Chapter 9: Replacement
Minato was surprised that things were progressing so well. It had taken only a few hours for Kakashi to take complete control of Danzo's ROOT forces and was working on integrating them as an additional branch of the torture and interrogation to apprehend threats within Konoha as well as general intelligence gathering, both of which they were very good at. The young man who had come to him the day before had been tasked with joining Naruto's class at the academy and ensuring that all graduating members maintained a positive outlook towards the village, or in other words, make friends. For this task he had been given the code name of Sai and would begin his mission as soon as he had taught Kakashi everything he knew about the way Danzo operated.
There had been a bit of a hiccup at the beginning of the day when Itachi didn't show up, but it turned out that, with all the extra screening, it had been Inoichi's inability to process him in a timely fashion that had delayed him.
After that, things had run smoothly, until around lunch time when he had found that one of the Hyuuga elders had tried to kill or at least incapacitate his son. Luckily, it had only been a clone, but that did not stop Minato from racing over to the Hyuuga compound with another clone made by the one who had been studying seals.
When he discovered that the elder had actually been using the caged bird seal to motivate the children to understand and prevent complaints, he had given Hiashi the choice of who would execute the elder. In order to save face for the clan, Hiashi opted to carry out the execution quietly within the clan. A new teacher was selected, from the branch house, and the class was resumed with the clone Minato had brought with him taking the place of the one the elder had destroyed.
He returned to his office and started Itachi on paperwork. Itachi had good instincts. Most items were frivolous and could be decided whimsically, but he knew when to consult Minato and when to just deal with issues. Thankfully, with Sarutobi taking the civilian matters which were usually both repetitive and inconsequential, the paperwork was soon finished, a problem Minato had never encountered before. Fortunately, there was a ready made activity reading a sealing scroll right in front of them.
"Naruto, make two shadow clones. Give one to Weasel," Minato gestured towards Itachi, "and give the other to me. Weasel will teach you the exploding shadow clone and I will start teaching you how to master jutsus."
Naruto made twenty clones. "Learning jutsus takes more chakra than reading," Naruto explained, "This way, you already have ten of me to work with."
"That's some good thinking, Naruto," Minato said, surprised at his son's foresight considering he usually just rushed headlong into things.
He lead the clone to the roof of the building and began explaining what they were going to do. "Now, we are going to start with the substitution jutsu. I want each of you to pick a partner from the others and do a kawarimi with them."
In unison, the clones performed the hand seals: ram, boar, ox, dog, snake. There were poofs of smoke in the places of most of the clones, though little apparently changed except for the direction some clones seemed to be facing.
"Good. Now, do it with your eyes closed and feel the flow of the chakra as you perform the jutsu. Keep it up until you can recognize it perfectly. Then, stop using the first hand sign and try to perform the jutsu without it by trying to form the chakra as you remember it. Once you have it down so it always works like that, remove the next hand sign until you are doing the jutsu easily with no hand signs. Remember to use yourself wisely. If you make any progress, make a replacement, then dispel so the others can learn from it."
"Got it dad!" Several Naruto clones said as they closed their eyes and puffs of smoke began popping up all over the roof.
Minato grinned. Usually, jutsu were only mastered if they were had no seals or it was a ninja's specialty. Even if the jutsu was a ninja's specialty, they still usually had to use at least one seal. It is not like mastering jutsu was without benefits either. Many ninja would give their right arm to master their signature jutsu since they could then use it if their hands were damaged or they were tied up. And, without the requirement of hand seals to slow the nin down, they could perform them much faster. Unfortunately for those ninja, it was a long a difficult process of jounin level chakra control. To do a jutsu with just one less sign usually took weeks of training, and removing each successive sign was exponentially more difficult. That the second hokage managed to get the forty-four seals of the water dragon bullet down to a single seal was simply astonishing. But, Minato intended for his son to far surpass the younger Senju brother and master dozens of techniques, though probably none even nearly as complex.
-Return of the Hummingbird-
Two days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-eight minutes after Minato's threat to force Tsunade to return, a messenger toad landed on his desk.
"Jiraiya says that Tsunade refuses to come within five miles of Konoha. But, as a compromise, there is a town five miles northwest of Konoha, and if you go there, she will take a look at you," the blue and black amphibian reported.
Minato sighed, "Tell him I'll be there in a few hours. I'll bring Naruto with me when his classes at the academy finish." It was inconvenient, but it was better than declaring her a missing-nin. Hopefully she would be able to do something about his condition, and maybe give Naruto a physical as well so that they could better understand the abnormalities that having the Kyuubi in him created.
The toad replied, "I'll pass along the message, boss." The toad sat on his desk, not moving until Minato reached into a drawer and tossed the talking animal a candy. "Thanks boss." The toad's eyes squinted happily and then he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Minato turned to Itachi. "I need a b-rank escort mission. Two persons to be escorted to the town and back. The team is to meet me at the north gate in an hour. I leave the details to your discretion."
