AN: Heya everyone, this is my first official story which I will be trying out. I don't quite know what to expect or if this will be a success but I would appreciate some constructive comments and criticism throughout so I can improve.
I understand not everything will be accurate according to the manga or anime but that is what fanfics are for so yeah.
I will only say this once which will apply to all chapters onwards - I do not own Naruto or any of its content.
Summary: What if Minato decides to seal the yin version of Kurama instead of the yang version? What if this little change impacts everything?
"Which will it be, human?" the imposing form of the Death God asked the current Hokage, Minato Namikaze, as it floated behind him with one of its demonic cold arms through his stomach and connected to the defeated form of the Kyuubi, the nine-tail demon fox currently held down by various golden chakra chains.
'Fuck! I really can't decide! Do I seal the yin half or the yang half into Naruto?! This wasn't how any of this was meant to turn out!' Minato sighed, observing the carnage around him.
Behind him you could see that although the village suffered heavy casualties and losses, the shinobi finally got the civilians evacuated and have started putting out the literal fires and picking up pieces of rubble and debris. On his left, Kushina Uzumaki his loving wife was laying against a tree heaving and bleeding heavily. Not just did she finish giving birth, not just did she have the Kyuubi ripped out of her, not just is she suffering from a panic attack and low on chakra which already is near impossible due to being an Uzumaki, she is also currently holding down the Kyuubi with the last bits of her chakra manifested into her chakra chains. I guess you could say she is having a pretty shit time right now. Speaking of the Kyuubi, although its 'defeated' form lay right in front him, it was starting to stir again after the Death God's hand grasped it, clearly realising what was about to happen and not wanting to be sealed again.
His hardened gaze softened when he laid his tired eyes on his newly born son on his left with Gerotora patiently waiting for Minato's decision. See, Gamabunta informed the toads of Mt. Myoboku what the situation was regarding their latest summoner after he returned to the summoning realm once the Kyuubi was restrained enough. As a result, Gerotora was summoned in order to hold the key once Minato was done with the sealing. Although not a combat toad, he was currently watching Minato's son in order to prevent any further harm occurring to him. How effective the scroll toad could be at protecting Naruto? Now that is something Gerotora and Minato wished would not be tested tonight.
Speaking of Naruto, by some miracle or another, the new-born was able to sleep through the whole ordeal but only after Minato was able to save his son from the masked man. 'That's another thing, just who was this masked attacker?'. His thoughts were disrupted by the Kyuubi in front of him breaking through some of Kushina's chains and his was not able to last much longer.
"Shinigami-sama! The yin half please. Seal the yin half into my son. Mainly because I hope that with time and the stronger he gets he will be ab-", Minato started only to have his face etched into a silent scream as the Shinigami started the sealing process.
"I do not care for your reasoning, human. The yang half will be sealed into you and the yin into your infant, although the beast seems to have a different idea", the Death God grumbled. Minato looked ahead trying to understand what it meant and saw the Kyuubi's eyes set on his son. Realising what this meant, Minato mustered his remaining strength and life force to rush in front of Naruto, Kushina seems to have had the same realisation as the parental duo stood protectively over their son as the Kyuubi's gigantic claw was reaching them.
"Too late Kyuubi", Kushina allowed herself some satisfaction even as she and Minato found themselves impaled and knew this would be the end. The Kyuubi's claw was literal millimetres from reaching her son and if it wasn't for the Shinigami finally finishing the sealing, she wasn't so sure two human piles of meat would have been enough to stop the claw from finishing the intended job. She briefly turned her head as much as she could to glance at her beautiful son for what would be the last time, Gerotora just finishing dispelling as Minato gave him some final instructions and faintly heard him yell 'FUIN'. However, Kushina didn't care about her surroundings right now, even as she could see the Kyuubi being split in two and sealed off, all she could do right now is think about her son and everything she would miss out on. Kushina knew Naruto's life was going to experience difficulties but she had to put faith into Minato's idea, even though every fibre of her being disagreed and didn't trust the villagers one bit, speaking from her own experience as a jinchuriki.
