Naruto: The Next Tsuchikage

Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Naruto or any of these characters. I am simply a huge fan and not making any money with this writing. Should there be similarities to other fanfictions it is definitely not on purpose. With the amount of fanfics already created basically everything had been tried out at least once. Please enjoy the beginning of my very first Naruto story.

Chapter 1 – Deal of Destiny

Hiruzen Sarutobi sighted in frustration. He had not expected to sit behind this particular desk ever again. But as people tend to say, drastic events call for drastic measures. It seemed to hold true.

It had been a week since the attack of the Nine-Tailed Fox which decimated large parts of the village and killed countless shinobi. His successor Minato Namikaze, Yondaime Hokage of the Hidden Leaf and famed worldwide as the Yellow Flash, was forced to sacrifice his own life in order to stop the rampaging Bijuu from erasing them completely.

As the Tailed Beasts were literally giant charka monsters and therefore practically unkillable, it was a common tradition in the shinobi world to seal them into young children, who could then learn to harness their powers and become indispensable assets for their village.

Of course these particular children, better known as Jinchūriki, were forced to live a pretty rough life as many people were too blind to see the difference between a jailor and the monster itself. Generally viewed as reincarnations of the Bijuu sealed inside them, they were feared and hated by society for something outside their control. It was a sad but unavoidable part of ninja history.

As no loving parent would willingly allow his or her child to be turned into a Jinchūriki, mostly orphans were used for the sealing process. Additionally, it was also very common for them to have close ties to the respectable village leader in order to ensure their loyalty.

Minato Namikaze was elected as Forth Hokage because of his amazing skills and beliefs. He was a man of honour and therefore wouldn't dare asking another parent to make a sacrifice he himself wasn't willing to make. That's why he chose his very own newborn son Naruto as new vessel for the Nine-Tailed Fox.

With assistance of his wife Kushina Minato performed the suicidal Reaper Death Seal to trap the Kyuubi inside the infant body of their son, creating the newest Jinchūriki who would help to keep the balance between the five great villages stable. Sadly, both of them had to forfeit their life in the process.

Minato was forced to give up his soul to the Reaper. It was the necessary payment for executing this particular sealing technique. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Jutsu was listed as forbidden for that very reason and should only ever be used as last resort.

Kushina on the other hand was the previous host of the Nine-Tails. While it was kept secret from the general public, Hiruzen knew that the Beast must have taken advantage of her weakened state during childbirth to break free and attack. And while Kushina managed to help her husband in resealing the Fox, she herself was already doomed at that point. No Jinchūriki could survive the extraction of their Bijuu, at least not for very long. Even Kushina Uzumaki with her outstanding willpower and life force was no exception.

It was all thanks to their sacrifice Konohagakure withstood the enraged attack of the Kyuubi. But there was still one mayor problem the village encountered after the sealing - Naruto was gone!

As Hiruzen and the other ninjas arrived at the clearing, they had only found the lifeless bodies of both Minato and Kushina. However, their son and new holder of the Nine-Tails was missing. For the first time since the creation of the Hidden Villages more than fifty years ago Konohagakure had lost control over the strongest Bijuu.

The immediate search of the surroundings led to no satisfying results. The only piece of vital information that they could find were a few small traces that confirmed some foreign shinobi had come in first and took the boy away.

Hiruzen sent his best ANBU squad after the kidnapper, but they soon returned empty handed. It seemed that whoever snatched Naruto was highly skilled as he or she had used extremely good faints to cover up the escape route. Even Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin eventually came to a dead end in the middle of Fire Country in his personal attempt to track down the kidnapper.

With the death of countless powerful ninja including the Yondaime Hokage himself as well as the abduction of their only Jinchūriki, Konoha was currently facing the probably biggest crises ever.

Obviously the people needed a strong and reliable hand to successfully guide them through this peril. And that was the reason why Hiruzen Sarutobi was now back in charge as Hokage of the Hidden Leaf. Whether he liked it or not.

