Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto
Sarutobi Hiruzen looked out to the horizon, where he could make a red glow. Beside him stood eight other shinobi.
His eldest son, Arata, who had learnt only a week ago that his wife was pregnant.
Senju Hotaka, a boy of only twenty-six years of age, with no legacy to leave after his death, far too young to throw his life away here.
Hyūga Hizashi, who would now never get the chance to make peace with his brother.
Uchiha Fugaku, father of two children, one only a few months old.
Higurashi Ryōga and his wife, Akari. Believing in reincarnation, the two of them had sworn to always be together, in this life and all that followed.
His successor, Namikaze Minato; standing next to his wife Kushina. The nine of them were the only people in the village capable of fighting the oncoming nine-tailed fox and saving Konohagakure no Sato from oblivion. There were three hours before the sun rose, but none of the people gathered here expected to see it again. Even now, as Hiruzen gathered his thoughts, the glow had advanced far enough that he could just see the fox's nine tails waving behind it.
"How long until it arrives, Hyūga?" asked Fugaku.
"Should be around ten minutes, although that could change if the beast accelerates as it approaches."
Ten minutes. That was all the time he had until he died. To his left, Hotaka started gathering water from the surrounding puddles to fuel his suiton techniques and Akari readied her bow. The plan was for Akari to injure the beast from range, then Kushina, Fugaku and Minato would try to trap it using chakra chains, genjutsu and fuinjutsu respectively, allowing them to slay the beast. Not that the plan would work perfectly. They never did.
Three precious minutes passed. Akari started to shoot the fox, and Hotaka had gathered a lake's worth of water. Hiruzen knew it would not be enough.
The beast had accelerated, and now they only had two minutes. Ryōga opened the first gate, Hotaka started firing high-speed water pellets, and Fugaku began weaving his multiple genjutsu. Akari had just run out of arrows, and she now drew her katana. Hiruzen himself summoned Enma in Bo-staff form and Minato had finally finished blanketing the area with his Hiraishin kunai.
When the best was a kilometre away, Kushina unleashed her chakra chains. The beast slowed from the unexpected resistance, which allowed Fugaku to use his genjutsu, while Minato teleported underneath the beast (Hiruzen would have laughed at the absurdity if the situation hadn't been so serious) and slapped the prison-seal on the ground before teleporting away a split-second before it activated. Hiruzen breathed a sigh of relief. The plan had gone off without a hitch. Now they could slay the beast, and all of them would be able to go home alive. Minato approached the beast, rasengan in hand.
"Kushina. Lower the fox's head to the ground so I can kill it." Minato said. Unusually terse for him, but understandable considering the situation. Kushina nodded in consent, about to do so. Then everything went to hell.
The beast's red glow had disappeared after Kushina had released her chains, due to its yōki being trapped. Now, it returned stronger than before. Even as he charged, Hiruzen saw the chakra chains evaporate from the beast, saw Fugaku stumble from the backlash of his genjutsu crumbling, and saw the seal beneath the beast's feet explode from the disruption. For a moment he hoped that the explosion had killed it, but then one of its tails flew at Minato's unprotected back, who had turned when the seal overloaded. He shouted at Minato, dimly aware of others doing the same, hoping he would hear the warning in time, but the explosion must have deafened him. The tail pierced Minato's body like a skewer, before flinging him away.
If he had time, Hiruzen would have mourned Minato's loss. However, he was upon the beast, and he needed every iota of concentration he had to avoid those monstrous tails. He weaved through the tails while swinging Enma around, expanding and contracting him as he did so for maximum damage. So focused on avoiding the tails, he was, that he didn't notice in time that the beast had swung its head and was about to bite him in two. His attention now on the head, he failed to pay attention to all nine tails. One hit him and he flew through the air, back to where the ling-ranged fighters were. He would have died when he hit the ground, if it wasn't for a buffet of air cushioning his fall at the last second. Nevertheless, he still broke several bones in his leg. Looking around, he saw his son reinforcing Fugaku's fire dragon with wind chakra. Arata gave him a thumbs-up, which he replied to with a nod. Arata would never cease to impress him. Realising that he wouldn't be able to manoeuvre well with a broken leg, Hiruzen chose to stay in the long-ranged area, and sent his wind-natured dragon at Fugaku's own dragon, now unleashed.
The resultant jutsu grew to a gargantuan size, nearly half that of the beast, and it flew across the field at a speed that should have been impossible to dodge. Yet, something had gone wrong, and it was flying at the wrong angle. The technique would fail. All that chakra would have been wasted. Fortunately, Ryōga was nearby.
