October tenth. It was a dark day for the ninja village of Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves. On what should have been a happy day, for the Fourth Hokage, the leader of the ninja village, was due to become a father for the first time. However, in an act of pure evil and insanity, a masked man had threatened the newborn child and kidnapped the mother while the Hokage, one Minato Namikaze, teleported away with the child to escape several explosives planted on the newborn. By the time the Hokage found his wife, it was too late. For Kushina Uzumaki was a Jinchuuriki, a demon container, and weakened by childbirth was easy pickings for anyone to release the demon held within.
Minato arrived, only to bear witness to the release of the legendary Kyuubi no Yoko, the nine-tailed fox, king of the tailed beasts and possibly the most powerful demon in existence, said to be able to create tsunamis and bring down mountain ranges with a swing of a single massive tail. Cackling maniacally, the masked madman hypnotized and ordered the Kyuubi to destroy Konoha, while he dealt with the 'nuisance' before him.
In a battle between equals, it is said that a conflict will be decided quickly or will become a test of endurance. In this battle between madman and beloved leader, the old saying was proven correct. As quickly as the madman had seemingly materialized inside the maternity ward, the battle was decided when Minato managed to disrupt the hypnosis holding the Kyuubi and wound the madman badly enough to cause him to flee the field of battle, cursing the Namikaze name all the while.
However, the battle to save Konoha was far from over. Hurt by the forced extraction from its host and disoriented by the broken hypnosis, the Kyuubi lashed out at everything around it, inadvertently continuing the destruction and chaos it had been ordered to create. Freeing his wife from her restraints, who through some miracle had survived having her soul nearly torn from her body, the Hokage and Kushina returned to their home. Bidding a tearful farewell to their newborn, Minato and Kushina donned the blue and red armors that they had earned the names of the Yellow Flash and the Red Death in. Leaving their child with one of Minato's trusted students, the Red Death and the Yellow Flash went to defeat the rampaging Bijuu in the forests outside the village before it could actually step foot within its walls.
Sadly, it was not to be. The sentient mass of pure chakra, the very lifeforce of all living things, was too powerful to defeat. With a heavy heart, the Fourth Hokage was forced to do the unthinkable: sacrificing his own child to stop the beast. Despite her initial refusal, Kushina eventually realized that there was no other way, and held down the Kyuubi with powerful chakra chains while Minato retrieved their child and prepared the ritual to seal the Bijuu into their baby.
The ritual, one that would take the life of the user, was nearly complete when the Kyuubi noticed the sealing circle and the small infant in the center. The Kyuubi, in its delirium, struck out at the sleeping baby with a single massive claw. The Hokage attempted to stop the Kyuubi by summoning Gamabunta, a towering toad the size of the Kyuubi itself. However, Gamabunta, the leader of the toad summons clan, was unable to fully stop the attack. In their desperation, Minato and Kushina threw themselves between their baby and the Kyuubi…
~NZX~
Minato gasped and coughed up blood as he looked down at the claw that had pierced through the blue armor he wore. Turning his head, he looked over his shoulder at his wife. "Heh, looks like we've both had the same idea."
Kushina smiled, a trickle of blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. "If a father can do the job, a mother can do it better."
Smiling, Minato ran through a few hand seals to mold his chakra and summoned a small toad that appeared to be wearing an obi. "Wah? Minato, Kushina, what's going on?"
Minato smiled sadly at the toad. "Gerotora, I need you to take the key to the seal I'm placing on my daughter. As it stands, I don't have the energy left to seal the Kyuubi in its entirety into her."
The claw of the Kyuubi withdrew as it tried to move for a second attempt at the sleeping blonde baby, dropping Minato and Kushina on either side of the infant. Gerotora looked from the massive fox struggling with his clan leader to Minato. "I understand." Without another word, the toad lengthened into a large, blank scroll.
Smiling sadly, Minato touched one hand to his daughter's stomach and the other to the empty scroll, whispering one word. "Seal."
The Kyuubi screamed, a deafening, ear splitting shriek as it was absorbed into the seals on the baby's stomach. As the giant fox shrunk, a wise and kind voice seemed to come from Minato's armor. "What about the other half of the fox's chakra?"
Minato sighed tiredly. "I-I don't know. I was going to seal it into myself, but I'm not so sure that'll work anymore."
A gruff, cynical voice emitted from Kushina's destroyed red armor. "Use us. We have more than enough capacity to hold a quarter of its total chakra each."