"Very well. I shall take care of things while you are away," Itachi promised.
-Return of the Hummingbird-
Minato and Naruto dropped Hinata off at the Hyuuga compound before heading to the north gate where special jounin Anko Mitarashi was waiting with two chunin. The woman was leaning against a wall juggling kunai with one hand. Despite her attractive figure and revealing clothing, the two chunin were very careful to keep their distance from her and especially not even glancing at the exposed cleavage.
"Are you my escort?" Minato asked.
"Damn right," Anko replied, "A B-rank escort that won't even take half a day, I lucked out today. The runt yours?"
"Yes, Anko, meet Naruto, Naruto, don't piss Anko off."
"Why not? She doesn't look that dangerous," Naruto said. Faster than he could see, a kunai whizzed by his face, just barely scratching him, drawing a few beads of blood.
Naruto froze as he felt the woman standing behind him. She licked the blood from his cheek and said seductively, "because you have some sweet tasting blood." Her whisper-soft tone sent chills down Naruto's spine.
"You do know that attacking a child is punishable by death?" Minato asked chillingly.
"Good thing I didn't attack him then," Anko chirped happily as she retrieved her kunai, "Or else you'd be burying two people."
"This is why you don't make a woman angry. They are completely unreasonable."
"Damn straight." Anko grinned which caused Naruto to duck behind his father. "Let's go, we're burning daylight. Can the kid move like a ninja?"
"You'd collapse long before him, but at best I can keep up a light ground pace. You're taking me to see a medic after all. Maybe we can take the trees on the way back. You have been practicing the tree climbing exercise, right Naruto?"
In response, Naruto ran up the wall a dozen meters before back flipping and landing beside his father again.
"Pretty impressive for an academy runt, but you still have a long way to go," Anko said, before heading out the gate at a light run.
-Return of the Hummingbird-
"What a gathering we have here," Minato said jokingly as he sat down on a stool next to Tsunade at the village's bar, "If only Orochimaru was here, we'd have the full set of sannin and their apprentices." This remark caused one of Anko's Kunai to lodge into the wooden counter next to his elbow.
Tsunade glared at him.
"So, is it possible to heal me?" Minato asked.
"I don't appreciate being threatened," Tsunade said coldly, "Why should I bother helping you?"
"Because, you were ordered to by your Hokage, and refusing is treason," Minato replied simply.
"Who do you think you are? Calling yourself Hokage. Hokage's are nothing but fools, dying for useless things."
"My son is not worthless. My village is not worthless. Everyone dies sometime, but I came to you because you're the only one who can make sure that I can protect those precious to me. I will not lose them because you can't stop wallowing in self pity."
"Why are we wasting time with this old woman?" Naruto asked with a frown, "She's just a drunk who can't save anyone."
Tsunade looked as if she had received one of her own legendary punches to the gut. "Shut up kid, this is none of your business."
"You insulted my dad, and the hokages. That makes it my business!"
"What insult? Every Hokage and every wannabe hokage, each of them has died a stupid death for the people. The first died from meaningless fighting one of our own ninja. The second died in a meaningless battle with a waterfall nin. The third will find a way to die soon enough, and the fourth died fighting the Kyuubi. All of them die."
"No, they don't!" Naruto replied, kicking the older woman in the shin, "Oji-san is still alive, and my dad is the new hokage, and the Fourth was the greatest hokage ever! You're just a bitter, drunk, old woman!"
Minato smiled behind his mask at the praise his son had given him unknowingly.
"Stop kicking me you little runt, or I'll start hitting back!" Tsunade growled.
"Like you could, you old drunk. You can probably not even stand without breaking a hip."
"That's it, you little punk. Let's take this outside," Tsunade said, her bottle of sake splintering into shards of glass in her hand.
"Naruto, she might be a little much for you. She is one of the sannin."
"Who cares. I'll kick her ass!" Naruto said boldly, following Tsunade outside.
"To make this fair," Tsunade said, "I'll only use one finger to beat you." She held up the index finger of her right hand. "Now, show me what makes you so special that you think you can beat a ninja like me."
"You asked for it, weight seals release!" Naruto dashed towards Tsunade at surprising speeds, but Tsunade dodged the attack effortlessly.
"You're fast for an academy student, but nowhere near as fast as someone of my caliber," Tsunade taunted.
"Then, I guess I just need more of me! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto created twenty shadow clones, surrounding Tsunade and attempted to attack from all sides at once.
Tsunade jammed her finger into the ground and all the clones fell as the ground split, dispelling them. This also caused Naruto to lose his balance and fall into the dirt at the slug sannin's feet. "Pathetic," she said as he rolled dazedly onto his back. "Say good night brat." She prepared to flick him in the forehead.
