Fuinjutsu was an incredibly powerful skill to have at ones fingertips.

With it you can seal anything.

And I should have known that Naruto wouldn't stand for me trying to revive the ten tails to become its jinchuuriki. Yes, it doesn't have much to do with fuinjutsu, except when you account for the fact that my clone had taught the boy well.

He didn't need to go all out like that though.

I would have listened to his opinions after all. Then I would have probably thought of another way to do what I needed to get home.

With fuinjutsu you can do anything after all.

I should explain why I'm talking about this, you see. Naruto had used his hiraishin, that Minato had handily taught him how to use, and flashed to our location. When he got a seal attached to us I don't know.

Ninjas okay?

Sometimes you can't account for everything when everyone's being a sneaky little shit. Naruto happened to be one of the sneakiest shits in the elemental nations right now.

Minato and I simply didn't count. We were gods.

So Naruto flashed inbetween the both of us just as I was inking a seal into little Minato's back so he'd survive the extraction.

Little Minato himself didn't actually have any qualms against getting rid of the beast.

You'd think after spending 15 years trapped in darkness with the kyuubi as your only companion that you'd learn to get along. It wasn't the case.

Perhaps if I had given them a couple more years they would have eventually set aside their differences. At the moment the two were enemies and little Minato was all too grateful to be rid of the fox.

In return I needed to revive a little Kushina so the two can go be little with Naruto in Konoha with little Kakashi. I wasn't against it at all.

Naruto needed someone to be by his side as Minato and I vanished from this dimension forever.

Off track again.

Alright, so Naruto came bowling in guns blazing. Ahem, Shuriken. I meant shuriken a blazing.

Which prompted Minato to defend me even though any attempt Naruto would have made on my life would have ended in futility. If my physical form became harmed beyond repair I only needed to release the seal and destroy the world with my energy alone.

Simple as that.

My spiritual energy would have sucked the seams from the fabric of this dimension entirely and broke it into a million pieces. Leaving souls boundless in between the dimensions with nowhere to go.

It's a sad fate, and it truly did not need to be tested.

Minato decided that Naruto needed a lesson in attacking people he looked up to and proceeded to beat the crap out of the boy.

Said boy was crying by the end of it and begging us to stop being evil villains because he loved us. Where got the idea we were evil I don't know, perhaps it was all those world saving missions he'd been on clouding his mind. Clouding his judgement.

And that, that had nearly broken my heart right there. I had dropped the brush wet with ink, to the floor and moved to scoop the boy into my arms. I was four words into telling him that everything was okay and he didn't need to cry before a seal was slammed into my chest.

My eyes flew open and I could feel my body changing and forcing itself into the earth. I could feel how the physical flesh held together by my old seal got forcibly changed and added to by another seal. It wasn't painful in the least, but it was so sudden and disconcerting that I didn't have any way to defend against it.

Fucking fuinjutsu.

The seal was quick to work, and it worked almost too well, and honestly I didn't expect anything less of an Uzumaki. I just expected something different from Naruto.

Being sealed into the very earth beneath us had been a tad overkill.

I don't really know how long I got stuck in limbo, as my consciousness drifted in an out between dreams and feeling the earth as if it were my own body. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and I decided I hated seals.

You can seal anything. You can seal bijuu, you can seal time, you can seal an entrance between dimensions, you can seal gods. Did I forgot to mention that Naruto sealed me into the earth?

I was well and truly stuck, and all I could really do was wonder what the hell I ever did to deserve such a fate.

Naruto had basically turned me into the earth with a seal.

A fucking seal. And not the cute little ones from Alaska either.

Imagine, being slapped with a seal.

Oh gods no I can't even laugh.

If I could I would escape, but that was hardly possible when I barely had time to be properly conscious.

Which was where I was at right now actually. Tethered to the earth by a seal made of chakra on my now nonexistent body. How it works? I don't actually know.

The reasons why fuinjutsu worked would forever allude me.

Oh I'm drifting out again.

Perhaps I should have used this time awake to get out instead of trying I figure out the reasons why I ended up like this.

As oblivion began to surround my consciousness, my last thought was surprising peaceful.

If this was death, I wasn't opposed to it.

Minato stared in horror as his son, his son, did something to make his husband disappear. He was frozen with shock as Naruto slowly stared at the empty space in front of him as if he didn't believe it himself.