The first voice seemed to consider this for a moment. "Yes, though we would have to leave you and bond with the child. If you do this, you'll die, so are you sure of this course of action?"
Minato nodded. "We're already dying, not even you two can stop that."
The voice sighed. "Very well."
The other voice spoke up. "What are you going to call the child?"
Kushina lifted up her head to watch the shrieking Kyuubi as it started to lose its form. "Naruto."
"Honey," Minato started. "I know we agreed to that before, but we believed we were going to have a boy…"
Kushina shook her head. "I don't care."
Minato sighed. "Fine, Naruto it is."
"We're ready for the transfer."
"Yeah, c'mon, let's get it over with."
Minato removed his one hand from Gerotora as he returned to the summons realm and held it out in the air. "Alri*cough*alright, go ahead."
Kushina and Minato's armor glowed with a soft white light, shattering into innumerable fragments to form two glowing balls of light that floated before Minato's outstretched hand. "Seal." With that whispered command, the rest of the Kyuubi's remaining chakra was siphoned into the two glowing orbs. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the Kyuubi was completely gone.
Minato looked at his daughter, taking in the six whisker marks burned into her cheeks by the Kyuubi's presence in her body before looking to the two orbs. "You guys will take care of her for us, right?"
"Of course we're gonna take care of her, what kind of guardians do you take us for?" The reddish orb shook with indignity.
The bluish orb seemed to calm the red one. "It will take some time to repair ourselves and assimilate the Bijuu's energies at the same time, however, so we won't be able to help her for the beginning. We will be able to speak with her and give her advice from time to time though."
Kushina sighed. "That's good enough for me." She moved to hold her baby close. "Hey baby girl. I want you to be a good girl for whoever ends up taking care of you. Always listen to what your two big brothers tell you, even if you won't be able to see them for awhile. Eat your vegetables, don't go anywhere or accept anything from strange people. If you get a boyfriend, make sure he's not a pervert. And remember…your father and I will always love you, no matter what, my little Fishcake."
Minato chuckled. "Listen to your motor-mouth mother, okay? Make sure that Kakashi doesn't spend all his time moping by the memorial stone like he likes to do. And be nice to him, he'll be taking care of you from now on." He held his wife and his baby girl. "Goodbye…Naruto…" As Minato and Kushina passed on with smiles on their faces, the two orbs floated down to touch the seal on the sleeping baby, integrating themselves into her body before going into stasis for repairs.
Silence reigned as Gamabunta looked on with sadness before returning to his home, leaving the two smiling bodies cradling a sleeping blonde baby. Such was the scene a masked jounin with gravity-defying silver hair and one eye covered came upon. "Oh, sensei…"
A small triangular shape the size of a small apple floated up next to him before it spoke with a high, child-like voice. "They're gone…"
The jounin approached the bodies. "What about…?"
"They're there, but they seem to be in stasis, probably needed repairs from the looks of things, Kakashi…"
Kakashi gently picked up the sleeping baby girl, taking in the complex, black seal on her stomach that was already fading to invisibility. "Do you know what they named her?"
The arrowhead bobbed in an approximation of a nod. "I heard them say 'Naruto.'"
Kakashi smiled under his facemask. "She'll grow up to be a beautiful maelstrom, won't she?" Kakashi turned to make his way back to Konoha. "Don't worry sensei, I'll take care of her for you…I'll turn her into a ninja that would make you proud."
~NZX~
…Twelve years later…
"Yea ha ha, you'll never take me alive!"
"Get back here, you brat!"
A blond, pigtailed thirteen-year old girl wearing blue shorts and a red muscle shirt cackled maniacally as she jumped from rooftop to rooftop as she was chased by what seemed to be half of Konoha's home-guard. The reason? Somehow, Naruto, for that is who this little girl was, had managed to paint the Hokage Monument with the faces of every past and present Hokage overlooking the village in broad daylight. What was even more astonishing was that she had managed to paint every single square inch of the monument with life-accurate paint before anyone had noticed. She had been tempted to paint swirls and other rude and obnoxious things on the stone faces, but had decided that painting the faces to give them the colors they had in life would last longer as a testament to her skills. For some reason though, the people of Konoha didn't seem to like the additions to their monument.