The door to his office cracked open, snapping him out of the little memory trip. Looking up he saw his secretary carefully lurking her head in.

"Hokage-sama, the Council members have arrived to discuss the recent development with you."

Of course. Meeting time. That was already the third time this week that the trio of advisors had called for an update even though it was pretty obvious there was nothing new he could present to them. It started to get really annoying.

Taking a long puff from his pipe, Hiruzen mentally prepared himself for what was to come. "Thank you, please send them in" he eventually replied in his usual calm and collected voice.

Just a second later the door opened fully and three equally old people marched into the office.

The first one was a grey-haired man with bread and glasses. He was easily the tallest out of the trio and had a particular strong jaw-line. His name was Homura Mitokado.

Next was a shorter woman who had her hair pulled back in a twin bun, locked by a traditional hair pin with pearls on one side and tassels on the other. She wore a simple kimono paired with a jacket and sash. Her name was Koharu Utatane.

The last person was by far the most interesting. At first glance one could see a pretty short and frail man walking with a cane. He had black hair, conspicuous bandages over his right eye as well as an x-shaped scar on his chin. His body was covered up from the feet to his shoulders by a dark robe. The man really didn't look very impressive, but was a true evil mastermind when it came down to eliminating potential threats for the village. His name was Danzō Shimura, also known under the fitting nickname Shinobi no Yami.

"Please take a seat, I hope you had a good day so far" Hiruzen began in his friendly grandfather like attire, gesturing towards the chairs that were obviously placed in front of his desk in advance.

"Not really…" Homura replied coldly. "I was hoping that you could maybe cheer us up."

"Is there any particular problem I could help you with?" the Hokage inquired, not allowing the mood to drop down so quickly.

"I think that all these matters would be best discussed in private" Koharu cut in. "We are here to discuss the future of our village."

Danzō remained silent, simply glaring at the Third Hokage with his one visible eye. He hated to waste his time in meetings that prove themselves pointless, but was schooled enough to not let it show on the outside. Hopefully Jiraiya had found some new hints that he could use for his own schemes. And maybe even discovered some dirt on the Uchiha clan. But chances for that were very slim.

"All right, as you seem quite impatient, let us hop into this Council meeting and get it over with quickly." With that being said Hiruzen flashed through several hand seals and activating the multi layered security and privacy sealing arrays in his office to make sure everything that was said and done from here on out would never leave this room. It was the standard procedure as most of the stuff usually discussed between them was top secret information.

The four veteran ninja waited a few moments for the seals to take full effect and then waited a bit more for the Hokage to take the word. It was obvious to all of them what their first topic was meant to be. The one with the upmost importance – the whereabouts of Naruto Uzumaki.

"So you are expecting me now to tell you every little piece of new information we obtained about who took Naruto away, where he is right now and how we can him back." He didn´t wait for any confirmation, knowing he would at most receive two barely visible nods as well as another glare from Danzō, and continued quickly.

"Well, sadly I have to inform you that we still have no clue about any of that. Although it is safe to assume that the boy is no longer inside the borders of Fire Country as we would have found at least some new trace otherwise."

The temperature in the office seemed to instantly drop by several degrees.

"What about our allies?" Koharu inquired. "Have ANBU teams check them from head to toes. Someone has to know something about where the boy is."

"We need the Kyuubi in our village no matter what" Homura agreed. "Order the infiltration of Iwa and Kumo if there is no other way. They are most likely to condemn to kidnapping."

"Do you think I have not yet taken this into consideration?" Hiruzen shot back. "We cannot spare any more of our forces right now. Our only real hope is Jiraiya and his spy network. Naruto is his godson so you can be sure that he is turning around every single stone as we speak."

"We need to get the boy back to Konoha" Homura insisted. "The balance between the five great Hidden Villages could shatter once word gets out that we are no longer in the possession of the Nine-Tails. It would throw us into yet another war, and this time we may not be able to come out on top. There is still more than enough hatred spread against us, especially in Iwagakure."