Boar, Ox, Dog, Snake, Naruto signed as fast as he could. Instead of knocking Naruto out, her finger smashed a clump of earth. A few feet away, Naruto scrambled to his feet, then entered an odd sideways crouch of a taijutsu stance before performing another substitution with a chunk of displaced earth from Tsunade's first attack. "Hidden Leaf Secret Taijutsu:"
"This can't be good," Minato groaned.
"One Thousand Years of Death!" Naruto had appeared behind Tsunade and, clasping his hands, rammed his fingers towards Tsunade's butt.
"This can't be good," Minato groaned.
"Little prick!" Tsunade barely dodged, then slammed her fist down on Naruto's head.
"I won!" Naruto announced before passing out.
"How could you even think of claiming victory after getting knocked out?" Tsunade grumbled.
"You said you could beat him with one finger," Jiraiya announced with a chuckle, "You definitely used your whole fist in that last attack. You got beat by an academy student."
Meanwhile Minato and Tsunade's black haired apprentice Shizune checked Naruto for injuries, finding that he had only a minor concussion.
"That was not an academy student!" Tsunade said, "No academy student could create that many shadow clones and begin mastering the kawarimi! That speed was low chunin level at least!"
-Return of the Hummingbird-
"How is this even possible?" Tsunade asked after performing a physical on Minato, "You're dead."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Minato replied, "How did you know?" He removed his mask.
"Half your body is filled with dead flesh. You should not be able to move, let alone use chakra." She looked at his face then gasped, "This is impossible, you're dead!"
"You already said that part," Minato sighed, "No, I saw you die. You're supposed to be dead."
"Yet, here I am. My best guess is that Jiraiya applied the preservation seal before I was actually dead, then something happened and I didn't actually die properly."
"You barely have any life energy left in you. This cannot just be healed. You would need a transplant of life energy, which would kill the donor for sure. Then, all the dead flesh would have to be removed and regrown."
"You know, I feel fine, except for the chakra not replenishing. Just fixing that will be fine."
"It can't just be fixed. Without life energy, or your soul, your body can't sustain itself. Even if I fixed your chakra pathways, the necrosis would just spread faster and you would die within weeks. As it is, you have perhaps another five years before you begin to fall apart."
"If you had a donor, could you heal me?"
"I know of a few techniques that could do it, though I would not do any of them. I will not sacrifice one life for another."
"What if it is a traitor, or a spy, or a bandit that we have been hired to kill? Isn't it better that their life ending is put to good use?"
"I am not Orochimaru. I can't."
"There are people executed all the time. I am not asking you to kill an innocent person. I just want to live long enough to see my son reach his dream of becoming hokage."
"To be hokage is his dream..." Tsunade muttered, remembering how both her brother and her lover had said those words about themselves. "How about a bet. Prove to me your son is worth it. I'll come back in two weeks. If he has mastered the substitution jutsu by then, I'll come back and perform the operation."
"I believe in my son," Minato said, "We'll see you in two weeks."
"Have a suitable person prepared. If I don't believe the person really deserves to die, I won't do it."
"I am sure we can find someone." Minato said, remembering a mission request to find and kill a rapist who had taken a liking to children in a nearby town. A messenger toad could easily change the orders from kill to capture. If not, there were plenty of despicable people in the world.
-Return of the Hummingbird-
With his father's health on the line, Naruto trained with all he had to finish mastering the replacement. He now trained with over a hundred clones every day and did not stop until he collapsed from exhaustion. In the first two days, he managed to reduce the replacement technique to three seals. Five days later, he was down to two. Six days later, it took only the snake seal to activate his jutsu. Including the time experienced by his shadow clones, in thirteen days he had trained the equivalent of two and a half years without breaks. He was completely exhausted and he had no time left. It had taken so long to get it down to a single seal that he needed another week at least, but they would be leaving to meet Tsunade immediately and he had no more time to practice.
"Don't worry about it," Minato said, "I am sure she'll be impressed with what you have accomplished. Besides, even if she won't perform the operation herself, I can just order her to give up the jutsu to someone who would, or find another way."
His father's reassurances did not make him feel any better. In a fit of desperation, he snuck off and made clones until he was on the verge of suffering from chakra exhaustion, just so he could get as much practice in as possible. There were over a thousand, but, while practicing jutsu, they would last no more than an hour. He hoped it would be enough.
Soon, he found himself traveling along the road, taking small steps in order to increase the time his clones would have to practice. Then, he noticed something odd. At first he thought he was sick when he turned his head and saw that he was walking beside himself, then darkness claimed him. The escort team didn't even notice anything was wrong because they were not being vigilant so close to Konoha. It would be a long time before Kotetsu and Izumo would be trusted with anything other than gate duty after this mistake.
