A/N So I've had this story floating around in my head for a few weeks now and I finally decided to write it down. It is my first story so please excuse any mistakes. As of now it is also not beta'd. As for update dates, I can't really promise anything. I wrote this first part while on vacation but I don't know if I'll have the time once I'm back to update frequently.

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, wish I did

"words"

'thoughts'

TAILED BEAST

Uzumaki Naruto died the day after he was born. In his place rose Nara Naruto, second cousin of Nara Shikamaru. This is his story.

Hiruzen sighed heavily, "Damn it Minato. What the hell do I do."

Mere hours after the Kyuubi's attack and he was already behind his desk, almost as if he had never left in the first place. The beast had been sealed within Minato's son, but before he could whisk him away to be hidden word had spread of a new jinchuriki. The council would know who he was by weeks end and once they did the boys future treatment was set in stone. Hiruzen was stirred from his thoughts by the entrance of his Jounin Commander, Nara Shikaku.

Without preamble he stated, "Give him to me." It was more of a command than a request.

"Excuse me?" Hiruzen queried with a single eyebrow raised.

"To raise. He does not deserve the life of an orphan. Not with his burden." Shikaku was calm, unflappable. He knew the best course of action, it was a matter of merely convincing the Hokage. "We will truly make him a Nara. Once he is old enough, chunin perhaps, he will learn of his true parentage and the reason why."

"How would you hide him;a new child that looks nothing like the rest of your clan appearing from nowhere? The secret wouldn't last the month."

"We can make him a true Nara. We have ritual seals, old ones, created long before the founding of Konoha. It will change his appearance, make him look more like us." Shikaku paused, considering his next words. "It will even give him our Kekkai Genkai. Before you get any ideas, it is specific for our clan and used only in the direst of emergencies."

"Truly?" Hiruzen's eyes widened. "To think you had such a thing, hidden all these years." The Hokage closed his eyes deep in thought. Reaching down he lifted his pipe off the desk and set it to his mouth, inhaling deeply. A minute passed, and then two more. Shadows passed across his face. "Very well then. See to it." The room took on an ominous feeling, "Protect him with your life. Heal him when he is hurt. See to it he becomes the best he can be." The words were quiet, the sentences clipped but behind them stood the full authority of the God of Shinobi.

"We will. After all his family has sacrificed for this village we could do no less." And with that statement Shikaku stood and left the room, pausing only to lift a small bundle from a crib near the door.

The Hokage sat alone with his thoughts, feeling every bit of his years. There was potential here though, the council would think him dead, and Naruto would live his life free of the oppression and hurt. As for the militaristic aspect, with their jinchuriki supposedly dead Konoha's position was more precarious than ever. But an infant jinchuriki would not have been much of a deterrent one way or another.

Shikaku carried the babe straight to the clan estate, unseen an unheard. It would not do for the adoption of Naruto to be known by any but those in the clan. Upon arriving he immediately called for a meeting in the hidden basement. In less than ten minutes the whole clan was assembled, at least those who would be old enough to understand the proceedings.

"While I'm sure you're all finding a meeting like this quite troublesome, especially in light of recent events there is good reason for it. As you all know by know the Fourth is dead. What you don't know is that he had a son." Shikaku paused, he was quite wary of divulging this information but he trusted his clan and knew none would betray the secret. The Nara were a smaller clan, but very tight knit and all quite smart as well.

There was a small stir at such information but nobody had seized upon the relation of that fact and the current meeting.

"As most of you are aware, it is impossible to kill a bijū. The only way to stop it is too seal it. " Looks of comprehension started appearing on the faces of his clan. "He sealed it into his son. It was the only way and he would not have asked another to do so. Unfortunately following his death as well as his wife's death the child has nowhere to go. Already word is spreading of the existence of a jinchuriki and while the will not know his true identity it will not take long for them to figure which child carries such a burden."

A door opened in the background and Yoshino, Shikaku's wife stepped out carrying a sleeping child with a tuft of yellow hair. Some of the less stoic clan members eyes widened alarmingly.

Yoshino spoke up, continuing where her husband left off. "We as a clan will adopt him, perform some rituals to disguise his identity and make him a true Nara. To do this we need two volunteers, a couple would be best."

Without hesitation a young man with the typical dark spiky hair of the Nara stepped forward with a considerable limp, followed only a second behind by his wife. "We can do it, we're perfect for this. We've been out of town for almost a full year searching for additional plants for our medicines. We haven't had time to reconnect with any of our friends because of the attack. It will be easy enough to say we wanted to surprise everybody with our new child."