Ryōga, now having opened the sixth gate, literally punched the mass of fire, somehow, and diverted it back onto a collision course with the beast. Hiruzen thought he saw it widen its eyes in shock before it made to pounce, but the ninjutsu, now S-ranked if not higher, hit the beast.
When the smoke cleared, the beast was still alive. It looked worse for wear, with most of its fur burnt off and a missing ear, but it was still alive. Now the beast leapt at him. He, Fugaku, and his son dodged. Unfortunately, Fugaku wasn't fast enough, exhausted from his previous technique, and became a bloody smear on the ground. It then turned to him and his son, and unleashed a fireball that was thrice his height. Hiruzen would have died right then and there, had a water dragon not slammed into the ball. Instead of being burnt to death, Hiruzen and his son were merely scalded by the water and steam. But Hotaka paid a dear price. He too was momentarily exhausted by his technique, and couldn't avoid the beast. It opened its mouth and swallowed him.
Three people dead in as many minutes. Hiruzen had never expected to survive this fight, but he had expected his side to win. Now he doubted that. After Hiruzen's tactical retreat, Hizashi, Kushina and Akari emerged from a nearby bush, which on greater analysis was actually an illusion. An impressive illusion, with sight, sound and scent, but an illusion regardless. Hiruzen resolved to ask how they had managed it if they somehow survived. Evidently they had been constructing a plan while hiding, for Kushina started preparing her chakra chains, during which Hizashi placed a genjutsu on the three of th – Hiruzen started debating plans with his son to defeat the beast. With three of the nine already dead, and Ryōga nowhere to be found, the two of them needed to postpone the beast until Konoha's evacuation could be – wait. Nine people originally. Three dead, one missing. That should make five, not two. What had happened to the other three?
He could worry about it later. For now, there were greater concerns. His son advocated trying to figure out where Ryōga was, even though the superior option was obviously to postpone the beast from reaching Konoha for as long as possible, so that the evacuation could finish. Meanwhile, the beast was sniffing around, with an expression on its face that on a human would have been confusion. Then it screamed in pain. One of its tails had been cut off, and chains came seemingly from nowhere to force it onto its hind legs. Hiruzen's eyes narrowed. Not from nowhere, but somewhere hidden in plain sight. Then the beast pulsed its yōki, and he saw. Evidently, Kushina, Hizashi, and Akari had hidden themselves in an 'ignore us' genjutsu and a sophisticated invisibility illusion. Now Akari had cut off one of the beast's tails and Kushina was forcing the beast up (and he noticed that the chains seemed stronger than before, although probably still not strong enough), while Hizashi was using Jūken on the beast, making his way towards the heart.
Then everything went wrong. Again. Couldn't anything go right here? Did they all have to die? The yōki was still trapped by the chains, but two of the tails weren't. Kushina made to dodge the tails coming towards her, but couldn't. The chains that kept the beast rooted to a spot also trapped the user. Arata, his son, started running towards the battle, followed slowly by Hiruzen himself. They were too slow. The tails pierced Kushina's heart and skull, killing her instantly. Then the chains faded away, and the beast was free to move.
It took the opportunity to bite Akari's head off, but not before she had managed to cut off a second tail; while it made to stab Hizashi and his son, now close by, with its tails. Fortunately for Arata, the beast attacked with one of its stumps, and was now slow enough due to Hizashi's Jūken that it couldn't move one of its other tails out fast enough to stab him before Arata got out of range. Hizashi himself, however, wasn't so lucky, and got a tail to the throat.
Only three left, one of them missing and himself with a broken leg. At this rate, they wouldn't even be able to postpone the beast until even half the village would be evacuated. Then Arata opened his mouth and said words that Hiruzen shouldn't have been able to hear at this distance, words that he never wanted to year from anybody, yet alone his son. Too bad the universe didn't seem to listen to his wishes today.
"Wind Release: Divine Wind."
A suicide technique. His son used a suicide technique. Even as he watched, Arata's chakra became wind natured. The chakra leaving his palms and feet, the chakra in his cells and Gates, the chakra within his organs, all now wind-natured. The chakra was focused to a single point: the monster's heart. Even as his son's body turned to dust from the backlash of the technique, the beast fell to the ground. Hiruzen hoped – prayed, even – that the beast was finally dead.
It wasn't. Seven dead, including his son, and all for nothing? Hiruzen stormed and raged and blamed every god and man that ever was. This was the cruellest thing he saw in all his life. Then he saw that the beast was greatly injured itself. If he himself used a Divine Wind at it, that might be enough to put it down for good. He couldn't move very quickly with his leg, broken as it was, but that didn't matter. It was coming to him. A few more seconds, and then he could join his son in the Pure World.