"We cannot continue to search blindly for Naruto" Hiruzen countered. "That would appear very suspicious. In moments like this we need to keep a certain number of forces near the village so that we are able to defend ourselves against surprise attacks. Leaving Konoha vulnerable, even if only for a short time, is not an option."

"So what are we going to do?" Koharu asked challenging. "The clan heads demand a plan of action, Hiruzen. We have stalled for long enough, we have to present them with at least some sort of progression."

"I have already done everything I could. Minato killed the Kyuubi at the expense of his own life which forced me to take over the position of Hokage again until we can agree on a suitable successor. This cover story helps to calm the civilians down quickly and also keeps them from asking any troublesome questions. We will use it as official version which shall be taught to all children in the academy so that we can avoid any contradictions."

Hiruzen paused for a moment to puff his pipe. None of Council members dared to speak up.

"The truth is obviously classified as an S-Ranked secret that only jōnin, ANBU and clan heads have the right to know about. As Minato kept his marriage to Kushina secret their son officially doesn't exist and we will name Naruto an orphan once we managed to take him back. Jiraiya as his godfather will not rest until he has found the boy. You are all well aware of how incredible his spy network is so I hope we can agree that it is in our best interest to let Jiraiya handle the search from here on out. The main focus for us must be to rebuild our forces as fast and good as we can. Konoha is not allowed to show any weakness no matter what."

"I took a closer look into our academy program" Koharu started. "If we tone down the difficulty of the examination we could easily double the amount of graduates per year. The average skill level may temporary go down, but more real life experience for our Genin combined with the sheer increase in numbers would allow us to restock our military forces quite efficiently."

"The Clan Heads won´t be happy once they find out about a dropping standard in our academy" Homura warned. "Through the increase of graduating children from civilian families the proud clan children would generally look less impressive which will not bode well with them."

"There is no way around that" Koharu answered seriously. "It is for the best of the village."

"I have to agree in that point" the Hokage added in honestly. "Of course we have to make sure to keep a certain standard to avoid unnecessary endangerment of our Genin, but at the moment this is our best option available to quickly recover from the losses we suffered. I am sure the clan heads will accept it, at least for a limited period of time."

"Speaking of troublesome clan heads" Danzō entered the conversation for the first time. "You are all avoiding the main problem. How exactly are we going to handle the Uchiha clan? I cannot be the only one here who is concerned about the fact that they were actually responsible for the Kyuubi attacking our village."

"We went over this already" Hiruzen cut in immediately. "I won't allow you to suspect a highly respected clan of treason without sufficient evidence. The last thing we need right now is seeding distrust inside our own forces."

But the Shinobi no Yami was far from done. This was not going to end pretty.

"A powerful enough Sharingan is quite capable of fully controlling the Nine-Tailed Fox. Madara Uchiha is a prime example. He was using the beast as weapon in his legendary fight against the First Hokage. I am also well aware that the Uchiha Elders are getting more and more annoyed as there has not been a single Hokage until now who has hailed from their clan. So tell me Hiruzen, is there any reason why I should not suspect them to be the culprits behind said attack?"

"I have complete trust in the Uchiha clan. They are a vital part of our military force."

"Is that so? Then why do I know for a fact that Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha were not in their clan compound like they should have been as the attack took place?" Danzō countered.

Homura and Koharu both paled as the pressure was building up more and more. They could practically see the sparks flying between the two old rivals as their argument continued on.

"Several other clan heads were not in their compounds either" Hiruzen threw in swiftly. "That in itself is no evidence of guilt whatsoever."

"Mikoto was Kushina´s best friend and therefore well aware that she would be giving birth on that day. It is safe to assume that she told her husband Fugaku about it too. So they both had the knowledge and resources at their disposal to pull that attack off."

"Do I have to remind you that Minato and Kushina were using a secret safe house which offered them the best possible protection? Not even I knew the exact location. It seems to me as if you are severely underestimating the effort both of them went through to make sure nothing could go wrong while the seal was in a weakened state."

"And yet the Kyuubi still managed to break free" Danzō sneered viciously.