"Sato, Nanami I was hoping you would volunteer" Yoshino spoke with considerable enthusiasm. "I had thought pretty much the same things"

When Sato was younger he had been a genin with a particularly promising future, only it had been cut short by severe damage to his leg in a incredibly unlucky accident. The medics were amazed they had even been able to save the leg. He had reluctantly abandoned the shinobi lifestyle and picked up medicine creation as a career instead. On one of his earlier trips Sato met a lovely young lady by the name of Nanami. He was entranced by her intelligence even more than her looks and the two had quickly married. They had spent the last few years in and out of Konoha always working on new medicines.

"Do you have the seals ready Azami?" A wizened old woman nodded and began gently unrolling a scroll.

"The Sanka Fuin. It's been years since it was last used. Not since the age of the warring clans." Azami breathed reverently.

It was a large scroll nearly twenty feel unrolled, covered entirely in writing. Yoshino placed Naruto onto the center, then had Sato and Nanami slice their palms and place them on either side of him. She then directed every clan member capable of using chakra to start feeding it into the scroll. A few seconds passed, then the kanji on the scroll began to light up. Slowly at first and then like a wave it crashed down from both ends, slamming into Naruto. Seals began sliding up and down his body, then sinking in and disappearing.

With a huff of exhaustion the shinobi finally stilled their chakra and sat back.

"It's done." Shikaku spoke with a clear note of relief in his voice. "Thank Kami, It's done."

One of the younger members spoke up at this, "But his hair, his eyes, he doesn't look any different. He still even has his whisker marks. Did it not work?"

At this Azami gave a quick laugh, "No it worked, but its not an instant thing. It only works on newborns, there is a window of about a week after they are born and then it's too late. Even then the seal takes time to work, changing DNA is not an overnight process."

The younger shinobi started to look a bit mollified, "How much longer will it take? I mean those marks will be pretty noticeable."

"A few weeks for his hair to change, but we can dye it until then. His eyes may change, they may not. It would be unusual, but not suspicious if they did not. The whisker marks, well who can really say. As for our kekkai genkai, that will take probably three years or so to integrate. It won't just change that though. The Sanka Fuin is a complete joining of his DNA as well as his new parents. There will probably be distinctive traits of both. Our intelligence, his parents sealing prowess and so on."

She paused and gave a short laugh, "Or it could be the worst traits of both, it's a bit of a gamble. But I have a feeling he'll be a lucky one, after all you can only have so much bad luck in one day."

The Konoha Council was composed of two parts, civilian and shinobi. Originally the council was made up primarily of shinobi clans, giving them more of an incentive to join the village. However once the age of the wandering clans ended and everybody had settled down it became quickly apparent that the civilians that lived and worked in the village were not about to go unheard. The second Hokage had made the provision allowing them a voice in matters not directly concerning shinobi business and for the most part it worked quite well. It became quite apparent during the reign of the third how much power the civilians actually held and how much more they wanted. Much of his time, far more than it should have been, was spent dealing with and appeasing the council for they were able to make life very difficult should they want to. Needless to say it was a strained relationship on both sides.

It was noon the day after the attack before the council was able to assemble. As Sarutobi stepped through the door, the last to enter, he saw the grim faces looking back at him. 'This will not be an easy meeting' he thought wearily. 'Too many dead, too many injured, what the hell happened to my retirement?' He briefly composed himself and took his seat.

"I'm sure it is quite evident why we are gathered here today, we lost quite a lot yesterday but we are not broken. The Will of Fire lives on in each of us." It sounded good, but the words didn't seem quite so sincere to him. Now was not the time for weakness though, so he soldiered on gamely "We lost about ten percent of the village, in property and in lives. There will be a week long public period of mourning, and all our efforts will focus on recovering and rebuilding. Everybody will be asked to pitch in, there is always something we can do. Koharu and Homura will distribute information and co-ordinate that effort," he said gesturing to his advisers.

"Moving onward," he paused knowing what he was about to say would be quite hard to digest. "On the fate of the Kyuubi. Minato managed to seal the beast into an infant." He was quickly interrupted before he could continue.

"Kill it!" One of the pudgier merchants shouted, a look of naked fear on his face. "Kill it before it returns!"

"I can't." The Hokage spoke the words softly, but everybody heard them. "I wouldn't even if I could, no child deserves that fate for something they have no control over. But I can't because he's already dead."

