IMPORTANT! Please read!:
This story is based off of the latest chapters in Naruto Shippudden, which is the sequel to Naruto. If you don't know what NS is, leave now. If you've watched the NS anime only, you may have some spoilers in this story. HOWEVER!!! I have changed some ascpets of the lore of NS in concerns with the Kyuubi, so you fanboys and fangirls don't need to wet your pants. IN OTHER WORDS!!! This is a CANON UNIVERSE FANFIC WITH ALTERNATE UNIVERSE UNDERTONES! Okay. We have that out of the way. Wootness.
I don't expect the rating to change, but you know... Ratings subject to change and all that.
Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto. I wish I did... I'd make a lot of money. I do not recieve compensation for my fanfics and I never will. LAY OFF LAWYERS! -huzzah-
He had been changing, the soon-to-be Rodaime knew this to be a fact, but it scared and disturbed him. His fingers traced over the reflection that gazed back in the mirror in front of him. The glass cracked beneath the soft pads of his finger tips, breaking his image apart. Reaching for his shirt, the blonde-haired man pulled it over his head, wincing as he felt a spark of angry-red chakra flare against his hands.
It had been like this for days now, the seal was starting to teeter in its control, but there was enough left for him to stay in command of his body, at least for the moment. He had told no one of course. If he told the Tsunade, she would become worried and try to help him, but this wasn't something that medical ninjitsu could cure. His hands traced over his stomach, and he felt another surge of chakra come from his body. He was surprised that no one noticed, after all, he was emitting far more chakra then the average human could possibly hold in their body. He had purposefully avoided the Hyuuga clan, and he wouldn't be able to fool them for much longer with Kage Bunshins. They'd wonder why he would keep disappearing around them.
Naruto looked at this reflection again, the cracked mirror skewing his image into hundreds of pieces. His very soul felt like it was twisting and churning, biting in on it self, trying to devour its own essence. Shivering, he flipped the switch off to the light, stepping out of the room. His hand trailed across the cool paneling of his small apartment, stopping at his dresser. The infamous picture of him, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi still graced the mantle, their smiling faces greeting the world. If only it could have stayed like that. He thought, and gently tipped the picture down, hiding the image from view. It would stay here in this room, which would never be used again. It would be his room of memories and tragedies.
Taking a red head-band, he wrapped it around his forehead. He wouldn't ever have to wear his ninja-plaque again, if he chose, but it comforted him. He pulled on a white hakama with a large 'rohk' embroidered on the back, surrounded by red flames. Reaching for the Konoha head-band, he tucked it on an inside pocket of his hakama, he felt the heavy metal press comfortingly against his heart. Everything would be fine today; he would be able to get through this ceremony.
Breathing a bit heavily, Naruto left his modest apartment quietly, many of the inhabitants already at the square in front of the Hokage's residence. That's where he would sleep tonight, not in the room he had spent almost his entire life in, but the place he idolized. Why did it fill him with dread then?
He walked through his apartment building, thinking of all of the memories he had of this place. But it was time to move on, and this afternoon would be the chapter in his life he had been looking forward to the most. Letting out a rattling sigh, he looked up at the gray sky, great clouds threatening rain. It would be a bad omen if it started to rain on his swearing-in as the Hokage.
Naruto picked up his pace, and soon he was running down the main street of Konoha, his robes flapping behind him, his body a blur. He saw the large crowd that had gathered in front of the Hokage's headquarters, and his resolve wavered. Did he really want to become Hokage, to become the Rodaime? It had been his life-long aspiration to adorn the robes he was wearing now, but something made him unsteady and unsure. Shaking off his feelings of uncertainty, he slowed his pace, walking calmly the rest of the way to the front gates.
"Naruto-sama!" The villagers roared, leaves, the symbol of Konoha, flying into the air as they cheered him on. Naruto saw Tsunade standing at the top of the red building of the Hokage, looking down at him with a smiling face. Her age was starting to catch up with her slightly, her eyes had started to squint, and small frown lines had appeared on her face. Her blonde hair was starting to tinge gray, but she, for the most part, looked like the woman he had met when he was twelve.
