The full moon bore witness to the tragedy that befell the village hidden in the leaves that fateful night. It had taken just a few moments before the leaf ninjas' will of fire had burnt through the rictus of fear imposed by the malice that blanketed the village with the nine-tails' coming. In that short interval half the village lay in shambles. The mighty swipes of the fox's tails razing houses as a child would topple skittles. Yet the resistance put up by them was a token one. Fire and lightning rained down upon the mighty beast with little effect. The earth beneath it liquefied, dragging it down into its suffocating embrace, yet the monster rampaged on. Its roar a shockwave of sound that bore on its crest the rancor and hatred of centuries spent imprisoned. In the face of overwhelming power, the flames of determination guttered, hope was a distant dream.
A gout of white smoke obscured the Kyuubi and out of it leapt a massive toad that slammed into the beast pushing it towards the boundary wall. On top of its head stood the Hiruzen Sarutobi, third Hokage, accompanied by his student Jiraiya, the toad sage and hope was reborn. Sarutobi's adamantine staff lengthened slamming into the Kyuubi's ribs toppling the creature and pushing it fully outside the village boundaries.
The cheers of the shinobi were drowned out by the beast's affronted roar. It opened great maw expelling blobs of red and blue chakra that coalesced into a dense black sphere that shrunk down to the size of a basketball. The weight of the condensed chakra construct fissured the ground below its feet making the earth tremble in anticipation of cataclysmic forces. The chakra suffusing the air intensified to unbearable levels and brought ninja and civilian alike to their knees. Stomachs and bowels were emptied in the face of the power on display. What could a mere human do in the face of a walking natural disaster?
Jiraiya stood slack jawed and by his side Hiruzen's grip on his staff loosened a strange expression on his face. The Kyuubi swallowed the sphere and spat it out in a single motion towards the village that had caused it so much anguish.
A flash of golden light and a man interposed himself between the speeding chakra sphere and its intended target. Three tri-pronged kunai arranged themselves into a triangle in front of him and the super-dense mass of chakra was teleported far away on contact. The resulting explosion turned the night to day for a brief moment and the shockwaves and tremors that followed collapsed a few buildings that were on their last legs from the earlier rampage.
Minato Namikaze, the fourth Hokage took in the situation and reached an unpleasant conclusion. His stoic face twisted into a grimace, a pain and weariness beyond his years settled upon his visage. Closing his eyes he sighed. The Kyuubi's enraged roars at having been cheated out of its retribution brought him back to the present. His eyes snapped open and he barked out commands, ordering his master Jiraya to restrict the beast's motion with the boss toad summon, Gamabunta. Transporting such a large volume of chakra would require preparation time.
…..
Light Yagami, aka Kira, self-proclaimed God of the New World was dying and apparently dying hurt. It hurt a lot. Matsuda had shot him once in his right hand and then thrice in his right thigh, sternum and his left shoulder. The wounds were like epicenters and wave after wave of pain racked him as he staggered away from the warehouse where his plans for Godhood had come crashing down about his ears. He had been outsmarted. He, the infallible God had been outmaneuvered by Nate River, aka Near, a cheap imitation of his late rival L. His breath hitched in his chest as he stumbled, caught himself and staggered on.
This was not how he had envisioned the meeting going. This was supposed to be his masterstroke to end all opposition. The panacea to his problems, the beginning of his unchallenged reign. Tonight was supposed to be the night when he celebrated his victory.
As Light Yagami dragged his broken and bleeding body into a warehouse he let out a frustrated scream.
…..
Minato blazed through the hand seals that activated the Shiki Fujin, the Reaper Death Seal. The air behind him shimmered and warped, splitting into a rift that opened into the Void. A pair of translucent arms reached out of the rift, their clawed hands grabbed the edges pulling them apart to allow the head and subsequently the body of the Shinigami through.
The monstrous apparition had a knife clenched between its jaws and tattoos covered both its arms. Its shock of white hair elongated and speared into Minato's body pulling out and entangling his soul. Wrapping its prayer beads around its right arm it plunged it through Minato's chest extending the arm till it grabbed the Kyuubi's soul and pulled into Minato. The Kyuubi entangled as it was in Kushina's dense chakra chains was unable to resist its pull and a spiral seal formed on Minato's chest sealing away its yin chakra.
The mighty beast shrank down to nearly half its original size and howled with the agony of having its soul ripped from its body. Kushina, with her chakra dangerously depleted and severely weakened by the twin trials of childbirth and having the Kyuubi forcefully removed from her, was unable to stop the claw that lashed out with the aim of destroying the Kyuubi's intended prison, their newborn son, Naruto.
…..
Ryuk, perched on top of a water supply tower munching his apple pensively. He inspected the core with a critical eye before tossing it down his gullet. No use wasting it, after all it would be his last apple in a long while.
"It was fun while it lasted." he said as he kept his promise of being the one to write Light's name in his notebook.
Lying on the steps of the warehouse, his eyes glossy with pain Light managed to whisper, "I don't want to die." before his heart clenched and the darkness took him.
…..
Blood ran down the claw dripping down from its tip onto the ground near the receptacle that cradled their bawling infant son. The claw after having pierced them both and being restrained by chakra chains had stopped a scant few inches from impaling Naruto. Minato, with the last of his and Kushina's chakra crafted the seal that would house the rest of the Kyuubi's chakra.
The goodbyes were tearful and the Kyuubi raged through it all straining against his restraints and his fate to gain the freedom denied to him for centuries.
A final hand seal, a surge of chakra, a flash of light, a swing of the shinigami's knife and Minato collapsed soullessly on the ground with Kushina's lifeless form on top of him. The silence that followed was only broken by the wails of an infant with a spiral seal on its navel that housed one half of the mightiest tailed beast.
The rift in space-time slowly mended itself as the death god departed the dimension of the living. Unnoticed, a human soul escaped the rift and drifted meanderingly in the air.
….
Those who presume to judge shall be denied judgement. That was one of the basic tenets of the DeathNote. An arbiter must not be influenced by either the lust for heavenly pleasure or the fear of hellish torment. Thus, Light floated in the Void, without a sense of touch, time or space, blind, deaf and mute. Only a residual concept of self, distinguished his soul from the rest of the emptiness.
A perturbation in the fabric of the Void roused him from his nihilistic slumber and a sliver of light penetrated the emptiness. In the stasis of his soul, a primal emotion began to bubble up as he gravitated towards the rift.
His last words began to echo in his being, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die…." The Void rebelled against his emotions trying to erase them and drop him back to his eternal stupor. Yet the closer he got to the rift, the more the world of the living sang to him, the melody resonating with his will to live.
He pulled and pushed and strafed and strained till finally, he extricated himself from the Void's cold embrace and emerged out of the rift. He floated aimlessly, untethered to flesh, already feeling himself disintegrate till with a yank, he was pulled into an infant's body.
….
In the civilian shelter of the hidden leaf the cry of a new life pierced through the gloom that permeated the atmosphere and rekindled the Will of Fire that was Konoha's pride and joy. Hope was not yet lost. If new life could be born into the village, then it was their duty to ensure that there was a village for it to be born into.
The second coming of Light Yagami brought smiles to morose faces and hope to shriveled hearts. It remained to be seen whether he would become the God of this new world.
...
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Disclaimer: I do not own either of the series used.
