Fallen leaf

Chapter 2

Disclaimier:- I've got just one thing to say, "It's better to burn, than to fade away!" Oh, and I don't own Highlander either(Not a crossover with Highlander or a Queen song)

A/N The timeline should be apparent to anyone who's read Naruto. The information I've used is directly from Wiki, if I didn't already know it from reading vols 1-15. That means that most of this is from Wiki. Kakashi is thirteen or fourteen and a Jonin, Hiashi is thirty two, Sarutobi is fifty four and The fourth is probably twenty seven. Naruto isn't quite a year old, so won't play a major part in this chapter.

/ Command tent outside Konoha \

Minato Namikaze the fourth Hokage of Konoha looked up as someone burst into the command tent. Noting his long-time friend, he turned away to check the latest intelligence his orderly was placing on the tactical map. He gave a slight wince when he noted that the news couldn't have been good, a genin team seemed to be the latest casualties, one for ICU, one for triage while the last member of the team was in the morgue. Damn that fox, they were only just starting to recover from the last war and now they were here wasting the next generation of ninja against something that the combined strength of the village couldn't hope to defeat.

"Oi Minato!"

"What? Can it wait Hiashi? I'm a little busy at the moment." He turned away and murmured some quiet instructions to another orderly and watched as a couple of messngers dashed out to the battlefield. If he could manoeuvre the Kyuubi just a little more he'd be able to save his precious people. His village, and their way of life hung in the balance and he couldn't afford the slightest miscalculation in the execution of his plan.

"No, it can't damn well wait. What's this I hear about some idiotic plan to seal Kyuubi inside your son?"

"Oh so you heard about that?"

"Oh so you heard about that!" Hiashi mimicked sarcastically, "Of course I heard about it. Most idiotic thing you've thought up in…a couple of days." The furious expression on his face showed just how concerned he was about this. He'd always attempted to curb the impulses of the man before him but this time….

"Ouch, where's the love Hiashi, where's the love? I thought we were friends." Minato looked at the older man with a slight smirk on his face.

"We are, and that's why I'm going to talk you out of doing anything stupid." He crossed his arms over his chest as he leant over the strategic map and glared at the military leader of Konohagakure.

"I'm sorry but there's nothing you can say that'll change my mind. Kyuubi isn't going to wait forever for me to come up with some brilliant plan to defeat it, 'and' stay alive. This is the only plan I've thought of that has an even chance of succeeding…." He glanced at the scroll he'd placed on the table earlier, set to one word and a short series of hand-signs it would activate the seal on whatever suitable target was closest. Since his life was forfeit upon the appearance of the Death God the only other person capable of sustaining the seal would be his eight month old son, and that would be an instinctual control rather than conscious. It was a steep price for his family to pay but at least his son would live to continue the blood line.

"Then let someone else do it," the middle aged man cut in.

"I can't do that. It's going to take everything I have to make this work and that's with my kekkai genkai. Anyone else wouldn't even get a tenth of the way through the seals before it drained them dry."

"Alright, I suppose I can see that. But use a different child, for the Kami's sake. If this goes wrong your blood limit will be lost to the village forever." Hiashi was frustrated; surely Minato could see the loss would be insurmountable?

"I can't, I wish…damn it, I wish there was another way. There isn't though, I've looked at this from every angle. Once the seals in place, the only child who can provide the needed chakra to maintain the seal is my son…For the exact same reason I'm the only person who can create the seal." Hiashi Hyuga's head and shoulders slumped in defeat as he listened to his friend pronounce his own death, and probably that of his son as well.

"You'll leave the village leaderless." It was a last ditch attempt to guilt his friend into figuring out another way to do the impossible and they both knew it.

"Better to lose a leader than to watch as the village is destroyed, and it's not like you couldn't lead the village. How about it Hiashi, do you fancy being the fifth Hokage?" The blondes blue eyes sparkled with barely suppressed humour even as his face remained cast in stone.