Jiraiya stood next to Tsunade, the two sannin smiling down at him with pride. Next to Jiraiya was Sakura, the head of the medical ninjas and hospital for Konoha. His former sensei, Kakashi, was no where to be seen. He would probably arrive just as the ceremony was going to start.
Breathing heavy, he slowly walked up the winding staircase to the roof. The roaring crowd cheering him on. His friends, genin, chunin, and jounin alike were all smiling up at him from the ground in their military uniforms. He even saw representatives from the Sangakure to the left, two of the three sand siblings present. Gaara was the Kazekage and couldn't leave his village, but Naruto felt his friend, and fellow Jinchuuriki, in spirit at least.
"Naruto." Tsunade held the Hokage's hat between her hands, her two advisors standing behind her. "Come here."
Sakura and many other jounin on the roof bowed to him. One was the leader of ANBU; Hyuuga Neji, while the other was the leader of the Hyuuga clan, Hinata. Other important people were there, but Naruto didn't have time to figure out who they were, because suddenly he was standing in front of Tsunade.
She offered him the hat, bowing her head slightly, showing that she resigned her position as Hokage to the next generation. Taking it with a small smile, Naruto felt his chakra flare, which caused him to wince for a moment. The two Hyuuga's didn't notice, because the charm from the first Hokage that he wore around his neck absorbed the chakra, but Sakura and Tsunade seemed to realize something was amiss. Tsunade peered at him with questioning eyes, but Naruto took the hat, placing it on top of his blonde head.
The crowd roared again, and he stepped forward, a grin across his face. Yes, this felt right. He was finally recognized by everyone, he was finally someone. "My fellow villagers! I am honored to receive the title of Hokage," Naruto took a breath, his hands going to form the kage Bunshins signs. "I have much to live up to, especially following Lady Tsunade's protection of the village." He heard the woman let out a soft laugh, and suddenly six clones of Naruto appeared, the crowd letting out a gasp. "That being said, I hope to start of my reign with a bang!"
The clones rushed forward, taking small balls from two buckets that had been placed before the ceremony began. The clones launched off from the railing, jumping high into the air. Throwing the balls up as far as they could, the small spheres exploded, creating a large '6' in the sky. The clones disappeared, and the crowd cheered. Naruto let out a laugh, throwing his hat up into the air. "Let the celebration begin!" He shouted, just as the first drops of rain hit his face.
x.x.x.x.x.x
Fire works exploded in the sky overhead, and throughout the village cheering could be heard. A new age had started, and one that should last for a very, very long time. The downpour that came not long after his inauguration didn't dampen the people's spirits at all, but they danced and laughed in the streets, not minding the rain at all. It was a happy day, and unlike the previous Hokage's start, there wasn't bloodshed or anguish that had spurred Konoha into this trend of events, only good, old-fashioned retirement!
Musicians played in a corner of the great room, nearly all of the ninja from Konoha were present. Those few that weren't were on duty, but they would be continuously relieved during the night so that they could join in the festivities.
The new Hokage was the center of attention, and the young genin continued to beg him to do more tricks with his Kage Bunshins. Every couple of minutes, Naruto clones would run through the party, doing tricks and acrobatic feats that made the young ninja laugh and cheer. The original Naruto was seated between Tsunade, with Jiraiya, the advisors, and Sakura on her left, and the Sangakure shinobi on his right. Temari and Kankuro were roaring with laughter as well, Kankuro's cheeks a bit red from too much sake.
Sipping his warm sake, Naruto looked out at the gathering of ninjas, love blossoming in his heart. This was what he had wanted for his entire life, to be at the center of attention and to have everyone look to him for guidance. Breathing, he took another large gulp of his rice alcohol, a silly grin across his face.
"Naruto-Sama!" One young chunin screamed, standing up to show where he was, "tell us about how you defeated Iruka-sensei in a match one time!" Naruto snorted, seeing his former teacher blush with embarrassment.