Gasps swirled through the audience, the shinobi side, who actually knew what happened when a jinchuriki died went white. Danzo very nearly had a heart attack.

The Hokage spoke up again, "In your ignorance you called for the very worst case scenario, and now you have your wish. So let me give you a quick lesson. When a bijū is sealed in an infant it creates what is called a jinchuriki. Now here's the important part, when a jinchuriki dies what happens to the tailed beast?" Without waiting for a response he continued, "It doesn't die obviously, otherwise there wouldn't be any bijū left. Instead since the bijū in a being of pure chakra it disperses. Eventually however it will reform and when it does there is quite a good chance it will come back to Konoha and it won't be to apologize."

The merchant who spoke up earlier promptly lost control of his bowels and fainted.

"Now it won't happen immediately, while there is little information on the subject our best guess is that it will take at least three years to reform. Based on the nature of the sealing that the fourth did it may take far longer than that though. This gives us an opportunity to prepare and should it return we will be ready for it. This concludes the part that concerns the civilian council and I thank you for coming." They didn't look happy about it, but the civilians filed out anyway.

It was a measure of the respect that the shinobi had for Sarutobi that they remained silent even after the civilians had left. The Hokage shuffled the stack of papers he had in front of him, skimmed a few of them briefly and then spoke up. "So here is our status right now, there are no imminent threats on the horizon, Iwa and Kumo are still too battered from the war, Suna is technically our ally and has no real need to attack and while the Mizukage is starting to act erratically he has shown no signs of outward aggression. I would however expect that in five years time if we still look weak that the Iwa and Kumo would be quite tempted to try again. This means we need more shinobi and we need a better plan of defense for another bijū attack. Questions before I continue?"

Uchiha Fugaku was the first to speak up, "The Uchiha police stand ready and they will be training far harder than ever before. Also I presume you will be lowering the graduation age?"

Danzo chimed in for the first time, "You always did coddle the kids to much Hiruzen, its about time you changed it anyway."

"Yes well, after the war I had hoped to give everyone a chance to relax. It was a bit much to ask I suppose. For the next seven years as soon as they are ready I want them on a team and doing missions. I'll appoint somebody later. As for dealing with the Kyuubi, we need to strengthen and rebuild the walls as well create a plan of defense. Jiraiya will be here within the week and as the last remaining seal master we have it will be up to him to create the plan. All of you feel free to input suggestions. While he is back we might as well see about upgrading the barrier as well. That's all for another meeting though."

Many of the assembled shinobi stirred uneasily, all thinking along the same lines 'If it was that easy to do, someone would have figured it out already.'

"Last but not least, we need a new jinchuriki." Everybody looked shocked, stealing a jinchuriki was as good as a declaration of war, a war they couldn't afford to fight. "Suggestions?"

"Lets see, One is in Suna therefore off limits. Two and Eight are in Kumo, Eight is the brother of the Fourth Raikage and we don't need the trouble it would cause if we stole the two-tail. Three is the current Mizukage and if we could track down Five we could probably get away with it. Unfortunately it's doubtful we could convince the current jinchuriki to join us. Pretty much the same deal with Four and Six so that just leaves Seven. Troublesome." Shikaku spoke up for the first time.

"That's the way I saw it as well. As far as we know the current jinchuriki is a girl named Fū age seven who lives in Taki. Taki is nominally our ally, and while they are quite weak without their Hero water, getting Fū out of there without Taki's consent would be more trouble than we can afford right now. I'm going to send some shinobi I trust to figure out the situation and see what we can do."

Immediately following the short meeting Shikaku received a summons to the Hokage's tower. Less than two minutes later he knocked and entered into Sarutobi's office.

"It's done then?" Sarutobi asked without preamble.

A short nod, "Yes."

"Good. However that's not the only reason I called you here today. I hate to ask you this, especially with all the work we need done right now but I need you to go to Takigakure. You know why correct?

Another short nod from Shikaku and the Hokage continued, "Take Inoichi and Chouza as well as Kakashi."

The last name drew a slight reaction, "Why Kakashi. He's talented but not exactly what this mission calls for?"

"He needs to get away. Minato was his sensei and practically raised the kid after his father-" The Hokage trailed off, some things were still painful. Sakumo had been a good friend and had not deserved his fate.