"Enough!" The spike of chakra was so powerful that Homura and Koharu were sweating bullets and even their bandaged college could now no longer ignore the weight pressing down onto his shoulders. Hiruzen might no longer be in his prime, but he was still known and respected across the entire world as The Professor and God of Shinobi. Nobody wanted to be on the receiving end when he snapped for real. Not even Danzō.

"The Uchiha are not guilty. This is my final word. Do not push me any further, you will not like the results. Have I make myself clear?"

Not taking any chances this time the Third Hokage increased the intensity of his aura until his old rival finally gave in. "I withdraw my accusations…" Danzō somehow pressed out. "… for now" he silently added in his mind as the pressure slowly started to vanish. He was many things, but not stupid enough to push this matter any further at such a critical moment.

Koharu and Homura finally released the breath both of them were holding in. This was a close call. While the Hokage was a very kind soul, he could also be incredible terrifying when it was required from him. As his former teammates they knew that fact all too well.

Taking deep puffs from his pipe, Hiruzen slowly but surely calmed himself down. Silence filled the office once more as everyone recovered from the sudden display of power. Eventually he felt they were ready to continue with this meeting the normal way.

"So can we move on? It is not like I can just sit here and talk with you the whole day, last time I checked missions don't assign themselves to our shinobi."

"I agree, we still have other things to discuss" Koharu tried to break the ice, earning a swift nod from Homura.

Danzō simply fell back into silence, trying to conceal his raging emotions. This had not gone as planned, but he knew time would eventually prove him right. The Uchiha were bound to screw up again and then he would get them for sure.

"Let us move on" Hiruzen began as he once more took control over the conversation. "The next topic I have on my list is the hospital. Frankly, I am disappointed in how long it currently takes to treat minor wounds. Since Tsunade left us the standards of our medical ninja have noticeable dropped. We have to do something about this."

And like that the meeting of the Konoha Council was continuing on for another full hour.

0 – 0 – 0

As Ōnoki entered the arranged meeting spot inside one of the secluded caves at the outskirts of Earth Country, he was surprised that his newest negotiation partner was already there. It seemed that this deal might be more interesting than he first thought. But you could never know. He was dealing with an S-Rank missing-nin right now. First rule: Never trust them – never!

Ōnoki might appear like a very short and old man on the outside, but he held great power and wisdom as the Third Tsuchikage of Iwagakure and was currently the only living user of the Kekkei Tōta Jinton. His most prominent facial features were the triangular beard, moustache and his big red nose. He wore a long green coat with yellow outlines and red collar, a typical outfit for high-ranked Iwagakure shinobi. The top of his head was completely bold, but that didn't mean anything as Ōnoki was quite famous in the ninja world for his stubbornness.

The other man across the stone table was physically the complete opposite of him. Very tall, long dark hair, a black mask covering the lower half of his face. Shirtless so that his quite muscular built and countless stiches all over his torso were on full display. And finally green ruffed up pants to round it out.

Ōnoki was looking suspicious at the well-known missing-nin on the opposite side of the table. He was confident that he could take him on in battle should anything go wrong, but first he needed to loot out why exactly he was asked to come here. Just to be make sure he didn't miss out on a potential benefit for Iwagakure.

"I never thought that you out of all people would make an offer to my village… Kakuzu…"

"I am glad that you accepted this meeting. I promise you will not regret it." His voice was blank, not betraying any sort of emotion. If that man even had any in the first.

"Let's cut straight to the case, shall we? I have more important things to do than wasting my time with worthless negotiations. What exactly do you have in store for me and how could it help out my village?"

"Even after all these years you have not changed, Ōnoki. Always hard as a rock, completely focused on the gain for Iwagakure and nothing else."

"I am the Tsuchikage after all" Ōnoki replied proudly. "And you are one to talk. At least I care about my people, for you the whole world revolves solely around money."

"The whole world?" Kakuzu chuckled. "Are you kidding? Even hell is run by money. And that is precisely why I am here for. You see, I have recently acquired an item that would be of great use for every single one of the Hidden Villages and I want to find out the correct prize."