"Well! It was quite hard!" He shouted over the din of the laughter and talking, taking another sip of his sake. "I didn't know what to expect, but I had recently defeated Kakashi-sensei, with Sakura's help… Speak of the oni!" Naruto let out a cheer as he saw his teacher use ninjitsu to teleport into the party. "You're late as always, Kakashi sensei!"
"Gomen, gomen Naruto-kun." The gray-haired man said, "you see, there was this turtle stuck in the road, and this old lady was trying to get around it and I couldn't just leave…"
"Enough enough!" Naruto grinned, standing to greet his teacher. "I'm glad you could make it, Kakashi-sensei." He said quietly, the roar of the people around them blocking out their conversation.
"I have news, Naruto-kun." Kakashi replied softly, looking around the room, "it would be best that I tell you… In private."
"Of course!" Waving to Tsunade, Naruto motioned towards the door. "I'll only be gone for a second!" He shouted, and a group of kunoichi let out a collective sigh of sadness.
"I see you have gotten quiet popular with the girls, Naruto." Kakashi commented as they walked towards a set of open doors that led to a balcony.
Naruto chuckled softly, rubbing behind his head lightly. "Yeah… What was it that Gaara said? Power makes you seem cute!"
Kakashi smirked at that, and waited for Naruto to step onto the balcony before he closed the double doors behind them. "I'm sorry that I am so late in returning, but I really did run into a bit of trouble on the way back." Leaning against the cool wall of the building, Kakashi crossed his arms, looking at Naruto with his one visible eye.
"What sort of trouble?" The Rodaime asked, sitting on the railing of the balcony. "I hope that everything else went as planned?"
"It did, but I ran into some of our old friends from Sound, and it wasn't a pretty battle." Kakashi unzipped his jounin vest to show a bad burn on his chest and stomach. "There's only one person who can do this sort of damage with fire jutsu, and you know who it is."
Naruto felt his stomach drop to his feet. This was what he had feared, and he slowly stood, his eyes becoming hard as he assessed the situation. "I see… And not to leave a mark on the cloth, he must have used the Mangekyou Sharingan." Kakashi nodded, and covered him self back up. "I thought he was swallowed by that power long ago."
"As did I." Pulling out a scroll from his vest, he held it to Naruto. "You know what this means Naruto. We will either have to go to war with Sound, or follow this code."
"Code?" Naruto took the scroll, breaking the wax seal on it to read the contents. "I don't understand, this isn't what I asked you to retrieve for me Kakashi."
"I know."
"Then what is this?"
"It's just as it says, it's a formal request by the Sound leader, Uchiha Sasuke, for a ceremonial fight to the death to decide which village is stronger, Konoha or Sound." Kakashi stood from his position, his left hand going up to grab Naruto's shoulder gently. "As your former teacher, and fellow shinobi, I urge you to accept these terms. Sound has an army, twice, maybe three times the size of ours, and we would not be able to survive in an all out war. We have still note recovered completely from the original attack from Orochimaru."
The blonde-haired youth let out a rattling breath, the scroll grumbling in his grip. "I see… What about the other information I requested?"
"It's already in your quarters; you can look at it when you decide to retire for the night." Kakashi obviously had decided this conversation was over, because he reached for the double doors, the roar of the party engulfing the two. "For now, enjoy your first day as Hokage, Naruto, there may not be another time in the future when we can celebrate like this."
x.x.x.x.x.x
The festivities lasted long into the night, and finally Naruto managed to leave and go to his new rooms. His few possessions had been brought there during his inauguration, and his tattered belongings seemed so out of place in the grandeur of his new home. Sitting down at a small writing desk, he let out a weary sigh, stretching his legs in front of him.
A large scroll sat on his desk, and after a moment of hesitation Naruto reached for it. This scroll was special, and only recently had he found out about it. His father, the Yodaime, had left this scroll for him and Naruto had figured out its whereabouts based off of the Sandaime's notes. Pricking his thumb gently with a kunai, he pressed his bloody thumbprint against the seal of the scroll. For a moment, nothing happened, but black characters branched out from around his hand, and the scroll opened with a soft snap, as if it had been held taunt by a spring.