The air around them sparked with the chakra of an activated seal, as well as excess spiritual energy from the dissipation of Orochimaru. The way he had dissolved into the ground, how every part of his body had split like dust being hit on an old tv stand.

It echoed inside the minds of the two staring at the empty space left behind.

"What did you do!?" Minato croaked as he turned his eyes on to Naruto with despair. Naruto stiffened as he looked up to meet his fathers eyes with alarm.

Naruto channeled chakra to his limbs to move away, but he couldn't really run from a god. He could barely flail his arms as he attempted to scramble away. His instincts screaming run, run, run.

The pressure of Minato's aura bearing down on everyone within the vicinity was making it impossible for anyone to move.

"I-I d-don't know.." Naruto stuttered out breathlessly as his father walked up to his shaking form and lifted him by the front of his shirt, bearing the brunt of his aura towards the boy furiously.

"You don't know!?" Minato looked absolutely frantic as he looked the boy over and shook him harshly. "He's gone!"

"I don't know!! I never tested that seal before! I made it up on the spot!" Naruto flailed as tears poured from his eyes.

Minato's nose scrunched up at the scent of toads, and he never wanted to hurt the child more than he did right now. Naruto immediately felt the danger he was in. He knew immediately that he was going to die and that he'd fucked up so badly. He remembered with stark clarity that the man in front of him wasn't actually his dad. Minato was the father of a Naruto that would have never put a hand against Severus-nee for harm.

Until a few moments ago, Naruto thought he had been the same.

"You sealed my husband." Minato growled, his voice echoing out for miles despite how quiet it had been. He was this close to ripping this universe to shreds.

"I didn't know!! I didn't mean to hurt Severus-nee! I just wanted him to stop!" Naruto cried in desperation. He could feel Kurama working overtime to heal the damage being done to him just from being in the proximity of a raging god.

"To stop what?! Hugging you!? You think he wouldn't have listened to you at all!? Why did you do that!" Minato spat as he slammed the boy into the ground harshly. Blood splattered onto his coat as Naruto coughed it out of his damaged lungs. Bones shattered inside his body as he realized how close he really was to death. His very soul was vibrating in his chest and threatening to shatter.

"Naruto!" The little Minato cried out as he raced forward, his body covered with the kyuubi's chakra.

Minato grabbed his counterpart by the neck and smothered his chakra with his aura before slamming him down right beside his traitorous son. "Show me the seal." Minato ordered as he pulled out a blank notebook with a brush.

He tossed the items down and quickly healed the boys wounds before throwing him harshly towards the stationary. Naruto quickly scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled to the book, his survival instincts taking full control of his body. There was no way he could refuse the man. His face was entirely soaked with salted tears, leaving tracks on his dirty skin.

He licked the salt from his lips and did his best to focus on what he needed to do to survive. No, to save Severus. Naruto hadn't meant to do what he'd done. Hadn't meant to kill the very person that had saved him from the loneliness that had nearly tore him apart as a child.

What had he done!?

Naruto flipped the book open and grabbed the brush and the ink pot and did his best to remember exactly what he'd done when he'd slammed his hand into Severus-nee's chest.

Minato waited as his counterpart struggled underneath his hand to breath. He didn't once look away from Naruto as he forced down the anger and frantic fear for his lover in his gut.

Naruto felt the fear spiking along his spine as he realized he didn't have a clue. All he had wanted to do was stop Severus so he wouldn't take Kurama's siblings to create the ten tails. He had been struck with fear when Severus had suddenly came up to him and wrapped him in his arms.

A hug.

The usual safe feeling he'd once had in his arms had been replaced by an unending pressure and all he knew was that it wasn't allowed to exist. It felt as if his own chakra had taken over him at that moment, and a seal had suddenly formed in his hand before he knew it.

His chakra had controlled him. He didn't know why. He didn't understand how his very own chakra could have done something so powerful without him actually being conscious of it. Even Kurama had been stunned to silence when they'd both witnessed the seal spreading across Severus-nee's form. When his body was suddenly nothing but particles of dust drifting down into the ground beneath him.

The brush clattered in the dirt as he sat back on his ankles with terror.

"You don't know what you've done." Minato said emotionlessly before he slowly closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Naruto was shivering in front of him, standing stiff beside Minato's counterpart. Little Minato was still rubbing at his sore throat and trying to gulp past the phantom pain.

Minato had spent hours beating the both of them until his anger finally drained away to his usual calculative calm. He couldn't let what happened to Orochimaru blind him so much. There was a way to get him back, or for him to go to Orochimaru. He only needed to find it.