"I didn't want to be the fourth. What makes you think I'd take it on now?" Hiashi Hyuga snorted at the stupid question he'd just been asked.

"Well there's always Sarutobi," Minato paused speculatively.

"I'd still rather you didn't do this, but if you've got to I suppose the village could do worse than The Professor."

"I don't have a choice, if I don't, well the village is dead either way. Either Kyuubi destroys it, or one of our enemies will. If I don't do this my life is probably forfeit anyway. You know I won't stand back and watch my Ninja get torn apart without attacking it myself," he watched the slight nod as Hiashi acknowledged the truth of his leaders words, "So as far as I'm concerned you may classify it as the last wish of the Hokage that either you or Sarutobi take the reigns of power. Besides, the council will respond better to Sarutobi than anyone other than yourself, since they've been dealing with him for more than a decade."

"There's not much of a choice when you say it like that." Hiashi's eyes widened as he whirled around at the sound of a massive explosion, the tent they were in fluttered and thrummed like it was in a gale force wind moments after the first explosion. "Damn! Now what?" he started to turn back only to witness a yellow blur that passed him, the tent flap lifted and the Fourth was outside witnessing the results of the massive explosion. Their command centre had been positioned in the clearing surrounding the village so that they had a clear view of the battlefront and the village. As the men cleared the tent they could see the form of Kyuubi as it breached the flame lit billowing black clouds of smoke left by whatever that attack was. The speed it approached told them that whatever resistance their forces had been putting up had effectively dissolved.

"Hiashi! Scroll, now!"

"But…"

"There is no time!" He never noticed Hiashi dash inside to do his bidding as he was too busy watching the approach of the feral creature from the depths of their nightmares. It stood over a hundred metres in height, topping the trees by a large margin. His main focus though was on its blood red eyes, the evil they contained caused the powerful man to shudder in reaction before he even took note of the myriad sharp teeth in its open maw. 'I'm going to seal that in my son?'

For the merest second doubt assailed him, but then stern necessity came to the fore and he realised there were no other choices on the table. Well other than to die in the path of this juggernaut of destruction. The earth shook as each paw struck the loamy forest floor causing Minato to shift his weight automatically to stay on his feet.

Hiashi returned mere moments after he'd left and slapped the heavy scroll into his leaders hand, then stood back to watch what would be his friends final act as Hokage of the Hidden leaf.

Minato barely acknowledged the arrival of his friend other than to rip the scroll from his unresisting hands. In a single motion he sliced his finger on the edge of one of his kunai then smearing the resulting blood over the scroll he placed his thumbprint over it and sighed in relief as a puff of smoke was released from the edges of the parchment. Gripping the now exposed end of the scroll he threw it upwards allowing it to unroll in one smooth motion releasing it to float downwards as it would. He was too busy by this time with seven hand seals that were required to activate the seal on the document followed by his sons name. He let out the breath he'd been holding as the centre of the seal was incinerated by a bright blue flame that quickly spread to the edges of the paper. Smiling in satisfaction he watched as the culmination of his life's work turned to a fine grey ash before him, and drifted away on an errant breeze, it seemed that his request had been granted. He'd never know how much change he'd brought to Konoha with this one action.

/ Ranma \

'So, this is it huh? Human pancake….Kami….' Ranma felt his body clench as he prepared for the impact that would end his life. The Nanban mirror had glowed like it never had before, but other than that it didn't seem to do anything, 'Piece of junk!' Closing his eyes he held the image of the night sky in his mind as clearly as if they were still open, the stars, the fine sliver of the moon. An occasional cloud lit from below by the lights of one of the largest cities on the planet. He'd always loved the night sky, it put everything into perspective when he was having a trying day. He hoped that wherever he went after this world there'd be a sky like this that he could gaze upon.