Perhaps it was the fact that her Jinchuuriki status had been leaked to the population despite the S-Class secrecy law forbidding talking about the Kyuubi's true fate, and that a vast majority of the civilians thought she was the fox itself. Fortunately, the majority of the shinobi populace understood the basics of fuuinjutsu, or sealing techniques, and treated her kindly, often going out of their way to protect her from irate or drunk civilians and getting things for her from the shops that would overcharge her or refuse her service. This didn't protect them from Naruto's pranks, though.
Naruto grinned behind the half-face mask she wore to hide her whisker marks as she approached her destination. Leaping through the window, Naruto landed in her shinobi academy classroom, leaving the entire classroom astonished. For one, Naruto had just jumped through the second story window, and second, there was already a Naruto sitting in her assigned seat, one that waved at the newcomer before disappearing in cloud of smoke. Naruto jumped into her seat just as her pursuers leapt through the window after her.
Iruka Umino, a chuunin teacher with a scar going horizontally across the bridge of his nose, sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "What did she do this time?"
One of the shinobi, a chuunin, or journeyman ninja, pointed out the window at the Hokage monument as he tried to catch his breath. Iruka couldn't help but applaud the quality of the paintjob. He waved off the seething ninja. "Alright guys, I'll take it from here."
After the grumbling ninja left, Iruka crossed his arms at the bane of his existence as a teacher. Sure, he liked the kid, but she was such a handful. "Naruto, what was that in your seat while you were off painting the monument to look lifelike?"
Naruto grinned, a foxy-looking thing that made several guys, who remembered the last time they received that look, protect their little ninjas. "Shadow clone."
Iruka blinked several times. "That's a forbidden technique."
Naruto shrugged. "Big bro Kakashi taught it to me when we found out I have too much chakra for regular clones. The Old Man said it was ok."
"Old man?" Iruka raised an eyebrow. Naruto responded by raising three fingers and pointing out the window. "Oh. Very well then, what was I talking about before you…came in to class?"
Naruto cleared her throat. "You were giving a lecture on the Red Death, known for her red armor of unknown origin and the Fourth Hokage, also known as the Yellow Flash, for the use of the Flying Thunder God jutsu, and the Blue Bomber, for the blue armor of unknown origin he used. You were also saying how their armor disappeared the night of the Kyuubi attack." Naruto sat with a smug smile at the incredulous look on Iruka's and her classmates' faces. Oh yeah, I know all about mommy and daddy. I'm glad big bro told me about them. Just wish I knew what happened to their armors. Her face contorted with irritation. I know why the Old Man didn't tell the village about my parents 'cause of their enemies, but did he seriously think I shouldn't know myself? *sigh* Adults can be such idiots sometimes. She listened to the rest of the lecture in silence, contemplating the possible reasons for the apparent rise of idiocy amongst the civilians. Her musings were interrupted when Iruka made an announcement.
"Alright, not bad for a day of classes. Now remember, the genin graduation exam is tomorrow, so make sure you're here. On time." That last part seemed to be aimed at Naruto. "Dismissed. I'll see you all tomorrow." Naruto jumped out the open window to prepare for her test, the last chance she had to become a ninja like her big brother.
~NZX~
The next day saw a grinning Naruto leaving the academy with a Konoha ninja forehead protector. She couldn't wait to tell her big brother and show it to him. "Big brother, look, I passed!"
Kakashi smiled at her with his one visible eye. "That's great! I knew you had it in you. Let's go to Ichiraku's to celebrate. I'll let you eat as much as you want today, no five bowl limit."
"Really?" Kakashi nodded. Naruto squeed in happiness and gave Kakashi a surprisingly rub-crushing hug for her age. "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!"
Kakashi eye-smiled again. "Well, let's go, shall we?"
Mizuki, a chuunin instructor at the academy and one of the graduation test proctors, watched the young blonde jumping around the silver haired jounin with a scowl. Damn that girl. He didn't know she knew an alternate clone jutsu. Now he didn't have anyone to patsy into stealing the forbidden scroll of sealing. If he couldn't get it to his 'benefactor,' he was royally screwed. He was about to throw a paperweight across the room when an idea hit him. Oh yes, that would work perfectly. Mizuki smiled deviously as he made plans for the night.
~NZX~
Naruto made her way home alone from Ichiraku's after saying goodbye to the owner Teuchi and his daughter Ayame. She had always liked their company, as they had always treated her nicely and never tried overcharging her like some civilian stores had.
As she walked along, Naruto wondered how Kakashi's jounin meeting with the Third Hokage, who had come out of retirement after her father's untimely death, was going. A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye, making her turn to see…herself?