Beating his counterpart and his son wasn't going to help him. So he'd healed them both and got them on their feet so he could question them.

"N-no, Minato-sama. My chakra had moved against my will. Kurama is just as confused as I. I-I would never deliberately hurt Severus-nee." Naruto stutters. His face was clean now, but the rims of his eyes were red from draining every salty tear his body could produce.

Little Minato reached for Naruto and clutched his hand tightly, and Naruto flinched at the contact.

Minato watched the interaction blankly before he looked at the ruins of the Ame tower. The Akatsuki were no where to be found.

They had escaped while he'd been busy beating on Naruto, though they hadn't taken the gedo statue with them.

"I'll be needed the kyuubi from the both of you." Minato decided as he looked towards the both of them again. He didn't once think that Naruto had been telling the truth about his chakra going against him. He didn't really care either.

The both of them stiffened under his gaze, little Minato nodding immediately as Naruto made to protest. Little Minato quickly squeezed his hand, silently begging him not to fight against it.

Naruto could only slump, his spirit broken in the face of unparalleled power. Minato felt his insides sour with guilt that he crushed darkly before he put one hand on Naruto and little Minato and pulled them into his hiraishin.

Minato watched with a heavy heart as the broken forms of his counterpart and this worlds Naruto were heaped onto the ground.

They weren't dead, but they weren't far from it. Kurama was already inside the statue, and the bijuu now only needed to be combined.

Minato moved to them and healed their broken bodies in seconds. One hand on either body.

He didn't have the hate needed to kill them. He didn't even care to kill them. Oro-chan had always gone on about how reincarnation was a thing and he didn't want that for them. He didn't want Naruto to forget that he was the one who caused Orochimaru's death.

With a simple thought he used his hiraishin to send the two into his and Orochimaru's house in Konoha. He wouldn't be going back there without Orochimaru, but it was far enough away from him right now that they wouldn't immediately interfere.

Once they were gone, he thought about the promise Orochimaru had made to his counterpart sourly. Reviving this worlds Kushina?

Minato wouldn't do it. He didn't want to be anywhere near the woman that had willingly abandoned her son. The parallels weren't all that different, and he knew that the Kushina here wouldn't be any different than the Kushina he had known.

He conveniently forgot that he had betrayed the woman first in the last timeline. He was hurting right now, he didn't need to think about the things he did wrong in his life.

He preferred to think about the things other people did wrong right now. And he didn't want to revive Kushina for any reason.

He didn't want to revive anyone. He just wanted his own son back, and his friends, and his sons friends. He wanted them all back, but he didn't want to leave this universe without Orochimaru.

Minato looked upon the gedo mazo, waiting to be used to combine the nine bijuu into the ten tails. He slowly sunk to the ground and crossed his legs as his mind slowly worked through new ideas.

Ways he could have both at the same time.

There had to be a way to bring his universe here, so that he can have the support of his family and friends while he worked on trying to find Orochimaru and getting him back.

He couldn't do it alone. He couldn't be alone. He missed his son dearly, he missed his world and his real students. He missed the crazy races of people that Orochimaru had created, and the laws that Orochimaru had created to make peace something that had spread with the ease of a sword slipping into a scabbard made for it.

Minato slowly sighed and relaxed his body so he could slip into a familiar meditation to think clearly.

His eyes flew open with shock at what he'd felt.

The energy of the ground beneath him, the energy of the universe around him, and the energy of the heavens beyond him. The energy of the universes beside him, and the wavering strength of the flimsy seal keeping the two worlds together.

He had never tried meditating outside of the kamui dimension, and the difference between the two was phenomenal. However that wasn't what caught him off guard.

The ground.

Orochimaru was the ground.

Minato felt a cry leave his throat as he sunk his spiritual energy downwards anxiously. His breath hitched when he felt the familiar connection.

"Oro..." his heart lurched in his chest and he felt sick. Orochimaru's aura was spread thin and stretched evenly in the entire planet. He could feel how weak he had become, how he couldn't bring himself up to the surface and reform.

And yet, his aura had automatically connected to Minato's in comfort. He could feel the sleepiness of the aura, as if his husband were doing nothing but being a lazy ass beside him in bed. Refusing to wake up and train in favour of a few more hours.

Minato spread his aura as far as he could and felt tears fall from his eyes freely as the ground responded lazily.