Ranma paused for a second in his thoughts, 'Surely I should have hit the ground by now?' Opening his eyes in surprise he noted almost instantly that the world was falling away from him, a very different world than the one he'd been in before. Below him was a verdant forest for as far as his peripheral vision could see. Off to his left a small mountain and for a moment he wondered about the faces carved into the rock-face. 'Wonder what their story is? Hold on a second! Those are….there must be people around here.' That was when he caught sight of a village nestled beneath the red rock of the mountain, it was a small village in comparison to Nerima. 'So I'm still alive! Suck on that destiny! So what's changed?' he took in his current situation, 'Well at some point I guess I'm still gonna hit the ground. Unless I do something that is.'

He was at about two hundred metres when he came to a decision and flipped himself so that he was facing the clear blue sky above. "Mouko Takabisha: revised!!" What left his hands wasn't the usual ball of ki but a shaft of energy that pushed against as much air as he could make it. He rose another fifty metres but could feel the speed of his ascent decreasing rapidly. The attack he'd used faltered as he heard a loud roar off in the distance.

Glancing around frantically he saw forest, and more forest and a fox, 'Correct that! Huge Fox!' It towered over the trees, 'Gotta be at least thirty stories tall!' He watched in amazement as the beast dove out of the way of something that resembled a lightning strike aimed at the heavens. As it turned to face its attacker its massive talons dug trenches in the forest loam, shredding trees and sending debris in all directions. Then it retaliated at whatever was responsible for the lightning. A blast of wind roared past it and flattened a swath of trees. It followed this with a couple of fireballs that dropped into the spreading arc of destruction, briefly illuminating its head in demonic light.

'Ah shit! I musta died and not realized it.' He puzzled over that for a moment, surely he would have felt something? 'Gotta be in some afterlife though, no Kitsune I ever heard of was that big, not even in legend.'

The fox didn't bother to wait for the smoke and flames to clear, it just dove through and headed towards the village he'd noted earlier. Which drew another conclusion, the fox must be a demon and it was attacking the peaceful people of the village. He'd never know how far from the truth he was.

He didn't know how desperate things were but figured he could help, 'Damn its happening too fast, an' I'm starting to fall already.' Another quick decision had him facing the ground using the same technique he'd used to slow down. Now he needed the time in the air to figure out what the hell to do to help. The shaft of ki slammed into the ground six seconds before he would have and sent him straight up faster than he'd been travelling before. A slight miscalculation had him hit four hundred metres before he was able to stop sending energy. He'd figure out how to get out of this later, for the moment he had a fox to stop.

The Kitsune was almost two thirds of the way to the village by the time he figured out what was going on. It had passed underneath him and was a couple of hundred metres beyond when he felt a sense of dread descend upon him. So intense that he shuddered in reaction, 'No villager could put that much killing intent into something like that,' he thought. The sense of dread intensified as he noted a cloud of inky blackness appear before the fox demon, it rapidly resolved into another demonic figure, this one looked like something from one of those Noh plays, all long robes and even longer hair. Almost as tall as the fox the man shaped demon stood with a blade in its mouth, 'Don't know what the hell that thing is but I ain't ever felt killing intent like that before. Not even the Kitsune can match it!'

The Kitsune didn't bother to slow down as it ploughed into the ominous looking demon. Forcing it back towards the village it seemed to be defending. The damage the two were causing to the landscape would take years to heal, as they tore down and through the trees around their feet. The warrior of death, or whatever it was had brought its arms to bear and was holding the snapping jaws of the fox away from itself even as it was pushed back into the clearing around the village.

That was when Ranma hastily decided on a course of action, 'I ain't gonna be able to hurt something that big, but I reckon I can distract it for long enough that the other one can put it on the defensive.' Putting action to the thought, he gathered as much ki as he felt he could get away with. Forming the ki ball in mid-air had other benefits as well, he didn't have to worry about the ki contacting with the ground and exploding in his face. It reached nearly three metres across before he released it at his target. If he hit what he aimed at it should unbalance the fox and give the villagers the time to form a defensive line, or something else, he wasn't sure what they were capable of but they did seem to summon the second demon. The other monster was potent so maybe it would be able to defeat the fox. Either way it'd be over soon, he didn't really have the energy to effect a proper landing now so he hoped his action had been worth his life.