"Inoichi and Chouza are the two I would be most worried about seeing through our deception, they spend far too much time with you and know you too well for you to hide his secret for long. Kakashi deserves to know as well. He's a prodigy in every sense of the word, but I'm afraid he'll shut down after Minato's death. If he continues improving he could very well end up on the short list for the next Hokage. We can't afford to waste that kind of talent."

Shikaku gave a grim smile, "I'll make sure he gets through it. About Taki though, what in the world could we give them for a jinchuriki? If it comes down to money, unless we can bribe the leader I don't really see how we could buy her. A jinchuriki can be one of the best deterrents a village can have."

Hiruzen gave a long sigh. "That's the problem. I don't know, it sounded pretty good in the meeting and was probably the only reason I got out of there with no real trouble from Danzo but even then-" He trailed off with a helpless sigh, every year he possessed showing on his face. "I just don't know, but what I can do is give you the authority to make a call. I trust you and whatever you pick I'll back."

Shikaku nodded slowly, his mind already turning over various scenarios. "I'll leave tomorrow." And with that he stood up and walked out of the office lost in his thoughts.

The next morning Shikaku and his hastily assembled team sped out the gates toward Takigakure. At a decent pace for them it would be a three day trip so they wanted to get an early start. They ran for the next twelve hours then stopped and made camp.

Shikaku gathered his thoughts and called the other three over. In a serious tone of voice he said, "This is an SS-class secret." He paused and saw everybody get very alert. "Minato's son in the new jinchuriki of the Kyuubi."

A startled look appeared on everyone's face, none more so than Kakashi. With all his composure lost he was unable to restrain himself from stuttering out, "He had a son? He's alive? And the Kyuubi? Can I see him?"

"He lives, he was adopted into my clan yesterday. As for seeing him, not yet. It is of vital importance that nobody realizes anything different about him. So give it a month or two and you can drop by." He went on to tell them more about Naruto as well as some of the circumstances surrounding his adoption. Kakashi's entire demeanor, which had been completely wooden for most of the day, finally had some life in it.

It was Inoichi that pulled Kakashi aside after the talk. "Kakashi, I know you're hurting right now, you've lost much for this village. But if you give up now what's the point. It's the fate of too many promising shinobi, burnout. They get tired, get scared, don't want to watch any more of their friends die. The way I see it, there are two ways you can get through all this. Option one is you go ANBU, lose yourself in it. You'll probably even make commander. But that's all you'll ever be. Hatake Kakashi ANBU Commander." He paused while Kakashi looked at him strangely.

"I'm not doing a good job of this am I. ANBU is not a bad thing, Commander is damn impressive. ANBU turns your emotions off after a while. The people who do it for that long are never the same afterward. But you can be so much more. At fifteen you created an A-Rank jutsu. You were trained by an SS-class, son of an S-class. So I guess what I'm trying to say is if you want to keep everyone safe, If you want to keep Naruto safe you need to be a lot more than just ANBU."

Kakashi nodded, if he couldn't protect him openly then the next best thing would be to be so strong nobody tried to challenge the leaf. It gave him something he had lost after Minato's death. A sense of purpose.

The two days sped by and late on the third afternoon of their trip they were escorted into Takigakure.

Of the four only Shikaku had ever been to Taki before. While it was on paper an ally of Konoha in practice there was no real love for each other.

"State your business." The shinobi in charge demanded.

"We need to see the village leader."

"And we need a reason why."

'Would it have killed him to be polite?' Shikaku thought wryly. "It concerns the jinchuriki or the seven-tails." While he did not really want to talk to anybody but the leader the discussion was going nowhere so he felt it was in his best interest to just say it. What he was not expecting was the response it would get.

"That Demon? What the hell would you want to do with her." Various muttering broke out in the background. Shikaku shared a look with his team. It might just be easier than he thought.

A quick series of signals and a runner was sent for the leader. Meanwhile the Konoha team were escorted to a smaller building off to the side. In about fifteen minutes the leader showed up, obviously not in any rush.

"So what do you want." The leader demanded. He was a tall man, well muscled and he carried himself with a sense of power. For all that though looks could be decieving. According to all the intelligence he had gathered before they left he was at best a mid jounin level shinobi. Additionally he was probably one of the most powerful in the village.

"We want Fū."

"What the hell would you want her for?"

At this Shikaku saw an opportunity, apparently the entire village had given into their hatred so he took a gamble, "Nothing pleasant I assure you. Beyond that I am forbidden to say."

A smile appeared on the leaders face, "So what will you give me for her?"