"Orochimaru." Minato whispered as he slowly laid down on the ground

I was so fucking tired.

Despite becoming the very earth beneath everyone's feet I had inadvertently become weak. My spiritual energy had combined and taken over the power of the earth itself but it honestly wasn't all that much.

Compare an ocean with a puddle and you'll understand the difference. It was clear to me that there was no way I was going to escape this new predicament. Not when my energy had taken over the world completely.

It was complicated, annoyingly so.

Though I found I could still cultivate.

So I did.

I had discovered this when I had felt Minato's warm energy spreading through my new body, and leaving a huge chunk behind for me to keep. And it had felt amazing. It also made me realize that I could take from anyone who touched my body. Which meant everyone.

I didn't dare.

Who knew what would happen if I took what measly spiritual energy the people above me had? They'd all die, and I'd eventually end up taking their souls.

Those tiny pin drop souls wouldn't do a thing to help me, and I'd just end up a desolate planet. Alone.

As it was now, I wasn't alone. If I spread my energy right, I could hear the voices of the people above through the trunks of the trees growing on my back. I could see through the waters, and I could feel through the dirt.

I slept through a lot, but I did notice when Minato had taken the ten tails and opened up a gate to another universe. It was hard to ignore.

With it came the spiritual energy of that world, that had immediately connected with mine.

And with the connection firmly placed between the two worlds, the universes ended up becoming one. Firmly anchored by the gate between them that anyone could walk through as they pleased.

When I slept I could still feel Minato. Constantly close, constantly connecting our aura's. I always made sure to wake up just enough to prod him back before going to sleep again.

I needed the rest. I couldn't stay awake all that much with my spiritual aura spread so thin.

And time passed like that, with comfort and laziness. Sometimes I could hear Minato calling me a lazy bastard, and telling me how much I must love my current life.

I'd send him little happy prods of my aura before settling back into sleepiness and he'd laugh in response before lying down and silently crying into the grass.

I hated it when he cried, because I knew I couldn't do anything besides comfort him. I couldn't wrap my arms around him. Or kiss him.

I couldn't talk to him.

My body was the earth itself and I couldn't really do anything about that. He couldn't do anything about it without destroying the both of us completely.

How could he separate my soul from the ground? Was there even a way to do that? What would the loss of my spiritual energy do to the earth?

It would collapse.

Sure he could attempt to make a seal big enough to cover the entire earth to keep it stable as he sucks my soul from it. It would take years, and he'd have to put those seals on the ground underneath the ocean too.

It was far too difficult a task to undertake and I didn't want him to do it. When he'd brought up that idea I had slammed him with my aura angrily to tell him to stop and he listened.

Besides, I got this. I liked this.

More time passed, and I felt it when people began to cultivate the spiritual energy from me.

Somehow the cultivation techniques had been spread, and I'd been asleep through it or something because I didn't know how that was possible. Who spread it?

It certainly wasn't Minato. He kept his techniques to himself.

I could just take it back from them and kill everyone who was doing it. It wouldn't be all that hard. All I'd need to do was cultivate their energies and absorb their souls.

I was about to do just that until I found out exactly who it was.

The Akatsuki.

Fine. They can do what they wanted. It wasn't like they were taking all that much from me anyway. They were cultivating the energy from other places too so it wasn't really weakening me.

I slept again and woke once more to find that the gods had stepped on my body. I could feel their pitiful energy trying to seep into me and break me, so I happily snapped it off of them and ate it.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but I knew damn well that I had only grown stronger. Did they not know how many universes I had bumped into over time and happily devoured?

I had to cultivate somehow.

"Excuse me." The shinigami apologized as he bent to the ground and patted the dirt.

If I had eyes I would have rolled them.

I let them be.

It wasn't like they could do anything to my universe now that I had basically become the universe itself. I was far more powerful than those puny gods.

I could eat them.

Instead I mentally rolled over and went back to sleep.

Shinigami had then wandered all over my body like the little creep he was and spread his cultivation techniques to people in an effort to gain back some power. To gain a clan of followers like he'd once had with the Uzumaki.

It didn't really work. Sure, cultivation techniques eventually began to spread to everyone. Though no one wanted to follow the shinigami for it.

He was ugly.

Minato was the only one able to lead the worlds as he wanted. As I wanted. Sure I couldn't talk to him with words but it didn't mean there wasn't any way to communicate. He could still feel my emotions, and I could still connect my aura with his.