He watched as his attack sailed in on the unaware pair of monsters, right on target. When it hit the fox just above the tail it should cause the beasts rear legs to buckle at least. Smiling he began his final descent, there was no going back now, a fall from his height would definitely kill him and he had no way to stop it. The only thing that could save him was divine intervention, 'Yeah, like that'd ever happen,' he thought sardonically of himself.

The Kitsune realized that it was slowing down; the creature it faced had grown in size and was beginning to hold its own. Of course Kyuubi recognised it for what it was, 'The Death God', but it wasn't particularly awed by its presence. Not that it could fight the compulsion to attack even if it was. The only thing that could stop this attack would be to seal it within a vessel or to kill it outright. Not wanting either option to come to pass it dug in deeper, pushing harder.

Ranma blinked as the fox pushed the warrior back again, if it pushed much further the fox would dodge his blast altogether. Its tails whipped around in agitation as it fought for better traction but once again found itself held. His Mouko Takabisha sailed on looking like it would strike one of the tails but by some miracle missed as it penetrated a gap. An instant later an explosion happened somewhere out of his sight followed very quickly by a bellowing yelp of pain. He watched in fascination as the foxes rear legs literally folded and the tails moved to cover its posterior. Smirking Ranma watched as the fox was pushed back faster and faster, everything seemed to be happening at once as the white garbed warrior released the hold of one of its hands. Clenching the knife in its now free hand it drove the wicked looking blade deep into the foxe's chest.

'Oh crap!' he was dropping right into the path of the oncoming juggernauts of destruction.

The blade plunged home and great globs of blood sprayed from the wound. It took a moment to notice that they evaporated before striking the ground. That gave Ranma the clue that he was seeing condensed ki. Closer the battling pair came and just as he was about to land on the fox he saw dark runes surge down the warrior's arms and down to the hand that had sunk the blade into the Kitsune's chest. The beast let out a high pitched shriek just as he connected and then it vanished in a massive expanding ball of red ki.

/ Konohagakure \

Hiashi watched in stunned disbelief as the Kyuubi pushed the Death God back into the clearing they occupied. The body of the Fourth rested in his arms as he squatted before the command tent

"It's not working!" he yelled out to his subordinates, "Get the ANBU teams in there now!"

"Hold off!"

"Sarutobi! We've got to do something."

"Nothing we can do will change the outcome. Secure the perimeter of the village and begin the cleanup."

"But…"

"Kyuubi is almost finished, just a few moments more." His gaze never wavered from the sight of the battle before him.

"Finished, how can you say that? It's almost beaten one of the Higher Pantheon!"

"Then I'd suggest you take another look. It has almost broken the Fox Demon's momentum." Hiashi turned to see what the Third was talking about when he saw a flash of light followed by a sonic boom and yelp of pain.

"What the hell was that?"

"Maybe Kakashi is out there still battling? The flash looked like Raikiri (1) to me."

Hiashi shook his head as he watched the Kyuubi get pushed back now that its rear legs had collapsed, "I…."

"It wasn't me sir." Sarutobi whirled around to view the young boy he'd just spoken of, gasping as he took in the sight of the shinobi. His platinum spiky hair was even more dishevelled than normal, matted with his blood and debris as it was. His left arm hung limply at his side and he was limping slightly. "Don't think it was anyone of ours, we didn't leave any of the injured behind and the dead don't use jutsu."

"Right, then we need information. If there's a new player out there we need to know. Hiashi, take Kakashi and reconnoitre for enemy troops. I want to know what happened, and I want to know now." They all paused and turned to watch the massive detonation of chakra as the blood red cloud spread out. Off in the distance several acres of trees were flattened causing them to exchange shocked glances. "You have your orders now go."

"Yes Hokage! Erm…maybe I should go alone? Kakashi has taken too much damage to be effective." Sarutobi stared at the man in surprise as he was addressed with a title he'd given up four years before.

