For two and a half long months, Minato and Kushina helped tweak the seal Karin had given them. Both were vastly more experienced with shinobi seals, and generally didn't ask about the Runes Karin and Naruto kept slipping into the seal.

Since they knew it was coming, the two squirreled away a lot of things that would likely be missed after the fact. Like books that Minato happened to have, or the locations of small artifacts that Kushina treasured.

When it happened, they were going to seal the entire house and take it with them. Konoha wouldn't get a single scroll if they had anything to say about it.

Naruto and Karin fit in relatively well, though at least once a week boredom struck hard and they lead the ANBU on a merry chase. It was so regular that the unfortunate 'elite jounin' had scheduled around it, and despite their best efforts "Arashi" had the most annoying habit of finding their weak spots and pissing them off to start the chase. It was so bad that they literally had kunai boards up in the lounge, and somehow he had known about it. Arashi had "helpfully" given them plenty of copies to skewer in unfulfilled rage, with a picture that was sure to piss them off. Kushina had been amused. Minato had found it funny but had been smart enough not to say a damn thing.

For the months that passed, Naruto and Karin bridged the gap in their shinobi training quietly. No one suspected them at all, and it didn't help that Kushina openly helped train their taijutsu as she was familiar with the Uzumaki clan style. It was pretty obvious that she and Minato were trying to push them into the shinobi lifestyle, and they might have considered it if not for one important fact.

They hated Konoha with a passion. They hid it well, as they didn't hate the Konoha of this time nearly as much, but the simple fact remained that Konoha had failed utterly in it's job to protect the legacy of their Fourth Hokage and their jinchuriki, never mind that he had been an innocent kid.

So no, they'd never even consider the idea of becoming "Konoha shinobi".

Besides, they liked their day-to-day jobs more than they liked D-ranks.

So as the misplaced duo counted down the time, they managed to hide the fact they knew when Kushina's son was due. All the while, Naruto kept poking at Thor's sealed memories with a sharp stick, hoping to dislodge something of his father out. Whoever sealed them had done a thorough job.


It was hard to describe the feeling of October 10th. Unless you were Naruto and then you knew exactly how to describe it.

An oncoming storm. Between the impending Kyuubi attack and the fact that his unborn self had zero control over his weather powers, there was a distinct thundery haze over the village. It wouldn't break until he came out, but it lingered over the village for hours. He was the only one who knew what was going on, and instead of telling Minato he visited his sister in the library.

He never came with fresh ramen. It was the agreed upon signal to get ready for their plan to abscond with Thor and Kushina.

Karin went about her daily rituals, all the while discreetly preparing to leave and cast a massive illusion over any witnesses. Her skill towards illusions had only gotten better with instruction from those that used genjutsu.

Suddenly Kushina went into labor around noon.

Naruto took that as his cue to start packing. Karin went with her as she had a modicum of medical training and so Kushina would have a 'friendly face' with her.

When the kid was born, that was when it happened. Kurama was set free, and Naruto could hear his pissed off roaring, and suddenly the shinobi were much more interested in the fox than anything he was doing.

He made sure to switch the seal Minato had on hand to seal the demon back with the one they had finally finished modifying. The blond didn't even look twice when he grabbed it. That done, Naruto finished sealing everything save the things that belonged to Kakashi in the house.

Hearing the giant toad summoned, Naruto made his way to his fellow blond.


With Karin...

Holding up a massive genjutsu would be a pain in the ass, and her reserves would be shot to hell. Kushina had been confused why she was even preparing an illusion, and frankly it was easier in the long run just to tell her the truth.

They were kidnapping them.

"Your son isn't going to be the hero that Minato wanted, and frankly Konoha doesn't deserve shit. So we're kidnapping you now and waking that idiot husband of yours to his original self, because his family wants him back."

"Minato's an orphan."

"No, he's not. He has a memory seal on his mind keeping his original memories blocked until he finds a certain weapon. Remember how you commented on how alike the Death God seal and the one I brought with me were? That's because I copied it off your son's stomach," said Karin.

"...You used that time travel seal in Whirlpool didn't you?"

"Accidentally, yes."

Kushina winced as she sat up.

"If you're going to kidnap us and take us to another time, then to get back you have to get into the center and find the rock under the seal and drip blood on it. It's how the Uzumaki became seal masters in the first place. We abused the rock's ability to traverse time and 'borrowed' the books that the seals came from, and eventually we got good enough on our own."

Naruto appeared and heard that bit.

"House is sealed away. We ready in here?"

"Almost. Think you can move?" asked Karin.

"I think I have internal bleeding,' said Kushina.

"Dammit. Here's what we'll do. I'll henge myself into Kushina, help hold back Kurama and then tell the old toad to reverse summon us to the summoning realm."

"We don't have a contract," said Karin.

"I do, but I never saw a point in using the damn thing since Kurama said that he had pretty much stolen it from the kitsune clan."

"Let's go. The sooner I can get a chance to try and fix the bleeding without having to prepare a massive genjutsu, the better for all of us. You got the doubles ready?"

"Of course. My clones have already been dispersed."

"Let's go. He's about to seal Kurama into you now," said Karin.


It was rather anticlimactic how the switch went. All the prep work and the fact no one was expecting them to do it meant everything went smoothly. A little too smoothly, but then again no one was expecting a pair of misplaced Uzumaki to outright kidnap the Fourth and his wife after a major battle and leave their son behind with some shadow clones to make it look like they had all died but the kid.

Tracking down Tsunade was a pain in the ass, but totally worth it in the long run as she healed the scarring done by Karin's inexperience. Kushina would live to have more children. Many more, if she had any say about it.