Plus I'd taught him my own version of Morse code when he was small and it was only a matter of time before my lazy consciousness figured it out.

I myself didn't realize it had taken a hundred years, since I slept so damn much but it didn't really matter.

Minato and I could talk now, and he could lead the world as I wanted him to.

I needed the cultivation techniques to spread. Especially after what I'd discovered once Rin and the Akatsuki had begun to get stronger.

I could absorb the excess energy they gave off when they practiced their jutsu with spiritual energy.

Oh right I suppose I should start calling it 'the force'. Or soul force.

Deidara had begun calling it that, and since my books were still so popular, it began to spread out like wildfire. Dumb asses.

It pleased me though.

Years over years passed and passed and many people eventually reached the apex of their physical limits. Minato had given the methods to godhood to them and I could only sigh when soul after soul failed to properly devour their bodies to become true spiritual beings.

To stop their bursting energy from dissipating in the air, I simply sucked it up and absorbed them. It would have been a waste to let the energy grow stale in the air, or get absorbed by someone else.

Eventually my power began to grow beyond the universes. Eventually the earth had enough power supporting it that I could leave.

It wasn't as simple as that.

I couldn't just take my power with me if I wanted to live on earth with everyone else. I needed to separate myself from my own power and leave it in the earth to keep it stable.

To keep the souls circulating inside it. Yes I somewhat took over as Shinigami. It wasn't like the bastard was doing the work anymore. He was still roaming around my back acting as if he weren't any different than the common people around him. He wasn't, but still. He should at least get back to work, right?

Anyway, I had created a system within my body to take the souls of the dead and give the souls back without their energy and memories to get reborn above. The system worked perfectly without me consciously having to control it now.

I can't explain this system properly without giving away the secrets of the spirit world. These things aren't for mortal minds to understand.

But I couldn't just leave like that. If I took my power with me, I'd be dismantling the soul system I'd created. It was no where near the level of whatever spirit system those gods had in the spirit realm, but it worked. I'd made it from scratch when I discovered the souls I'd absorbed didn't actually vanish inside me. They just stagnated in the void of my consciousness like mindless orbs.

I had needed to create something like a second realm and stuff the souls inside of it. Don't ask me how. It's just something you can do when your the most powerful being in the universe.

I didn't particularly like having other people mindlessly drifting in my consciousness either.

It was creepy as fuck.

When the realm I'd made had begun to overfill I decided to toss them out at unborn babies and animals. Imagine an arm of energy with a hand that whips souls at pregnant people and you'll have an idea of how I did this.

It was kind of an accident, really.

I had accumulated maybe a million or so souls, and found that the population of life on my body was slowly declining. Miscarriages had become so common over the centuries. At first I didn't think it had anything to do with me.

When I started throwing the souls back out it occurred to me that I was actually making it impossible for life to continue. By taking souls and doing absolutely nothing with them.

So I had made a system and dedicated a lot of my energy into it so it would work without me needing to look after it. It took so fucking long. Like, I don't even know how long it took.

And now I was done.

I could leave as long as I left everything that made me, me here to keep things running properly. I didn't want to leave and have the system collapse.

Not after I'd worked so hard.

So I poked at Minato and told him my plans. I told him I'd finally had enough power to toss my own soul into the system to spit me out at some unsuspecting pregnant woman.

I didn't actually know which unborn child I'd be born as. I just knew that Minato would be able to find me.

Our souls and spirit force were so strongly interconnected that we basically knew each other's souls inside and out. We were soul mates, so to say.

Even without my memories, I'd still search for my other half until we could meet again. And he'd know where I was as soon as I was born.

Well, that was the plan until the idiot went and killed himself.

I had needed to take in his energy into myself immediately, and his soul. When he actually became a part of me he realized his new state of being and panicked.

I tried to relax him with my energy and it worked, but he was still uneasy about it.

I was comfortable like this after so many years, but for Minato it was complete out of his comfort zone. I had to admit that sharing this body with someone with a power so close to mine made it quite a bit..stuffy.

So I pushed him into the little soul system I'd created and watched with little amusement as his overpowered soul tumbled into the cleansing river.

From there he would lose his memories and be stripped of the power he'd accumulated. His soul would flow through the soul system(it's a very complicated system okay?), and eventually land into the whipping arm.

I mentally sighed and jumped in after him.

Hopefully we'll find each other again in the next life. I could only leave it to fate.

At least that bitch still did her job.