"I don't have any shadow clones out right now. What's going on?" Noticing that the lookalike seemed to be carrying something, Naruto followed her doppelganger into an old forested training ground that looked to not have been used for some time. Hiding in a tree, Naruto watched as the Döppelgänger dropped a henge, revealing himself to be Mizuki in disguise. Before Naruto could confront him, however, she saw Iruka Umino jump into the clearing and confront the traitor. After a heated exchange that Naruto couldn't hear, Mizuki and Iruka began to fight.
It wasn't long before Iruka found himself bloodied and pinned to the side of an old shack that was off to the side of the old training ground. Iruka looked up in time to watch his once best friend pull out a large demon windmill shuriken. The sneer on his face was burned into Iruka's mind as the traitor let the shuriken loose. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.
*THUNK*
Thunk? Iruka opened his eyes to find Naruto in front of him, the windmill shuriken imbedded in the tree Naruto had been in, the freshly minted genin having used the kawarimi, or body switching technique, to trade places with the shuriken in mid flight.
Mizuki was shocked to see a mere genin do a replacement with a rapidly moving object, a feat even chuunin and some jounin have trouble doing reliably. As he stared into the frigid blue depths of her normally bright, warm cerulean eyes, Mizuki couldn't help but think that he had screwed up somehow. He needed to demoralize her. Perhaps confronting the demon child with what she was would do the trick.
"Do you know why you're hated by the village?"
Naruto had a feeling she knew where this was going, but decided to humor the traitor for a moment. "Why?"
Iruka pulled against the kunai and shuriken pinning himself to the shack. "DON'T MIZUKI, IT'S FORBIDDEN!"
Mizuki carried on like he hadn't even heard him. "Twelve years ago, the Fourth Hokage defeated the Kyuubi no Yoko, but he didn't kill it. He sealed it into a little girl. He sealed it into you! YOU ARE THE KYUUBI NO YOKO! YOU ARE THE NINE-TAILED FOX!" Mizuki gave off a demented laugh, only for it to die away in confusion as the look of horror and despair he expected to be on Naruto's blank face was absent.
Naruto rubbed her temples and turned to Iruka. "Iruka-sensei, is there something in the water around here, or is a majority of the village retarded?" Iruka could only blink in surprise before shrugging. Naruto shook her head before returning her attention to Mizuki. "For your information, I already knew about daddy giving me the fox."
Mizuki was too busy fuming to really comprehend what Naruto had said. Iruka on the other hand… Daddy? What did she mean by…well holy shit...why the hell didn't I see this before? He was so caught up in his thoughts about the revelation that he almost missed Mizuki having the crap beat out of his by several hundred pissed off shadow clones. He stared in amazement as Naruto left the twitching traitor lying there as she started to pull out the various kunai and shuriken keeping him pinned to the wall.
"Naruto, did you say your father was…?"
Naruto nodded. "Yup, but don't tell anyone until me or the Old Man tell everybody. It's a secret for a reason."
"You…BITCH!"
Naruto turned around in time to see Mizuki stagger to his feet and pull out a small vial. Popping the cork, he downed the contents in a single gulp and tossed the now empty vial off to the side. Naruto and Iruka watched in horror as Mizuki's body began to swell and bulge, tearing his clothes as orange fur grew out of his exposed skin. His nails grew, turning black as they hardened into claws. His face bulged out into a muzzle as his canines and the rest of his teeth became sharper and longer. A striped tail burst out of the back of his tattered pants, completing the look of an anthropomorphic tiger. He leered evilly at the two before him.
"I have the power to finish you off, bitch. You're done."
Before Naruto could react, Mizuki was in her face, and then she was airborne, and then nestled in a body shaped indentation in a tree trunk. Iruka tried to move, but he was still stuck to the wall.
"Leave her alone Mizuki!"
The monster that used to be Mizuki patted Iruka's cheek. "Don't you worry your little head now, it'll be your turn soon enough." Iruka could only watch in horror as Mizuki pulled Naruto from the hole she made in the tree and proceeded to thrash her back and forth across the clearing.
Naruto crashed into a large rock, collapsing in a heap between Mizuki and Iruka. She tried to get up and move, get help, fight back, but then everything seemed to get very far away.
"Hey!"
Naruto swam back into consciousness. Was she hearing things? She could have sworn she heard a very grumpy voice that had little patience for fools.