"I love you my little baby/I love you my son", Kushina and Minato were able to wheeze out and with one final silent prayer and breath, the lifeless forms of some of Konoha's bravest shinobi fell, with the threat of the Kyuubi taken care of and the Shinigami disappearing.
(A few seconds later)
This was the scene Hiruzen Sarutobi walked into. He felt ashamed and embarrassed for allowing himself to be convinced by Minato to let him carry out his plan like this. He had argued and begged Minato to let him be the one to do the sealing and carry this burden but Minato argued back that Hiruzen doesn't have the strength left in him to carry out the sealing and as a hokage and parent he cannot ask anyone else to sacrifice himself. With a heavy heart, Hiruzen had relented at the time but was questioning his decision right now on whether or not it was the right decision he made, or rather allowed to be made.
"Poor little Naruto, I am truly sorry for tonight. I am sorry I wasn't able to do more", Hiruzen started as a lone tear fell from his aged eyes. His statement was fairly true, although not doing more for Naruto, following his promise to Minato to not get involved, Hiruzen took charge of organising the village and trying to resettle some form of peace between the shinobi and civilians. Speaking of the village he will have to take charge of again, a different thought plagued his mind, 'I need to find a way to handle the council. This will most definitely be split between the civilian council looking to kill the poor boy and the shinobi council looking to adopt him for personal gain or guilt towards his parents…hmmm' Hiruzen was deep in thought before his Anbu commander arrived before him, kneeling on one knee until the third Hokage gestured for him to speak.
"Hokage-sama, the situation isn't as dire as we thought thanks to your intervention and the fourth's choices. Other than structural damage and the initial losses we suffered, from the sudden appearance from the Kyuubi, we lost approximately 10% of our population with most of them being civilians due to the shinobi living predominantly near to the edge of the village and the attacker chose to summon the Kyuubi in the centre thinking it will have more time to do damage" the dog masked Anbu started. A dry chuckle escaped the lips of the third Hokage, 'looks like you really knew what you were doing in the end, if it wasn't for you and your quick thinking, this could have been a lot worse' he thought solemnly.
"Thank you, I want all active shinobi to continue with reparations and calming civilians. Other than me and you, no one is to know yet that little Naruto is Minato's son or even anything to do with the sealing, currently only us two know what has happened and for now this will remain as so. I will keep him under my care for the time being but even I know this won't be permanent." Knowing his orders were simple enough, Hiruzen did not even bother asking if Dog understood. With a flick of his hand, the Anbu commander left as silently and quickly as he came. Hiruzen gently picked up Naruto and shunshined away, ready for the oncoming headache that he is certain will follow soon.
What was missed by both with all that was happening around them, was the figure hidden in the trees masking their presence that disappeared after them. The interesting thing to note was that in appearance the figure was dressed in traditional Anbu uniform whilst also wearing a dog mask, however the difference being that this mask had the symbol for 'ROOT' engraved on it.
(A Few Hours Later)
'Eeeeuuuuggghhhh, Minato I swear to Kami-sama, if it wasn't for the circumstances of your death, I would use Tobirama-sensei's jutsu to drag your ass back here myself to deal with these idiots', the, now reinstated, Third Hokage thought tiredly. You see, whilst mentally Hiruzen Sarutobi was cursing the council in front him using every colourful word in his vocabulary, physically he's held an impassive face as the shinobi and civilian council have been nonstop screaming for actions and explanations. Now usually, no one would dare begin speaking until the Hokage themselves would address them. That's how it was all the way back to the time of the Shodaime, Hashirama Senju. For Hashirama, it was easy, everything was still fairly new and no one really knew what they needed or wanted in regards to the village. Following in his brother's footsteps, the Nidaime Hokage, Tobirama Senju also had it easy but for different reasons. Unlike the reign of the first hokage, the second hokage chose to be much stricter and almost strip the civilian council of their power and mainly listen and take advise from the shinobi council, whilst this had been mainly due to the wars and conflicts at the time, one cannot deny it caused Tobirama less headaches and allowed for maximum efficiency. During his own reign, the power begin shifting. At the beginning of Sarutobi's leadership the civilian council remained almost powerless until the era of peace started, well as peaceful as power hungry shinobi would allow, so as a result he allowed some of the civilians more input and say into the council. What he did not realise was how quickly this would backfire. With his age increasing and him growing more lax, the civilian council began abusing their power more and becoming more sneaky such as lowering the academy standard to allow more civilians to pass and thus increase their household name as shinobi.