"What could you possibly possess that holds such immense value?" Ōnoki snorted.

Pulling out a commonly used sealing scroll Kakuzu carefully rolled it out on the table between them. He made sure to make all of his movements very obvious so that the Tsuchikage was not more suspicious of him than it needed to be. There was too much money at stake for him.

After fully opening the scroll, Kakuzu slammed his hand down onto the centre and channelled charka into it to reverse-summon the item he was talking about. A large puff of smoke later there was a third person in the room. An infant with blond hair and whisker marks was now sleeping peacefully in the middle of the table.

"A baby?" Ōnoki grunted, quickly rising to anger. "Seriously? Is that some sort of prank?"

"Not at all" Kakuzu replied in his stern voice. "And once you learn about his heritage you will be quick to change your mind about the child."

"Spill the beans, my patience is running low."

"I actually found this child roughly a week ago in the outskirts of Konohagakure."

"A week ago?" repeated Ōnoki with a first small spark of interest flaring up in his voice. If his information was correct, the Kyuubi had attacked Konoha out of a sudden right around that time. If this child would turn out to be an orphan from one of their famous clans and inherited their Kekkei Genkai, then he was indeed extremely valuable.

"I saw the sealing process with my own eyes" Kakuzu started to explain. "I was bounty hunting in the surrounding area as the Kyuubi appeared out of thin air and decimated most of the village. The Forth Hokage used a very advanced Fuinjutsu to seal said Bijuu into his newborn son, sacrificing his own flesh and blood to save Konoha. Additionally, his wife died too in the process leaving this child without any parents at all. I was lucky enough to swoop in and take the boy away before any other Konoha ninja could reach the spot and interfere."

Ōnoki´s eyes widened more and more as he took in the story. "So this kid really is…?"

"Indeed…" Kakuzu whispered as the particular scene was replaying itself in his mind once more.

Flashback no Jutsu

Staring through the woods he could clearly watch the massive body of the fearsome Nine-Tailed Fox rapidly shrinking as it was sealing into a small crying baby.

The two adults in front of the infant were impaled by one of the massive claws from the beast. It was pretty obvious that neither of them would survive much longer after the sealing was done.

The man who currently performed the fearsome yet suicidal Reaper Death Seal upon the Kyuubi was none other than the Yondaime Hokage himself. Kakuzu would recognize that particular spiky blonde hair everywhere. Not many shinobi in history have archived a "Flee on Sight" Warning in the Bingo Book after all. Minato was a genius and widely regarded as the fastest ninja alive, besting even the Raikage in speed. But judging the current situation, he would lose that title in just a few moments as his soul was about to be consumed by the Reaper.

The female by his side was much more interesting. That flaming red hair was a typical trait of the famous Uzumaki clan. Their members were all blessed with an incredible strong life force paired with stupidly high charka reserves. But given the fact said clan was nearly extinct by now, there were not many options as to who this woman could actually be. If he had to take a guess, he would bet on "The Red Death" Kushina Uzumaki.

But the person who interested Kakuzu the most was actually the crying infant who currently got a massive Tailed Beast shoved into his stomach. Jinchūriki were the main power source of the five great Hidden Villages and many leaders would go through immense efforts to obtain one of them. And if even one of these two legendary ninjas present was somehow related to that baby, other villages would go through hell and back to get their hands on such a promising child.

Usually Kakuzu was not interested in any of this stuff as the only thing that really mattered in his world was money. But these circumstances presented to him were just too good. He could not sense any other ninjas who could stop him from taking this new Jinchūriki with him and sell him on the black market for a small fortune. There was no way Kakuzu would let such a chance go to waste.

The sealing was now complete. The Kyuubi had fully disappeared inside the infant, dropping the stabbed and near-lifeless bodies of Minato and Kushina onto the ground. Time for him to strike.

Jumping out of his hiding place, Kakuzu landed in the clearing right next to the fallen Yellow Flash, taking a close up look at his newest target. The features he observed make his smile grew even more. He really hit the Jackpot.