Those seconds never came, for just behind him he heard the words that saved his life, yet doomed another's.
"Eighth Gate: Open."
Then a red glowing man rushed into the red glowing beast.
Ryōga flowed between the beast's tails, moving faster than even a sharingan could have perceived. He punched, ripping through the flesh that the fire dragon and the Divine Wind had exposed, using the gaps in the beast's defence, now bereft of several tails, to do so. He tore his way into the flesh, cracked open the ribcage and tore the beast's heart out.
Ryōga turned to look Hiruzen, and smiled. Then, he crumbled to ash.
Hiruzen, however, was cautious. The fox had survived so many certain kills; he wouldn't put it past the beast to have survived another. So he hopped to the beast, pausing along the way to quickly make a splint. After he arrived at the beast, he took Akari's sword. With it, he cut off the beast's head and then its remaining tails. Then he summoned one of his monkeys.
"Go back to Konoha and tell them the threat is over." He ordered. "Then go to the evacuation points and tell them the same thing. I want two trackers: one to find where the beast came from, and another to find the remaining corpses. One of them should know medic techniques, if possible. Go."
With that, the monkey scurried away. It should take forty minutes for it to reach Konoha, twenty to thirty more for aid to arrive, depending on how well the evacuation had gone. The beast was slain, Konoha had been informed. One hour, minimum, until he regained his obligations. Now, and only now, he opened the floodgates to his emotions and allowed himself to mourn.
hr/hr
An hour later, two people arrived, each accompanied by a canine. The Inuzuka trackers, Tsume and Gaku.
"How many injured or dead?" Asked Tsume.
"One injured, everyone else dead." Answered Hiruzen.
There was a moment of shocked silence. "Gods." That was Gaku, speaking for them all.
"Some broken bones in your leg, some minor burns, plus assorted cuts and bruises," said Tsume. "Do you want to go back to Konoha now for full healing, or should I just give you a temp now?"
"Temp. Tsume, we're going to see where this thing came from. Gaku, you look for the others. There isn't enough of some of them to bury, by the way. Fugaku was crushed; Hotaka was eaten, so you'll have to dig his body out of its stomach. Minato's corpse was thrown somewhere over there. Arata and Ryōga used suicide techniques, so they've blown away on the wind by now. But the rest should be easy enough to retrieve."
As he spoke, Tsume used a technique on his leg that would let him walk on it for a day or two. After that, she jumped on the back of her dog– Kuromaru, he thought it was called – and beckoned for him to do the same. With that, they followed the paw prints back to the beast's den.
Ninety minutes later, they arrived at the shattered remains of a house. The only building in a sea of ashes. The paw prints stopping within, as if the Kyūbi had simply appeared out of nowhere and gone on a rampage. Within, they found an interesting scene. A woman, dead from a kunai in her chest. A charred corpse wearing a forehead protector, melted to the point of the insignia being unrecognisable. And a live infant in a crib, crying his eyes out. Tsume sniffed the air twice, and spoke.
"You see the kid in the crib over there? That woman over there obviously is – was – his mother. He's an orphan now."
Tsume usually didn't point out the obvious like that. There had to be something Hiruzen was missing. Still, he decided to humour her for now. "And the father is probably mixed up in those ashes outside. We'll probably need to organise a team to see if they can find any corpses that are intact for burial."
"I doubt they'd find anything in there except for maybe some shattered bones. Still, I get the feeling his father's corpse is somewhere else," said Tsume.
"And where would that be?"
Tsume flashed Hiruzen a toothy grin. "In a field, an hour or two away, dead of heart loss."
"Are you telling me that the monster out there has a son‽"
"Yes." Tsume said. "Please don't tell me you're going to try to kill his son in exchange for yours. I know you're smarter than that."
"No. there have been too many needless deaths today. I'm not going to add another to the list."
As Tsume let out a breath she didn't even realise she was holding, Hiruzen continued. "So what should we do with the boy?"
"I can't adopt the boy. He's half kitsune, and they don't get along well with dogs. We'll have to send him – and we should figure out what his name is – to the orphanage."
With that, Tsume went to examine the few intact drawers, while he went to the infant. He looked human, with yellow hair and blue eyes. The only clues one could find to his yōkai heritage were the whisker marks on his face, and apparently his scent.
Hiruzen picked the baby up and patted him, and turned him around to see if his name was written on his clothes. It wasn't.
"Hey! I found it!" said Tsume, waving in her hand what appeared to be a birth certificate. "The kid's name is Uzumaki Naruto!"
As soon as she said that, Hiruzen saw something he had never expected to see again. The sun rising from beneath the horizon. And it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, or he would ever see again.