of his plot turning. Three tomoe danced around the pupil in the iris, ever so slightly appearing as if to merge. "Here is an example..." The man took a few steps towards his young foe, feigning slight caution.

"You're an Uchiha? I don't recognize you!"

"How perceptive. But are you sure you don't know who I am? I said this was an example after all, so I guess I do have to explain. The truth you know is that there isn't a truth the world's history cares to know. Having lived as long as I have, I know well the ignorance of the wretched young who waste their time floundering about and not seizing what they want. You are almost an exception. You have a gift and you use it to gain the power you need in a world that believes in apathy and coddling. However, you also subscribe to those notions despite your drive for strength. That is the nature of the Will of Fire. That is the nature of your truth. The line of mastery that you perpetuate will be something I look forward to in the future."

The Uchiha's eyes then surged with chakra and the tomoe merged to form a barred constuct, with three inner bars looking like hollowed tomoe link together end to end and three more bars connecting the 'edges' to the boundary of the irises. The malevolent Uchiha stared viciously in Minato's direction, with Minato prudently avoiding eye contact in the face of the unforeseen ability now being witnessed.

"This is my truth, Namikaze. This is the culmination of a man's wish for everything after he was given nothing and what he did have was taken away. This is the type of truth that you will face. I was supposed to have died in battle with Hashirama Senju, but death could not claim me. My legend still persisted, despite my shamed defeat. The legends before me now cry out, 'Madara Uchiha is among the shadows of the shadows', and I wouldn't have it any other way. Because you see, immortality has granted me the foresight to see that the world can be blinded by anything. What we call truth and lie have no meaning to the short-sightedness of humanity and it is for that reason that the attack of the fox, even though it will be stopped, and even though the jinchuuriki will gain the great power to one day fight the snake and other beasts, this attack and its link to the Uchiha that has been in place for centuries will leave a scar on the world that will ignite the flames of war and the ceaseless pettiness that crawls beneath me."

"For that simple fact, I, Madara Uchiha, Immortal Descendant of the True Path of Dawn and Eternal Incumbent Master of the Red Moon Organization, challenge you, Minato Namikaze, future Fourth Hokage, Inheritor of the Will of Fire and Constant of the Continuum, and your heirs to the greatest war that could ever be fought for the sake of existence and what you believe to be!"

"You're not going to get anywhere with your schemes. You don't have the power to back up your bluster. I don't care what you think. All I know is, you're threatening my home and I won't stand for it-"

Minato wished to continue, but Madara was swamped in flames before he could take another breath. Approaching at top speed was a blazing avian figure, with vermillion feathers, which faded to reveal a man beneath the fiery visage.

"Mr. Teuchi, you're the Suzaku Guardian? You just moved here with your ramen stand!"

Teuchi dusted himself off while Madara pulled himself back up, taking his cloak and mask and covering his black armour in even more obsidian darkness.

"I was called for an emergency. They said it wasn't a catering disaster so I didn't need my ladle." The ramen chef was decked out in armour resembling that of a general, but red, orange and yellow, with the Phonix Crest of the South Gate emblazoned on the chestplate.

"Suzaku..." Madara growled. "The beast has no business interfering in the choices of the living who were granted power by the Guardians themselves.

"Jealous, are we? I'm sorry the greatest sharingan user of all time turned out to be such a prick, but hey, what can you do?

"I'll be taking my leave now, " Madara's voice faded as his body did the same. "Remember my words, boy. Plan as best you can, because you'll need everything you have to fight someone who was supposed to be dead..."

"Let's go report this, " Minato sighed. After all this, after Naruto was supposed to be born, and he was volunteered to be the hero who caged the fox and my own part to play in the defeat of the Bijuu which threatened our village, after all of that, Kushina's and my hopes for our child are threatened even further by a zombie man who wants to play a sick and twisted game with existence itself. Impossibility is but a perception, he was right about that, but what made him so sure of himself. Heh, I can just imagine Kushina getting riled up already, promising to make him eat those words of his...

A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading this and I appreciate any feedback or constructive criticism.

A major addition that this story adds is that of the Gate Guardians. They are based on the four gods of Chinese, Japanese and other Asian mythologies. For the purposes of this story I will be using the Japanese names, both due to Naruto's Japanese origin and the ease of spelling.

There will be other additions to the story, such as some new situations due to the altered course of events, new creatures and concepts, and a few 'original' characters, a few of which you've met in the original and a few I've made myself.

I hope you join me on my journey to explore the world of Naruto through a different lens, because playing with tropes is fun and this could be a bumpy ride!