This specific shade of blonde hair paired with blue eyes made it quite obvious that this boy was indeed the son on the Yondaime Hokage. It made sense of course. Most Jinchūriki had some sort of connection to the village leaders to ensure their loyalty. He could not really explain the three whisker marks on each cheek of the boy, but that didn't really matter. Style points at best.

Just how much would Iwagakure be willing to pay him for delivering the son of the Yellow Flash to them? The offspring of Minato Namikaze who had slaughtered an entire platoon of Iwa shinobi in the third Great Ninja War, completely turning the tides of the battle by himself. This was just too brilliant.

"Naruto-koi..."

Did that Uzumaki woman just talk? Did she really had such an enormous life force to still be conscious after receiving such a fatal blow from the Kyuubi? Scary as hell.

A quick look confirmed that she had her eyes closed and had no idea that he was even there. That was if she hadn't already died the moment after exhaling her last word.

But that one word was giving him more information than he had expected. The baby´s name was obviously Naruto and the added "-koi" made it pretty clear that the Red Death was his mother. So this infant was indeed the son of both these famous ninjas who just had sacrificed themselves for the sake of Konoha.

The payment Kakuzu was going up receive for selling this boy seemed to rise higher and higher by the minute. What there anything else that made him even more special? Did it really matter?

Without another thought, the missing-nin picked the infant up from the ground. That boy was already worth way too much. This would become his greatest selling ever.

His mood had not been the best after he had chased his last target through the forest surrounding Konoha endlessly before finally being able to take him out. But it seemed his luck had turned around. Without that annoying chase he definitely would not have gotten close enough to witness the sealing process and take full advantage of it.

By now Kakuzu was able to sense the first bunch of incoming Konoha ninja. If he wasted any more time, he would not be able to get away without being detected. He had made his decision, there was room for any hesitation.

With one final look towards the deceased Yondaime Hokage Kakuzu tightened his hold onto the baby and took off at top speed into the woods.

He had absolutely no idea just how much his actions would affect the future. His mind was solely focused on the waste amount of money he could get for Naruto when he played his cards right. And Kakuzu always played his cards right.

Flashback no Jutsu Kai

His eyes were practically shining as the missing-nin looked at the sleeping infant on the table. He had the Tsuchikage right where he wanted him. Time to drive the point home.

"This little boy is the newest Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox. His parents are the Yondaime Hokage Minato Namikaze as well as one of the last remaining members of the once so feared seal masters from Uzushiogakure, Kushina Uzumaki. With proper training he could become one of the strongest shinobi in history. What do you have to say about that?"

"How much?"

"So you do want to buy him… Thought so."

"How much?" Ōnoki repeated impatient. Kakuzu only grinned even more sinister. His plan had worked out perfectly. Now it was time to collect the money.

"I already have a number in my head. But I don't want to come off short. Why don't you tell me how much you are willing to pay first?"

While his face was stone-cold on the outside, the Tsuchikage could not stop smiling in his mind. This offer was just too good to be true and would finally give his village the edge over all the others. He simply had to handle this negotiation right. He would not bankrupt his own village over one Jinchūriki, but he knew that he had to get this deal done no matter what.

Destiny was without a doubt smiling upon him and Iwagakure right now. This day would change history. The day when Naruto Uzumaki was handed over to the Third Tsuchikage.

To be continued

What do you think of this setup? Feel free to let me know in a review, it helps me improve my writing and motivates quite a lot.

Kekkei Genkai Voting:
Jinton/Dust, Mokuton/Wood, Shakuton/Scorch, Sharingan/Uchiha, Shikotsumyaku/Bone

Naruto will possess a Kekkei Genkai in this story and I am giving all of you the chance to decide on which one out of the five listed above it should be. Vote for your favourite and I may be including more polls like that as the story goes on.

PS: Legacy of Voldemort
For all Fans of Harry Potter, I will definitely continue my story once I have reconsidered which route I really want to take it. Expect to see a lot more from me during this year.