The Leaking Seal

A/N I've wanted to post something for a while now, but I can never seem to sum up the motivation to do it. I will do my best to update regularly. Any reviews are greatly appreciated! I could really use the advice. I've never tried to write something like this before.

I hope you enjoy!

The Nine-Tailed Fox was a calamity. An unparalleled force of nature. The Fourth Hokage stood against it. Battled it into a standstill, and was now at the cusp of his victory. He wasn't sure if the cost was worth it. If only he had more power he could have prevented this tragedy without having to give so much.

"I hoped for peace..." Minato said quietly to himself, ignoring the screams of the demon and baby in front of him. "I hoped to have the family I never had." He glanced at his dying wife, his expression almost broken, unable to hold back the tears streaming down his face. "I hoped I would never need this seal, that I was never going to have to use it on you," he continued, looking at the baby lying in the basket in front of him. "What I hope doesn't matter, without the power to make it a reality." He looked upward at The Nine-Tailed Fox, the demon being held in place by the chains coming from his wife's body. He saw the death god that he had summoned slowly forcing the beast into the seal he had placed on his son's stomach. Though the Demon fought, he was no match for the power of the entity the Hokage had summoned.

When the sealing was complete, he fell to his knees and cradled his wife to his chest. "I love you so much son, more than anything..." He began to fall. "Hopefully, with this power, you can do what I could not." His eyes then moved back to the form of his crying baby. 'You can make your hopes, a reality.' His vision then went dark. His last wish was to give his son the power to achieve his dreams. The Fourth Hokage of Konohagakure was dead. Holding his wife in his arms, his glassy-eyed stare never left the screaming child in front of him.

The reinstated Third Hokage was tired. More tired than he had ever been in his long, eventful life. None of the wars and none of the battles had left him this drained. In a single hour, he had lost his wife, his successor, and a good chunk of his village. He still couldn't relax because of the malice emanating from the child. A few tears slid down his cheeks.

'You better hurry back Jiraiya...' He thought to himself, gazing out the window.

"There has to be something wrong with it, Jiraiya!" The Third exclaimed. "There is no way the seal should be leaking that much chakra, it's ludicrous!"

The amount of malice emanating from the seal was enough to make them nervous. The fact that it was radiating from a baby made matters all the more confusing for the two shinobi. Jiraiya had just finished examining the seal for any imperfections or breaks in the seal structure, but it was intact.

"I don't know what to tell you, old man," he said. "There's nothing wrong with the seal. It's working as intended. As crazy as it sounds, the seal was made to allow this much chakra through." The sannin shrugged his shoulders. "With how complex the stupid thing is it's a miracle that that's the only problem with it."

The amount of chakra leaking out of the seal was approximately half a tail's worth of chakra. Which in itself wouldn't be too alarming, thought the third Hokage. After all, he's a jinchuriki, right? Of course, he has some bijuu chakra running through him. Still, it was worrying that the seal had not stopped emitting this amount of chakra since the sealing took place.

"Can you fix it?" The Third asked, tone growing quieter. He was at a loss for what to do.

"You can't fix what's not broken, sensei... I don't know if this was how he intended the seal to be, or if this was a mistake. Either way, that seal's staying how it is. If I try and change it, I'll probably just mess it up. Some parts of it are too complicated for me to try and fiddle around with. Minato has long since surpassed me with fuinjutsu." He looked at just as much of a loss as The old Hokage.

"Can you make a new one?" The Third asked, but he knew the answer before Jiraiya told him. He was just voicing their slowly dwindling options.

"And put the Nine-Tails where? No one but an Uzumaki can hold the beast in them." Mito Uzumaki had tried sealing the Nine-Tails inside of a Senju. There wasn't even a body left. "At best my demon suppression seals can only hold down 4 tails of chakra, not to mention that the shock of having the massive amount of chakra removed would probably kill the kid." The Sannin threw his hands up in the air. "There's nothing to be done, sensei. I'm sorry."

They both hung their heads. This man's father had given up everything to save the village, and the only thing they could do for his son was to wait and see. Pathetic.

The room grew quiet, the sleeping baby, and slight malicious intent they could feel emanating from him keeping their attention.

"You must go Jiraiya... pulling you from your duties for even this long is dangerous. We need to know how the other villages are going to react to Minato's death." The Third looked towards Jiraiya, seeing the scowl develop on the toad sage's face. Neither of them liked it, but Jiraiya was maintaining the village's only comprehensive spy network. He was able to stop attacks before they started, and if he couldn't then he could stop them after they started. "Yeah, yeah. I know sensei, nobody as good as me at what I do...doesn't mean I have to like it. I promised Minato I would take care of him... I guess I'll have to protect him by keeping the other villages off of our backs. You better take care of him, old man. " He looked back at his sensei, a rare serious expression on his face.

"I will," the aged Hokage responded.

Jiraiya then leaned down towards the sleeping baby, poking him in the nose. "I'll be off to save the world and woo all the women. For you, Naruto, I will do it all! FOR I AM THE WORLDS MOST HANDSOME AND GALLANT JIRAIYA!" He exclaimed, striking a weird pose and swinging his hair around. The Third sweat dropped... and then the baby began to cry, having been woken up by the noise.

The Third sighed. "You're an idiot, Jiraiya."

A/N And that's a wrap. A small first chapter, more like a long prologue for the story. I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading, and please review!