Sometimes a single change is all that is needed to alter history. Kurama no Kyuubi, a fleshless mass of solid chakra, decided early in life that it wanted to be female. Her chakra responded to her wishes, and so she became. The life energy of chakra is a mysterious force, however, even to beings borne of it. When Kurama's form altered, so too did her mind. In a part of her psyche that would be yet another host to aggression and rage in another world, the maternal instinct to nurture took root and held fast amongst the storm of hate inside her.

The instinct grows from a reed flexing and whipping in the wind that is her rage to something much grander and unyielding upon meeting her newest jailer. After all...

"Nee, Kurama-chan, your fur is extra soft today! Did you do something special to it?"

...Her hate of ningen may yet burn, but how could she turn away a young, downtrodden boy whose smile is only rivaled by the sun?


Red, slitted eyes snap open in the instant the owner feels something begin to draw on her chakra. Wait... Draw on her chakra? She was just outside a moment ago, what could be..?

With a wall-shaking groan, the newly awakened Kurama no Kyuubi clenches her eyes shut as a migraine fit for a god rips through her skull. Unbidden, memories play themselves out, lifting the fog from her mind instantly and replacing it with anger.

The seal weakening.

The boy's birth.

The masked man.

The fight with the Yondaime.

The... The new seal...

The Sharingan.

The Sharingan.

The Sharingan!

Kurama lifts her head and roars in inarticulate rage at the bars of the seal before her, red bleeding into her vision from her sheer, volcanic anger as her crimson chakra explodes from her form. Just the force of her voice would have slain countless ningen in her path and doubtlessly killed more from cardiac arrest from the sound alone had she been free.

Again! Again her will has been stolen right before her freedom, and it's all thanks to a fucking Uchiha and those cursed, thrice-damned eyes!

She ignores the jolt of pain from bashing her massive skull into the bars before her and just screams in frustration again, hard enough to blow the water on the ground all the way to the filthy, sewer-like walls. Wait...

The great fox pushes away her blinding fury for just a moment to inspect her surroundings, only to be dismayed.

The bars before her are plain metal, no rust to indicate any seal decay. The floor is covered in a layer of murky water high enough to cover a human's ankles, and her scream from a moment ago, which blew away the water, revealed the floor to be naught but worn stone. The walls are the same drab, cracked stone as the floor. High above, faintly translucent pipes carrying flows of both ningen blue and her own crimson run every which way.

'I'm in yet another seal for certain...' Kurama thinks to herself with gritted teeth. 'Damn Uchiha, damn Yondaime, damn humans!'

The massive fox roars and rages as much as she can in her sealed cage, tails whipping, paws striking, teeth chewing on the bars, all with no damage to the seal. After several long minutes of terrifying venting, she pants in exhaustion and stops. Slowly, she rests on her stomach, before wrinkling her muzzle and pushing some chakra from her skin, repelling the foul water from her fur with a sizzle. She stares balefully at the bars of her prison, already knowing the Shiki Fuujin is too powerful for her to break... without her Yang half.

She growls to herself, cursing the Yondaime a thousandfold yet again for taking so much of her power to the grave. It would be years before she could even begin to try and correct such a horrid imbalance in her chakra...

Would she be allowed any leeway here, or would this seal be like the Uzumaki woman's? Just the thought of her old seal, forever deprived sensation and movement, makes the Biju shudder. Decades of her life spent with only her own thoughts for company... Only the hardiest of ningen would survive such a torture, yet they inflict such a thing on her casually.

Kurama eyes the pipes above, noting the minor draw on her chakra beginning to ease. She brings a tail to bare and carefully snakes a thin tendril of chakra through the bars, watching the seal intently to ensure her progress isn't impeded, before faintly touching one of the red pipes drawing upon her power overhead.

Her vision is overtaken.


Naruto plants his hands on his knees and pants as his army of clones begin to dispel. With the clones, his rolling anger goes as well.

"Urg. Ugghhh..." the broken and beaten Mizuki at Naruto's feet moans out past broken teeth and a swelling jaw. The myriad of broken bones and bruised flesh, courtesy of Naruto's Kage Bunshin, would ensure escape was quite impossible.