Rolling it out slowly, Naruto once again place his thumb on the right side of the scroll, running the thin trail of blood in a circle, and then pressing his palm against the mark. It was the last step, and writing slowly trudged across the paper, and the Hokage rolled it out on the floor.
My son, I imagine if you are reading this now you have become the Hokage, and I have long since passed away. I am sorry that I was unable to watch you grow up into the remarkable young man that I know you are, but fate intervened, and stole from us the future we should have had together.
Your life has not been an easy one, I would imagine, and probably a day doesn't go by when you ask yourself, 'why me'? Well, to be frank, there was no one else, no one else I could trust at least. This may sound strange, considering that you were a newborn, but I couldn't imagine leaving the burden of having the Kyuubi inside of you on another child. Your mother and I had both agreed that it would be the best thing to do.
The Kyuubi is not as you think it is. It is not a monster or yoki, but a unique creature, one that only comes every forty years. The Kyuubi is made of chakra, as you probably have discovered, and the chakra was its physical body and soul. Unlike us humans, who have flesh and bone, the Kyuubi did not, at least when I fought it. This unique characteristic enabled me to completely seal it within you.
The chakra the Kyuubi emits would be too great for any person to hold in their body at once, so I sealed the yin portion of the chakra away using a permanent seal developed by the Ichdaime. The yang portion can be accessed by you at the moment, but it has probably grown volatile and no longer stable. Have you noticed angry, black or red chakra emit from your body now and then? That would be the yang.
I purposefully designed the seal on the yang chakra it so that it could be altered in times of great need, which I imagine there were many for you. The seal I created is special, and is a modification of Jiraiya-sensei's five-pronged seal. Instead of five seals, there are nine, for each chakra tail. For each seal that is lost one more tail of the Kyuubi can form. If all nine seals are taken off, you will be transformed into the Kyuubi, and lose all memories of your life as a human. You will become an immortal creature of destruction, Naruto.
The seal is weakened in three different ways, mental stress, such as the death of a person special to you, physical injuries, or the use of high-chakra based jutsu. I imagine you have experienced all three of these situations already, and I implore you to look at the seal on your stomach to see how many prongs are left. If there are less than three left, then what I am about to tell you will not work.
"What does this all mean?" You are probably asking your self. Well, it means that you need to release the yin chakra to stabilize your body and soul. To solidify the Kyuubi's seal, you need to release out the yin chakra and reunite it with the yang that's inside of your body. Because you've held the Kyuubi inside of you for almost twenty years, your body and mind have been modified to withstand it's large chakra amount, and you are the only person in the world who can hold an entire Jinchuuriki in their body. To do this, you need to release your seal completely, and in the few moments that you have before the Kyuubi takes over you need to supplant the ying chakra into your body, and create a 900 pronged seal.
I created the 900-prong in knowledge of the Kyuubi's power, and only you, and a select few, will know how to create one. This is the most powerful seal ever to be made, and it could, feasibly, create another dimension of space if used improperly, sealing you, and Kyuubi, there for eternity in an endless struggle.
I have divided the hand seal pattern into two sets, one is at the end of this scroll, and the other you can find directions to from the Great Toad Sage.
I am truly sorry that this grievous task has befallen to you, my son, but you are a strong shinobi, and I am proud of you.
Your Father.
Naruto's hands shook as he read the last line of the scroll, the thick parchment flapping slightly. It was almost too much to comprehend at one moment, and he slowly set the paper down, unrolling it to the very end. A smaller piece of paper lay at the end of the scroll; it was folded and also had another blood seal on it. Opening the small cut on his thumb again, Naruto pressed his thumbprint into a small, black circle. Like before, his blood seemed to open an invisible lock, and the opened the parchment slowly.
A complicated diagram written in the Yodaime's sloped handwriting marched across the paper. Every inch of the yellow parchment was covered in notes and hand seals. The paper was dizzying to look at, and Naruto folded it again, placing it on his desk. Looking at the scroll his father left him, he decided the best course of action would be to dispose of it, after all, he would never forget its contents. The next course of action would be to summon the Great Toad Sage, but, before that he would check how many prongs he had left.
