Everyone's A Critic
Summary: The tenth of October might be one of the worst days in Konoha's recent history, and is probably the third most traumatizing event in Kyuubi's immortal memory, but that doesn't mean shit to Death.
Being summoned, the Shinigami decided, was a very strange experience. Not because He, as a god, was supposed to be impervious to menial, mortal things like that. No, it was strange because He was fairly sure He'd been wearing His ninja-kitty patterned pajama suit, complete with booties and a cat-eared hood, just a moment ago. In fact, He was positive He had been. Quickly, He glanced around at the death and destruction going on below Him. Then, careful not to be seen, He took a fat, stubby fingered hand to the collar of His best Reapers Cloak™ and pulled it away from His neck, careful not to upset the deep cowl that hid His red-cheeked face from unworthy eyes. Without anyone the wiser He glanced discretely beneath His cloak. Yep. His ninja-kitty patterned pajama suit was still there.
While this was strange, the Shinigami decided now was not the time to seriously ponder such philosophical questions as, when I cross divisions of the universe do My clothes come with Me? Or, had I been taking a shower at moment of transdimensional shift, would My soap suds have been rinsed off?
Instead, He started to survey the battle field. Not too bad, He mused, giving a cursory nod to a few of His little minions as they guided the souls of the dead off the battle field. Whatever it was His eventual subjects were fighting was going a long way towards meeting this month's quota. It was a good thing too. Ever since their last war had died off, fewer and fewer cattl-people were passing into His domain every day. Of course, this day would tide them over for a short while. The news made Him giddy.
Humming a suitably cheerful tune while trying to look intimidating, The Shinigami turned His attention towards His summoner: a blonde squirt on top of that old toad Gamabunta. Apparently this was a Big Deal for the little human, judging by the cold face he was sporting and the concentrated, almost constipated, look in his eyes. Might as well do my part, He thought. The Shinigami took a moment to gather Himself before nodding seriously at the pipsqueak. He turned slowly towards who He assumed the little guy wanted Him to dispose of and valiantly ignored the slight, barely-noticeable-at-all, stumble in His step that reminded Him to restock on sake before going home. Then He raised His arms dramatically about His head, splaying His sleeves out like wings in the process, and tried to pretend that the booties on His pajamas were peeking out from under the edge of His cloak. Later, all of His minions would agree that those theater classes He had been taking were really starting to pay off.
Meanwhile, Kyuubi was musing over his damned-too-often-to-count, rotten luck. To be fair, his life had been a whole lot of suck for the last hundred years or so. First he was ordered around by a damned human. Then he got his ass sealed into another human. Then he got torn out and sealed into a brand new human. Now he was getting ordered around by the same Gods damned pest that had started the whole den-burning cycle! He was supposed to be the most powerful demon in the world and he couldn't even stand up to one pinwheel-eyed freak of nature!
As if that wasn't bad enough, the motherfucker on the toad had just broken one of the only rules that universally applied to everyone on this sorry slab of rock he liked to call home; he'd summoned the God of Death.
Whoop-de-fucking-do.
The Blond Motherfucker didn't even have the courtesy to summon one of Death's little minions or even the Demigod of Death, who though generally whinier, was much easier to con out of any sort of problematic situation. Of course, he hadn't summoned one of them. Nope. If the Blond Motherfucker had then he, the Great and Powerful Kyuubi, wouldn't be about to get his many-tailed ass kicked in what had to be the third most embarrassing moment in his long, long, long life. Unfortunately, the Blond Motherfucker had managed to summon the real deal. That was just peachy. A nice big blazing inferno of fun.
Kyuubi couldn't even run and hide, because, come on, it was fucking Death personified and who can really hide from that? Stupid humans. Stupid, worthless, tiny little humans and their stupid little pin-wheel eyes and their stupid summonings. Kyuubi cursed his fate and while he was at it, he threw in a few creative words for The Blonde Motherfucker and pin-wheel eyes too.
Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage, and proud father to a newborn son was trying his hardest not to shit himself. He'd done it. He'd done it! He'd summoned The Shinigami! Wow, that was just...
If he were to be honest with himself, he hadn't actually thought he'd manage it. He'd actually been imagining all of the horrible things that were going to happen to him for even attempting to summon the God of Death up until this exact moment, right now. Of course, he was still going to rot forever in eternal torment inside the Shinigami's stomach for this, but still. Mission accomplished right? Or mostly, anyway. Now all he had to do was ask very, very nicely for the God of Death to seal the Kyuubi away into his precious little bundle of joy.
The Yondaime whimpered. That didn't even sound easy. No! No! You can do this, Minato, he thought. Of course, it helped knowing that if, by some freak accident, he couldn't do this that his home, his friends, his students, and most importantly his family were going to die screaming in agony.
Finding himself properly motivated, he wiped off the brief flicker of fear he'd let run onto his face before gesturing towards the Kyuubi. He cleared his throat briefly (ah-hem!), then said, in a voice that carried across the field, "Shinigami-sama, seal this demon away!" The Shinigami didn't move. His arms were raised though, and his cloak was flapping in the breeze in a pseudo-impressive sort of way. And were those ninja-kitty pajama booties he saw?
After a while though, it started to get a teeny bit awkward, what with the Kyuubi growling what might or might not have been horribly foul curses under his breath, the Shinigami floating just above the front lines doing absolutely nothing, and the Konoha shinobi all standing still – waiting for something to happen. Finally, the Yondaime, cheeks tinted pink with embarrassment, coughed a little into his hand and whispered, just loud enough for it to carry on the wind: "Um, please?"
With that the Shinigami stumbled into motion, grabbed a yelping Kyuubi by the ear and threw him quite forcefully into Uzumaki Naruto, who had been sleeping rather peacefully still clutched in his father's arms. All in all it was a little anti-climatic, but the shinobi and citizens of Konoha weren't complaining. At least, they thought, the damn beast was finally out of their hair.
Then the Yondaime got sucked, screaming, into the Shinigami's gut, the Shinigami bowed elaborately before leaving in a poof of black smoke and what may or may not have been green glitter, Gamabunta dispersed, and the kid that the Yondaime'd been holding fell a few stories to the ground. Luckily for Konoha and Naruto, but unluckily for Kyuubi, the boy only bounced a few meters into the air before falling into the the lap of a corpse that had probably been an ANBU, in perfect health, and screaming for all he was worth.
Years later, when Uzumaki Naruto had grown up just enough to be loud, obnoxiously cheerful, and dense enough to argue with a brick wall and lose, the Sandaime Hokage would wonder if someone, somewhere wasn't just playing an elaborate and cruel joke on him. And if the Shinigami had really been wearing ninja-kitty pajamas.
A/N: I love Naruto in all his loud, obnoxiously cheerful, and dense enough to argue with a brick wall and lose glory. Just thought I'd clear that up. I wrote this because I wanted the Shinigami to have ninja-kitty pajamas. I tried putting it up before in a chaptered story, but it didn't fit with what I wanted to happen with that story so I scrapped that version and put it up all by it's lonesome. I hope you enjoyed it.