Hence the appointment of Minato Namikaze as the Fourth Hokage. Everyone knew Minato was a guarantee for Hokage and between the two of them, Hiruzen and Minato knew it would be time for the Third to retire and let someone younger take the reigns and try to rectify the mistakes of the previous generation. It was beginning to work too, well up until a few hours ago. But we digress. 'The new generation is always meant to be greater than the previous one, I truly am sorry Minato,' Hiruzen sighed, 'now how do we deal with this predicament. I could just shout and gain their attention but I feel like that wouldn't make a statement, they need to understand their role again and the position and value I hold that comes with the title of the Hokage, enough is enough'.
No one was paying attention to the aged Hokage, even the usually respectful Hyuga head, Hiashi. For someone who's clan pride themselves on etiquette and proper proceedings, he was currently defending his clan and himself from one of the civilian council members accusing his clan for not keeping better watch of the village and allowing a mountain high demon fox to appear in centre although they have their 'all mighty seeing eye' and even throwing some remarks on how the Hyuga clan might actually be blind. Again, no one was paying attention except for one Shikaku Nara, who was not actively getting involved in any debates, mainly because everyone knows getting into any sort of argument with a Nara was useless because they'd either outsmart you with a well thought of argument or they'd be too lazy to argue back. Instead of getting involved in anything, Shikaku was analysing everything that was going on and like any experienced Nara would do, coming up with plans and contingencies. He was observing the Inuzuka clan head, Tsume, arguing with Mebuki Haruno over her excessively loud voice, the Hyuga argument and one of the elders Danzo Shimura, who no one trusted anyways, blaming Fugaku Uchiha and his clan for the Kyuubi attack due to sharingan pattern that was seen in the demon's eyes. But what really attracted his attention was the Hokage, who seemed to be going through some internal dialogue initially, had gained an ice cold look into his eyes and began lowering his right hand, which had been resting against his face, onto his desk slowly. Shikaku, having seen this, braced himself for what he deduced was going to happen and he was proven right as not even a second later the room was flooded with an aura so strong that even the unexpected shinobi council members were forced to almost bow down their heads and calm their nerves but dared not to even look into the eyes of the Third Hokage's from the pure power that radiated from him. The civilian council were not that lucky as all of them had passed out.
Hiruzen, seeing that Shikaku was fairing better than his counterparts, allowed for a small unnoticeable smirk to grace his wrinkled face, 'Of course you'd expect something like this and prepare a plan', he thought before choosing to address the council, "Enough". That was all that was needed to silence the room completely and for the Sandaime to remove his aura from the room and allowing the shinobi to breathe a little easier again and actually look up, whilst the ANBU began waking up the civilian council. "Now, you will speak when spoken to or if I indicate for you to speak, am I clear?", the Third Hokage firmly stated and to reiterate his point, let some of his chakra flare again. "One person from the civilian council will speak and sum up what your concerns are".