Shikaku exchanged a brief look with his comrades. Here came the difficult part, the had brainstormed for most of the past two nights and could only guess at what would work. "You're the strongest in your village correct."

The question briefly through the leader off guard. "Yes, I am. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Then the rest of your village is weak. You've grown over-reliant on the Hero water of the village. It may multiply your chakra by about ten times, but it takes your life force to do it and even with insane chakra levels a poor shinobi will grow no more skilled." It was a blatant slap in the face, and not one he would likely take sitting down.

Quite predictably, he did not. He tried to stand and start yelling but Shikaku's shadow restrained him before he could move. "Calm down. It's a statement not a threat. It's also our offer, we will train your twenty best shinobi until they reach ANBU standards or drop." The leaders eyes widened, it was an unprecedented offer, no village gave away secrets such as training methods lightly.

Seeing that he was wavering, Shikaku decided to sweeten the deal. "How about we also donate some money for additional training. To be administered by you of course."

Greed warred with caution, and before he could stop himself he asked, "How much?"

Shikaku named a figure and the leaders eyes went wide. Internally he sighed, 'For the price of an S-Rank mission as a bribe and some training he sells out his village. Although it was probably more money than he had ever had, at the very least the biggest bribe it was still just pathetic.'

Out loud he spoke, "We'll take the girl with us now, send your men in two weeks. It will take time to prepare everything. The money will be sent back with your shinobi."

The leader nodded happily, and sent a man to fetch the jinchuriki. It was nearly thirty minutes before he returned dragging a small girl with green hair. She had a resigned look on her face and seemed to be in pain.

'Monsters. To treat a child this way.' The thought that this could have been Naruto sent chills down his spine.

"Fū. You'll be going with these Konoha shinobi." A brief look of hope flashed across her eyes, "I'm quite sure you'll enjoy their treatment." The sinister emphasis on enjoy crushed that previous spark.

"Thank you for this, but we must be going now." With that he scooped Fū off the floor, slung her over his shoulder and trotted out Chouza, Inoichi, and Kakashi following close behind.

As they left whispers could be heard from the people, "Shes leaving. Oh thank Kami."

The Konoha shinobi carefully schooled their features, or in Kakashi's case his one visible eye, all the while inwardly seething. As soon as they were outside the village they broke into a run wanting to put as much distance between Taki and them as possible.

Four hours later they stopped and made camp, just as it was getting dark outside. Chouza, who had taken Fū after the first hour, gently set her down. He then spoke up, "I'm afraid we owe you an apology Fū, we are not taking you back to hurt you. It was easier to let your leader believe that however. You know what you contain, correct?"

She nodded mutely. He went on to briefly explain the official story of what happened with the Kyuubi and what it meant. She was a sharp girl and easily understood what he was saying.

"It comes down to this. By tomorrow night word will have reached the other countries about Konoha taking you as well as our loss of the Kyuubi. When we reach Konoha however we will take you in through a secret entrance. You'll join the academy and be just another hopeful. Nobody will know what you contain."

"I'll be, I'll be normal." The words came out quietly, with a twisted edge to them. "All I ever wanted to be was normal." Before Chouza could react a small seven year old slammed into him, tears coming down her face. She stayed like that for most of the night. Inoichi and Shikaku had trouble keeping themselves from laughing at his predicament every time they looked at him, while Kakashi just sat and watched.

When they arrived back in Konoha they reported back to the Hokage with Fūin tow. He quickly quizzed her about her training before deciding that she would probably need two years in the academy. The Hokage had someone make living arrangements for her before enrolling her in the school.

Two years later

It was academy graduation time and all the students were standing around anxiously. Most were quite young, very few were over 11 years old. The teacher was currently announcing teams. "And team four will be Fū, Uchiha Itachi and Inuzuka Hana. Quite a few of he girls glared at Fū for making it onto the team with the Uchiha's. She barely even noticed, the last two years had the best of her life even though she had been working harder than ever before.

She had asked the Hokage later about learning to use the Nanabi and he said when she reached chunin her would ask Jiraiya to come and work with her.

A/N So I just wanted to get through all of this to Naruto's part so some of it is pretty short and abrupt. Next chapter will primarily focus on Naruto, as will the rest of the story. He's just a little to young to do anything yet. A lot of this was needed to set the stage for later events. As for following canon, I'll follow when it suits me but don't expect a play by play of the same events with a stronger Naruto. Don't flame but any constructive criticism is welcomed.