Minato had to be kept under a stasis seal that kept his blond ass knocked out, as there was a high chance he would try to return to Konoha.

As much as Kushina loathed the idea, she agreed it was better to keep the timeline straight, at least until she prepared a proper revenge for the years of hardship her son was about to endure.

Once they were in Whirlpool, having gone through the cleared primary entrance, Naruto carefully dug into the sealing circle and dropped their blood onto the Time stone. With a flash of light, they were gone.


With Loki...

There was a surge of energy, and suddenly Naruto, Karin and two others were in the circle. Naruto was quick to drag the other two as far away from the circle as he could.

"Naruto, who are they?"

Naruto turned, saw Loki and beamed at him.

"Dad!"

"OOF! Get off of me you idiot! Now what happened and where did these two come from?"

"Dad, meet Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki."

Loki narrowed in on Minato.

"You cheeky little brat. You actually did it."

"Yeah, I did. Now all we have to do is see if he's worthy enough to hold the hammer again and Grandmother will be thrilled."

"Okay, I'm confused," said Kushina.

"You know how everyone refers to the Uzumaki heir as a 'prince' or 'princess'?" asked Karin dryly.

"Yes," said Kushina annoyed. She hated those titles.

"Well in his case, it's literal. Minato is actually a prince who got misdirected and sent here as punishment for being an arrogant brat, only something went wrong and he ended up dying when your son was born. And that seal that was placed on Naruto kept the soul alive, but not the body. The original plan was to find more stones like the one we just used to transfer them out...but Naruto had a more simple solution."

"Go back in time and switch us with fakes. Allowing our 'deaths' to remain but keep us alive in the long run so they got their prince back," said Kushina, nodding in approval. Suddenly she remembered something and grinned. "That civilian contractor thing. You wanted it to keep the Konoha from now from forcing you back into their shinobi corps."

"Absolutely. They're going to be pretty pissed that they lost their jinchuriki, but they can go screw themselves for all I care!" said Naruto cackling.

"We need to go. The sooner we remind that idiot brother of mine who is he is, the sooner we can straighten things out," said Loki. Left unspoken was that he had no desire to deal with the shinobi he had seen on the outskirts of the ruined village.

"Oh wait! Is there any way to..." started Naruto.

"Third drawer on the desk. Touch the rock with it and it'll be sealed into it without activating," Kushina said without hesitation.

Loki was confused, but when he saw what Naruto carefully dug up and then sealed into a rather odd necklace, his jaw dropped.

"If you had the stone then why didn't you..."

"Let me put it this way... we've had it for a long time and figured out how to use it. Naturally we'd also See what would happen if the other countries knew about it. So which sounds like a more feasible way of avoiding all out destruction...allowing our village to be destroyed and our people scattered, or abuse the stone and accidentally allow it's existence to be known? As far as anyone needs to know, he found a seal and accidentally activated it through Kyuubi's chakra, and then used it to get back. It keeps people from asking about the necklace, because obviously he picked it up in the past," said Kushina.

When the first Uzumaki found the stone, they had seen all the futures connected to it. And the only one that didn't end with the world completely annihilated was when a blond sealed it away in a necklace and took it away from the world. No one knew what the stone was, just that it was too powerful for anyone to have it except that boy.

And only the heirs and the Elders who knew how to keep their mouths shut were allowed to even know it's existence.


The first thing Minato saw was gold. A lot of it. The second thing he saw was a blond Arashi, which had him blink, and his wife.

"Where am I?"

"The better answer is 'when am I', and the answer would be roughly fifteen to sixteen years. As for why, well all your confusion will be answered if you can pick up that stupid hammer I dropped next to you," said Arashi.

Minato noticed an unusually decorated warhammer and then looked at him.

"I dropped it on my foot and wasn't in the mood to pick it up. It should be healed in a couple of hours," deadpanned Arashi.

Minato didn't think anything of it, and reached down to the hammer on it's side. After all, it was a simple thing to hand Arashi his hammer back.

The moment his hand closed around the hilt and he lifted it up, he damn near dropped it as the memories hit him like a brick.

His eyes cleared up as his full power was unsealed and the memories were promptly filtered into the appropriate slots. Above the palace, a massive storm that even Naruto wouldn't have been able to create (at least not yet) formed as lightning struck the general area of where the infirmary was.

Thor had woken up.

"That was beyond weird, but still very interesting to watch," commented Kushina. His wife and the only woman barring Sif who could match him.

"Oh you don't know the half of it...mom. Should have seen my reaction when I found out that I was in another world," commented Naruto.

"I have a headache," complained Thor.

"It'll pass," said Naruto. "So do you still have questions?"

Naruto's comment about 'when' he was came back, and now he could see what his son had meant about the hammer. The only question he had was "Why the kidnapping?"

"You 'died', more or less, when the fox attacked the village. All you left behind were chakra ghosts and there's no way in Helheim I'm going to track down three Infinity stones to reverse it when it was easier to track down one and simply make it LOOK like you died," deadpanned Naruto.

Odin walked in with Frigga and Loki. Naruto left, but Kushina stuck around.


With Naruto...

"I take it from the show we just had that Thor's back?" asked Karin.

"Yup. The official story is that we found a seal that allowed time travel and brought them back. Needless to say there's going to be a feast soon," said Naruto.

"At least we don't have to deal with them subtly trying to make us assassins," said Karin with a snort.

The party for Thor's return was massive. Kushina made a point to stick close to her son as she was slightly out of her depth here. Everyone accepted her status as Thor's wife easily enough though.

Then the apocalypse happened. Kushina found out Loki was a fellow prankster and gravitated towards him.

Odin could feel the headaches coming on.