"HOKAG-," Mebuki Haruno started before a sharp glare from the Hokage reminded her to lose the magnitude of her shrill voice, "ahem, Hokage-sama, following this attack, we have suffered greatly! Many of our businesses and shops were destroyed either directly from the Kyuubi or from the resulting struggle. We demand so-" her speech was cut short as she suddenly found the sharp end of a tanto blade pointed at her throat. No one saw any movement until the blade was at the neck, this included the shinobi clan heads. The Dog masked ANBU commander made his presence known by speaking from behind Mebuki, "you don't demand from the Hokage, you ask politely and respectfully. Everything else will be deemed as treason, am I clear?" Afraid of even nodding too heavily, Mebuki gave a very small head nod.
"Now now Dog, I am sure everyone now understands the position they are in, so you can allow her to breathe a little easier. However, should something like this happen again, I give you permission to spill some blood" and just how he appeared, Dog vanished again but everyone knew he was still around as part of the Hokage's protection team. The other thing everyone started realising, was that this isn't the same Hiruzen Sarutobi they exploited at the time of his tenure. "So this is the situation, we lost approximately 10% of our population following this attack. Yes, most of the initial losses were from the civilian side with some of the shinobi losses stemming from the first contact with the Kyuubi before Minato managed to transport it outside of the village", continuing on before he could get interrupted, "whilst I understand that everyone is currently not in the best spot, however that does not give the right for all of you to try and be at each other's throat. Now first and foremost, there will be a funeral service for everyone who lost their lives including our beloved Yondaime." Everyone's head lowered at this reminder, whether you were civilian or shinobi, the Yondaime Hokage was a breath of fresh air and everyone held some love for him, his passing hit a nerve in everyone's heart. "Second, there will be changes again, or rather reformation of the past rules regarding the council. The civilian council will only have a say in terms of civilian matters, and even then I will have final ruling. No decision will be passed without my say so. To add to this, from now on when discussing shinobi matters, the civilian council will be dismissed. Now-"
"You can't do this! Have you gone insa-" one of the civilian council members started, just to have his vision do a full of 180o with everything turning upside down. The reason being for this, Dog appearing and removing the head of the council members before disappearing as quickly. Screams followed from the civilian council before they were quickly silenced by the Third Hokage directly leaking some KI this time to stop them quickly,
"Quiet. Now as I was saying, all shinobi will be ordered to help with the reparations of course the civilians will be helping too. As for the heads of different civilian sections, you will be in charge of summing up the damages and what is needed. Now before I dismiss you, the unanswered question you had regarding the Kyuubi – we do not know how it appeared, however, what we do know is that the Yondaime killed the beast before losing his life too. Now begone." The tone he used left no room for any debate or argument and the earlier statement carried out by Dog left no opening for the civilian council to try and exploit.
Once the civilians left and the Sandaime ordered for an ANBU to dispose of the civilian council member's body, he turned to address the shinobi council, his three advisers still being present beside him. "Now for those of you who have any deep understanding of chakra and the tailed beasts, you will know that chakra can't be destroyed and since the Kyuubi is a massive entity of chakra, it clearly can't be destroyed either", everyone was nodding their head because unlike the civilian council, they already figured out as much. Continuing on, "what you don't know is that Minato sealed the Kyuubi into Naruto, his and Kushina's newborn son. I am not going to insult your intelligence by keeping this a secret from you, you would all figure this out one way or another. HOWEVER, I am making this very clear right now, the information of Naruto being a jinchuriki and the son of Minato and Kushina will be the current highest-level secret in the village. If any of this information comes out, not just will be the person responsible be executed but also anyone you and they will have told, am I clear?!" finishing of his statement the Hokage released most of his KI which not just made his point by cracking walls and tables whilst making the shinobi council feel nauseas and on the verge of collapse.