"I take your point. Kakashi, return to the medic station," he paused to give him several instructions about troop disposition, "Once you've issued those orders you are to hand yourself over to the medic-nin's and do what they tell you." The youth gave a pained bow and vanished in a cloud of leaves. The Hokage turned to gaze at the body of his successor or predecessor depending how he looked at it. Now that he had a few moments he allowed himself to grieve for Konoha's loss.

The man was a true genius, a powerful protector and skilled administrator. He'd be sorely missed, especially by Sarutobi who saw his free time going up in smoke. A shift in the light caused the old man to turn around, hands on his weapons as he looked up…and up into the pitiless depths of the Death God's eyes, 'Nothing that big should move that quietly, or quickly!' he thought startled at just how close it was. Off in the distance the sound of thunder announced the approach of an unanticipated summer storm.

It took everything Sarutobi had learned about control over his long life to keep from running away, the feeling of dread embedded in his chest was so overpowering. A second or two later he broke eye contact enough that he noted the blade it carried being lowered to the ground, and the body that rested on the flat surface. The figure appeared to be a young male in the region of fifteen to eighteen years of age, the black hair showed that it couldn't possibly be Minato's son, not unless there was a strange transformation due to the Fox Demons chakra. That didn't seem likely though, which begged several questions.

"Hiashi, do you recognise this person?"

"No Hokage, I've never seen him before." The clan leader smirked as the Hokage winced. Hiashi was thinking that if enough people took up calling him Hokage now, then eventually no one would question that he was in fact the Hokage. It would be a good thing for the village since he'd dealt with the council when he was in power before. A new Hokage would have to prove themselves, and the village didn't have the time for that in the perilous situation they were in.

"Then, I require information. I want to know who he is, where he came from, when and how." The blade that Ranma rested on was tipped and his body slid to the ground where he rolled onto his back exposing the seal around his navel for the first time. It also showed that his face sported three whiskers on either cheek. "It seems that Fourth's sealing technique worked. Just to make sure we need to get a seal master in here to check it. Make arrangements to have this person moved to a secure location while we wait for him to wake up."

/ an hour later – Hokage's office \

Seated at the large desk in the Hokage's office Sarutobi appeared to be going over the casualty and damage reports. Outside the windows the low dark clouds scudded across the bleak landscape dropping a cold penetrating rain that had quenched the fires left by Kyuubi. It also hindered the search and rescue efforts, but one of the foundations of Konoha was that no Ninja was left behind, be they alive, injured or dead.

What he was really doing was going over the scene that kept playing in his mind, the one which was responsible for the twists of tissue in his nose and the slight smile on his face.

/ flashback \

Sarutobi looked up into the sky as the first raindrops began to fall. Smiling at the thought that this would stop further damage caused by forest fires. That is until his subordinate gasped. He whirled around searching the clearing for the source of an attack, he finally turned a puzzled expression to Hiashi who was looking at their unknown interloper.

When he looked down it took a moment to register the changes, the hair, the voluptuous young body with pert breasts and……

"Medic!!" Hiashi yelled as blood erupted from the Hokage. "Medic!! Don't you die on me old man, I'm not ready to be Hokage." He whispered as his gaze switched between the two prone figures on the ground. It took a moment but comprehension struck, 'Pervert!'

/ end flashback \

Sarutobi added another question to the growing list he'd compiled to ask the girl when she woke up. If she woke up.

'Just who is this girl and why was she concealing herself with a henge to make her appear a man?'

Author's notes:- This looks like a good place to end the story for now. I've tried to answer all of the questions anyone may ask, but I'm sure I've missed plenty. As for the last section after the flashback, well Sarutobi's conclusion that Ranma was using a henge to appear as a man is reasonable from a ninja's perspective.

(1) Raikiri:- Literally means, Lightning blade. It's an advanced and thus more powerful form of Chidori. It's a form that only Kakashi is capable of using, or has bothered to learn according to Wiki.