-Return of the Hummingbird-
Naruto woke up in a cave. He was laying on his belly and his body was tied up. His knees and elbows were locked into a fully bent position and wrapped several times with ninja wire. His elbows had several loops of ninja wire locking them behind his back and keeping his hands sticking out from opposite side of his body. His hands had been wrapped in bandages tightly so that he could not move them at all. Considering the thoroughness of his incapacitation, Naruto was sure that he had been tied up by a ninja.
"So, the runt is awake," a voice chuckled, "I wonder what he is worth. For a chunin escort within Konoha's patrol routes, he must be pretty important." The man spoke with an irritatingly high squeal of a voice, which was a fair contrast to the gravelly baritone that answered.
"Or, he is the son of someone important. Either way, I am sure he'll get a kick out of this vacation." The heel of a sandal slammed against the back of his neck, then ground his face into the stoney floor.
"That hurt, you bastard! Let me go!" Naruto complained. He didn't cry. Frankly, he'd received much worse from the villagers when he was younger so this was nothing. A future Hokage wouldn't cry just because of a few kidnappers.
"Tough guy, are you?" Naruto was rolled onto his back so he could see his captors. One was tall, with long limbs, a long pierced tongue that dangled out of his mouth, and greasy long blond hair. Around his neck was an Iwa hitai-ate. The other was short, stocky and barrel-chested, with a round bald head covered in a bandana-styled Iwa hitai-ate.
"You guys are gonna die for this," Naruto said, thinking fast, "The Tsuchikage is not going to be happy that you messed with the peace offering." If he was lucky, he could trick these two into releasing him.
"What are you talking about you useless brat?"
"The Hokage just negotiated a peace treaty. As part of the treaty, the hokage offered Iwa one of our blood lines. Me and my dad were being sent to Iwa," Naruto lied, then with a foxy grin and a sing-song voice he said, "You're in trouble."
The two Iwa ninja glanced at each other.
"Do you think he's lying?" the shorter, broader man asked in his whiny voice.
"Konoha would never give up a bloodline, just look at what the Hyuuga clan does, sealing their own bloodline away to keep it out of our hands."
"I guess, that we should just get rid of the boy to be sure," the tall lanky one said, pulling out a kunai, "Don't worry kid, this is for our own good, and it will only hurt a lot."
Naruto gulped fearfully. His plan had not gone as he had expected. He had hoped that they would just return him to his dad. He wriggled his body as much as he was able, trying to back away from the scary looking ninja. The kunai plunged down, barely missing his heart. Naruto cried out in pain and began to cough as blood began to seep into his lung.
"Oops, I missed!" the ninja said, how clumsy of me, "Perhaps you will have more luck," he said to his partner who took out his own kunai.
"Well, I've never been very graceful, at least this will be good practice." His kunai slammed into Naruto's shoulder. "It looks like I missed too," he said, why don't you have another go. Naruto coughed up some blood and spit it into the face of the tall ninja who was preparing to jam another kunai into him.
"You stupid rock heads! You're going to die when my dad gets here." Naruto blinked back tears before they could form.
"No, you're going to die, then your dad, then all your little friends from your pathetic village."
Naruto glared at them, his eyes flashing red, then the cave shook violently.
"Naruto!" His dad's voice called from outside the cave.
"Damn, how did they track us?" the tall one asked.
Naruto saw a rock break loose at the entrance to the cave and in a fit of desperation performed a kawarimi and was caught by Tsunade before he could hit the ground. He had done it, a sealess replacement. He had won the bet. Now, if only everything wasn't all hurty, he'd be happy.
"Blood!" Tsunade's eyes widened in fear as she saw Naruto's condition. She froze, overwhelmed by hemophobia.
"Naruto!" his father sliced through his bindings with a kunai, Laying him on the ground outside the cave. "Tsunade, heal him!" He ordered desperately.
Tsunade's apprentice Shizune knelt down beside Naruto's body and began checking him with her medical jutsu. "This isn't good. He's bleeding into his lung."
Naruto was having a hard time breathing now. Shizune began a jutsu that made him cough up a lot of blood, making it easier for him to breath.
"Look out!" Their escort's warning was too slow and too late.
Naruto saw the tall rock nin with his hands in a seal before he felt a tremendous pressure on his back. Then, he found himself hanging limply above the heads of the adults, a blood-covered spire of rock protruding from his gut. Everyone stared at him in shock, then, as if a dam broke, there was a flood of killer intent and the two shinobi from Iwagakure were dead, one splattered by a rasengan, the other with his head punched cleanly off of his shoulders.
Tsunade was back in a moment, crushing the pillar with her unbelievable strength and removing the kunai and shards of rock from Naruto's body.
Naruto looked at Tsunade and said with a smile, "I did it. Now you have to save my dad." Then, he passed out from the pain.