"Are you okay?" Nope, now it was kind and patient. Was she hearing the Kyuubi? Was the seal weakening from the trauma she was going through?
"Kid, we aren't the Kyuubi, but if you keep making asinine comments in here, I might just wake the furball up."
Naruto was getting scared. Who are you?
The kind voice answered her. "There's no time for that right now. What would you do if you had power?"
"Would you use it for petty reasons and revenge?"
"Or would you use it to protect and serve?"
Naruto instantly knew what to say. Protect and serve. She had a feeling that the two presences she now felt in her head approved of her answer.
"We find you worthy of our power."
"Use it wisely."
Naruto eyed the lazily approaching Mizuki warily. How do I use your power? A small flash of light dropped two hexagonal objects the size of small apples into her hands. One was blue, with a red gem above a small white representation of a face. The other was black, with red horns surrounding a green gem set above a white representation of a face with a long, white, blade-like goatee outgrowth.
"To use our power, just hold us and yell out 'Double Megamerge.'"
Well, it sounds silly, but I'll do it.
Mizuki was savoring the moment. He would finally be rid of the demon-bitch and once he had delivered the scroll to his benefactor outside the village, the same one who had given him the serum that had granted him his power boost, and he would be set for life. He watched with amusement as Naruto struggled to get to her feet. "So, bitch, any last words?"
Naruto held her hands out in front of her. "Just…one…DOUBLE MEGAMERGE!"
A bright light enveloped Naruto.
"Biolink established. M.E.G.A. System, online."
"Biolink established. M.E.G.A. System, online."
Naruto's clothes melted over her body, becoming a formfitting black bodysuit. She held her arms out to the side as she floated into the air. Red gauntlets formed over her forearms, with a golden-yellow portion covering the back of her hands. A set of red armored boots with thick black soles with a golden-yellow ring supporting her ankles formed up to her knees, followed by white armor plating forming on her thighs and a white codpiece forming at her hips. A red flak jacket materialized on her torso, unzipped. Finally, a red finned helmet with a black top materialized on her head, two short, white spikes protruding from the cheeks. A green, gem-like structure began to form between the fins, taking an arrow shape as it briefly glowed with power. Naruto's hair burst out a hole in the back of the helmet in 9 separate strands before it coiled up into a single sunkissed-yellow ponytail. As the light started to fade, a white plated weapon vaguely reminiscent of a crossbow without the leaves materialized in her hand.
This all happened in less than a second, but to Naruto, it was as if she had been bathed in warmth for ages.
Mizuki recoiled from the power radiating off of Naruto. Iruka stared in amazement. Is-is the Kyuubi getting free? No, no, it doesn't have that oppressive feel to it, it feels more…pure than that.
Mizuki snorted, throwing his trepidation to the four winds. "You think a fancy wardrobe change will help you, girly? You don't have a chance!"
Naruto slid into a firing stance and leveled her weapon at Mizuki. Light started to gather at the end facing him.
"You think a little light show's gonna scare me!?"
Naruto let her weapon answer for her, firing off a ball of burning energy at the traitor. Seeing the oncoming ball of death, Mizuki tried to dodge, only managing to avoid the plasma blast at the cost of some fur and several layers of skin.
Roaring in rage, Mizuki charged the armored girl. "You bitch! I'm going to kill you!"
Naruto held the weapon out to the side, and to Iruka's surprise, the weapon shifted as a triangular beam of energy was emitted from the end, forming a long arrowhead-shaped blade. Moving into a stance that Iruka didn't recognize, Naruto blitzed forward. Mizuki and the blonde teen passed each other and came to a stop. Naruto stood up straight and flourished the sword as a red line across his chest caused Mizuki to start sliding apart. "H-how?" From his vantage point pinned against the wooden shack, Iruka saw that the exposed flesh somehow seemed like it wasn't organic anymore in the brief instant before the falling traitor's two halves glowed.
Iruka turned his face away as a large explosion filled the clearing. Naruto smiled as she closed her eyes, falling to her knees. Exhausted as the armor dissipated, the young genin fell into sweet unconsciousness as a familiar form landed before her prone figure.
"So, they've finally woken up, huh?" Kakashi picked Naruto up in a bridal position, her head resting against his shoulder. "I'm proud of you, little sister. You did good. Now c'mon, let's get you home and patched up, shall we?" Kakashi left the clearing, pausing to pick up the forbidden scroll of sealing on the way.
…
…
…
…
"…Um…A little help?"