After a couple of seconds, he chose to release his KI which then allowed for Shikaku to speak up, who would be the shinobi equivalent of Mebuki – in the sense that he tends to speak for the collective council, not equivalent in their levels of voice magnitude. "Hokage-sama, what is the plan for little Naruto then? I am guessing none of us will be allowed to adopt him or take care of him, due to the imbalance this would cause among the clans by having such a powerful ally in their ranks. Now this isn't me calling Naruto a weapon or anything of the like, but I would be lying if I said this thought won't have crossed the mind of some," Shikaku stated analytically, however the slightly narrowed eyes of Fugaku and Danzo did not go unnoticed by Hiruzen or Shikaku.
"That was a very accurate analysis, but of course I wouldn't expect anything less from you. You are right though, Naruto will be entered into the orphanage under the Uzumaki surname until he is old enough to take care of himself and enrol the academy. Now that this topic has been answered, I do want to discuss the academy. I want each of you to make suggestions for the improvement of the academy, like I said earlier, we have been too lax and things need to and will change. However its been a long day and I need to wind down too and set up Naruto, so go home, be with your clan, look after your families I expect the reports in a week. Danzo, stay behind".
"Now, I'm not going to beat around the bush, I know about you and ROOT and the fact you haven't disbanded them. I am going to make this very clear though, if anything happens to Naruto, and I mean ANYTHING – a piece of his hair can be out of place. I promise on Kami-sama, Shinigami-sama and any other deity that might exist that I will personally rain hellfire on you and your organisation until every last one of them, including you, is terminated. Am I clear?!"
Danzo at this point, although outwardly impassive and stoic, inwardly was going through a range of emotions. On one hand he was quite impressed with how Hiruzen had ran everything and even addressed him, the last time he saw this side of his old teammate, he was still being called the Professor and God of Shinobi. On the other hand, he was seething, because this reformed Hiruzen had also essentially disrupted his plans for the perfect weapon. Choosing to play it safe for now though and not willing to risk facing the wrath of the Third Hokage, he played along, "of course Hokage-sama" he forced out the honorific "I wouldn't dream of it. If that is all I will dismiss myself," with a flick of his wrist Hiruzen dismissed Danzo. Once he was certain Danzo was gone and he was alone in the meeting room he called out for Dog again.
"Keep an eye on him as well as the other council members, I want to make sure no one is trying anything funny" he stated before dismissing the commander and then getting up himself to finally go home and spend the remaining night with Naruto as the next day was going to be hectic following the repercussions of the Kyuubi they faced a few hours ago.
AN: Couple of things:
1.My memory isn't going to be the best of the Naruto anime and manga, its been years since they finished, that will be probably why there will be some inaccuracies – that being said, it won't be anything too noticeable I hope.
2.I am not going to give too much away in terms of pairing etc yet, just because I haven't quite decided that part yet, open for suggestions though.
3. I am approximating a village's population. I've set it at 100,000 just cos it's a nice number. Now obviously some villages will be smaller, especially if you're not in the top 5, but even then, the split will be slightly different between villages. For example, Suna will probably have a bit less than 100,000 due to being a bit smaller. A village like Kumo will be more shinobi based than civilian etc, you get the point.
In my opinion shinobi village have approximately 100,000 in Konoha. Since the peaceful era, the split is approx 60/40 between civilians and shinobi. Of this 40,000 – approx. 1,000 ANBU, 4,500 Jonin, 2,000 Tokubetsu Jonin, 25,500 Chunin, 1,500 Genin and then approximately 5,500 support ninja – these include medic ninjas, messenger ninjas, retired shinobi etc.
My reasoning behind this is: ANBU are the most elite shinobi so there would be less of them, with Chunin making up most of the grunt work in the village so hence having the most. I put three times as many Jonin than Genin just because if every Jonin decided to pick up a team, the maths would work out.
Again, I know this isn't necessarily accurate, its just based off what I think a village is consisting of. Also, if for example Minato or the third Raikage had battled thousands of people, these would obviously not be the whole village resource so yeah.
One last thing, please leave some form of review, good or bad or just whatever. I am curious and although the next chapter is half way written already, these things will spur me on faster.