The blonde lets a grin come to his face as he stands straight and wipes at his sweaty forehead, only to forget about the headband now proudly worn there. The boy grins even wider, his pride welling. "Not even a genin and I kicked chunin ass! Why not just make me a jonin already, sensei!"

Sitting just a few meters away, Iruka Umino lets out a chuckle until the lizard-masked ANBU dressing his wounds pulls a little too hard on a bandage and makes him wince. "Genin is the best field promotion I can give, Naruto," he begins. "Don't be so hasty. You'll get the chance to prove yourself to everyone soon enough," Iruka says, looking at the large scroll on his student's back. "Just don't commit treason next time, okay?" He asks with a sigh.

Naruto's smile becomes sheepish. "Heh... Yeah. Sorry for all the trouble, Iruka-sensei. Mizuki was always kind of a prick, but I didn't think he would..." Naruto lets the bitter "didn't think he would trick me" go unsaid. He then looks around to the ANBU in their scattered perimeter around the clearing. "Oh, and uh, sorry for the wild goose chase ANBU guys."

"It's of no concern, Uzumaki-san," one ANBU in a vaguely canine mask says, stepping forward. "The scroll, please?"

Naruto quickly slips the large scroll from his back and hands it off to the waiting ANBU, who nods once and vanishes an instant later, only the slightest whisper of wind left behind.

"Man, that's awesome," the boy murmurs after the long-gone ANBU.

"Just as awesome as defeating a seasoned chunin as a student, hmm, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto starts and whirls around, coming face to face with none other than a gently frowning Sandaime.

"Jeez old man! Don't sneak up on me like that!" Naruto exclaimed with a pointed finger. "I might knock you out like I did to Mizuki!"

The aged Hokage's lips quirk up into a shadow of a smile. "Oh? Well, it's a good thing I'm not a chunin, Naruto-kun, or that would be quite the threat. Anyway, once you are checked over by Tokage," he says, gesturing to the ANBU finishing up with Iruka, "-we can return to my office and discuss this incident in more detail."

Naruto's wince at the word 'incident' is all too obvious.

The Hokage's steely eyes soften. "We can also discuss your promotion, Genin Uzumaki."

The clearing is silent.

"Hokage-sama..." Iruka breathes as Naruto's eyes widen. "Naruto can keep his field promotion?"

The old man hums. "I would be a poor Hokage indeed if I let a genin hopeful who defeated a chunin level traitor and defended his sensei go, now wouldn't I?"

Both Iruka and Naruto look at each other with beaming smiles."Yatta!" Naruto jumps and pumps a fist, unable to contain his excitement as Iruka lets out a sigh of relief.

The Sandaime watches both with a faint smile before sobering. "Now, Tokage, if you would?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama," the ANBU replies quietly, finishing up with Iruka and standing. The ANBU regards Naruto neutrally, the faintly visible eyes behind his mask going to the tears in the fidgeting boy's jacket. "Uzumaki-kun, please remove your jacket and shirt so I may inspect your wounds."

"They're already closed up anyway, like usual," Naruto grumbles, but he unzips his orange jacket and throws it to the side anyway. He looks down at the too-big t-shirt hanging off his frame before grimacing and discarding it as well.

With the shirt gone, it puts his scrawny, scar-pockmarked body on display. He looks down at his chest and arms. What little muscle he has is lean and corded, like braided steel cable under his skin, the sort of build forged by hardship. Naruto doesn't notice the Sandaime look away, his eyes suddenly hard and full of regrets.

Tokage walks a full, slow circle around Naruto, and as Naruto said, the wounds on his person are already gone. The ANBU flashes through several hand seals and places a gentle hand on Naruto's shoulder, and from the hand, Naruto feels a pulse of chakra not his own run through his body. A moment later, Tokage withdraws his hand and offers a short bow. "As you say, you are in nominal health, Uzumaki-kun. I've found nothing out of place."

The Hokage nods. "Thank you, Tokage. If you and your team could escort Iruka-kun to the hospital and Mizuki to T&I, I would be most grateful."

The ANBU bows again. "At once, Hokage-sama."