Pulling his shirt off, Naruto concentrated for a moment, focusing his chakra to his core. Looking down at his stomach, he felt a small sense of relief; he still had six prongs, but the balance of power would start to shift in Kyuubi's favor. Grabbing his shirt, he pulled it on quickly, writing a small note on his desk for his attendant that would come the next morning. He couldn't waste any time, and he grabbed his sandals, putting them on as he opened the window to his rooms.
After a moment of consideration, he rushed back to his desk, tucking the hand technique for the 900 seal in his pocket, feeling slightly better. He left his rooms with a run, launching out of the window and propelling himself with chakra across the city. There was one place he could go to summon the Toad Sage, and that would be deep in Konoha's forest, where hardly any ninja, save for the occasional patrol went.
At that moment, his seal tinged and he felt the sixth prong of his seal from Kyuubi's power. He would have to hurry, or his transformation could doom all of Konoha, possibly all of the Fire Country.
x.x.x.x.x.x
Branches vibrated as he landed and jumped quickly, the Hokage running at top speed towards a certain grove in Konoha's forest. Jiraiya had shown him this place when he had become a chunin, the man explaining the importance of vigilance, compassion, and most of all having a wife that could cook the perfect dumpling for you. Naruto didn't care much for those aspects of the conversation, but he did pay attention on one key point. This grove was the only place where he could summon the Great Toad Sage, the oldest living toad in existence who also could, at sometimes, make extremely accurate prophecies.
Pushing leaves out of his face, Naruto jumped to another tree, the scent of fresh spring water greeting his nose. Another side effect of having Kyuubi start to waken in his body, but it was necessarily bad. He would know immediately when his ramen was done.
Jumping to the ground, he skidded across the dew-covered grass, stopping at the edge of a large pond. The Great Toad Sage wasn't as big as the Boss Toad he summoned, so this would be the perfect area to conceal their conversation. Biting his thumb, he tasted his coppery, now chakra-infused, blood spring into his mouth. Making the necessary hand signs, he slapped his right hand to the ground, ink bleeding from his wrist out.
For a moment nothing happened, and he was worried that he managed to summon a tadpole or small frog again. But, his worry was quickly stopped as the pond started to bubble, and silver and black toad peered up from the water.
The toads wore beads, like Boss Gama, accept his were filled with strange liquids and glowed softly. The toad groaned, pulling it self out of the water to stare down at Naruto. "Why have you summoned me, young one?" It asked, yellow eyes staring down at the Hokage.
Taking a breath, Naruto walked forward, using his chakra to balance on the surface of the water. "I need you to give me the other half of the 900 prong seal." The toad's eyes widened, as if it couldn't believe what it was hearing.
After a long silence, it let out a huff, sitting back on its stiff legs. "I suppose it is time then." His body shifted and contorted, as if he was pulling something from inside his stomach into his mouth. His tongue unfurled, a small piece of parchment balanced at the tip.
"Err… Thanks." Taking it, Naruto shook off the toad-spit, opening it with his blood. He pulled out the second half from inside his shirt, placing the two together. A frown graced his lips, and he looked up at the Sage, the toad peering back with mild interest. "This isn't the other half, it just makes a map."
"And what does a map lead to?" The Sage asked, tucking its front legs against its stomach, like an old man would.
"Treasure…Err, no… What I want to find?" The Toad nodded, showing that Naruto was on the right track. The Hokage frowned, peering at the two papers for a moment more, "this says that I have to travel north of here and south as well, what does that mean?"
"Do as it says; travel south of here, to Sangakure, and North of here, to the Sound Village." The Toad replied, and he started to sink back into the water. "You must act quickly; already my vision of you is distorted by the otherworldly."
Naruto bowed to his Sage, a gesture he had learned to do as a habit after dealing with Gama. "Thank you." The Toad disappeared from view, and Naruto was left standing on the pond of a placid spring. He turned on his heel, running back towards the village as the sun started to peak over the horizon along with thunderclouds, assuring rain for the next three days at least. When it rains misfortune, it pours.