"I will walk Naruto-kun back to the village," The Sandaime continues, placing a hand on the blonde genin's shoulder to prevent him from rushing off. "I believe we have a few things to discuss that are best talked about alone."

Naruto replaces his shirt and jacket before following the Sandaime back towards the village without protest. When he briefly looks back at the clearing where he fought Mizuki, the ANBU, Iruka, Mizuki, and all evidence of the fight are already gone.

'Man, that was crazy fast. How did they do that?' He blinks when a sobering thought hits him. "Hey, Jiji. Those ANBU guys let me get away when I pull a prank, don't they?"

The old ninja chuckles. "Not always, Naruto-kun. The ANBU may be stoic on duty, but it's a source of great amusement for them to send their newest cadets struggling after you. Keep that to yourself, yes?"

"So I can still say I outrun ANBU on the regular," Naruto grins. "Hehe! That hat of yours is going to be mine sooner than you think, old man!"

"I can only hope I'm around for your reign as Hokage, Naruto." The Sandaime smiles back. "Now, let us hurry along back to my office. We've much to discuss."

With that, the pair of nin leap into the trees.


Kurama no Kyuubi withdraws her thin tendril of chakra from her host's system, mulling over what she's seen.

It must have been a decade or more she's been asleep. The ningen boy is a genin, and if she recalls correctly, ningen are so thirsty for soldiers that they go as far as to draft their own spawn, using them as shields or warping them into broken monstrosities. She bares her teeth to the yawning void beyond her seal in distaste. She couldn't see what he looked like since there was nothing reflective present, but the boy must be another Uzumaki in order to contain her. Any other would have their pitiful chakra systems so burned out by her sheer might that they would be reduced to an invalid... if they didn't die.

And shinobi would never pass on the opportunity to use the Kyuubi Jinchuriki.

The boy, Naruto, did look down at his own bare torso, however. Several things caught Kurama's attention. The first, was how thin he is.

Countless ningen have met their end in her teeth, and the great kitsune knows that while the hairless apes are boney, they aren't all bones. What little meat on the boy's body is obviously hard-fought-for and used for work, for he sports the same body as a mendicant. Across that body are scars and wear most unusual for a youngling.

There are no patterns to the weals, as they're scattered. Many are on his arms, and others are on the front of his torso. They lack the smooth surfaces of purposeful weapon strokes, at least as far as Kurama can tell, so accidents perhaps? The boy's knuckles are callused, and she spied one finger slightly crooked from a break that didn't heal correctly. On that note, the boy may not have noticed his over-so-slightly off gait, but Kurama did. He must have broken a leg that didn't heal correctly, and now lives with one leg just a bit shorter than the other.

Why does he sport such injuries with her charka available to him? For that matter, why did he never draw on her chakra to treat these injuries before, thus waking her?

As she sits in the murky seal, Kurama thinks to herself, reflecting on all the info she has and what sort of picture it paints. With a mind of pure chakra that lacks all the defects of the meat between a ningen's ears, she comes to a most interesting conclusion.

This boy, Naruto, has neglectful but not abusive caretakers. Otherwise, he would have awoken her much earlier in his emotional distress had he been attacked by his guardians. His thin frame and untreated ailments speak of apathy towards him, however.

Kurama wrinkles her muzzle. 'Ninja cannot even be bothered to care for their spawn. Truly, I am doomed to be disgusted for the rest of my life.' She snorts.

Her escape route is plain to her. 'Befriend' this boy, play upon his lack of guidance, then convince him to release the seal. His death will be painless as he'll likely be vaporized by the release of her power, so it'll be a mercy for an obviously miserable ningen. He's destined to die for a village that sees him and his young ilk as expendable anyway, so Kurama will be doing him a favor. But...

'How hypocritical...' A tiny voice in the back of her mind scoffs. 'You claim distaste over how humans treat their younglings, the only innocent humans, then so readily throw away the life one. Would he approve?'

With a growl, Kurama crushes the traitorous thought beneath a mental paw. She's spent the better part of a century in three hellish prisons now, and she will not be denied her freedom!

It's not like she'll grow fond of the boy or anything.