Cloak of the Yondaime
By: EDelta88
Rate T because I never got around to adding the sex
[Insert Disclaimer Here]
Background and Beginning Notes
Well, I'm at it again. This particular Drabble is actually my token effort at a challenge that I played with for awhile that threw around the ideas of Minato being sealed along with the Kyuubi (please note that this idea predated Blondaime's appearance in canon).
Eventually the thought became a What If scenario where the seal wasn't so much a fail-safe as it was a roundabout means of attacking and actually KILLING Kyuubi in a certain sense. The idea drew on the generally accepted idea that in a mindscape the mind with the stronger will lives and who has a stronger will than a parent protecting their child? The reasoning was that in canon Minato lost and the seal continued as a last resort.
This is what I envisioned for if Minato won.
Prolog
Drip...
Drip...
Drip...
"Where am I?" Naruto muttered looking around, a second ago he was in the woods, he'd seen that ninja carrying that shy girl from his academy class, something he was sure the guy wasn't supposed to be doing, then the next thing he knew he was here in this... dungeon? Sewer? He wasn't sure.
Drip...
Drip...
Drip...
"Naruto..." a voice whispered from down the hall.
"What in the..." Naruto muttered as he walked toward where he heard the voice.
Later that night Hyuuga Hinata would claim that she had been saved from Kumo's ambassador who had abducted her from her bedroom by the ghost of the Yondaime Hokage. In the ensuing chaos caused by the ambassador's death and his supposed kidnapping attempt most would brush this claim off as simply her childish imagination playing tricks on her or that she had simply dreamed it.
In the next weeks Kumo would refuse to accept any fault and would demand compensation in the form of Hyuuga Hiashi's corpse, the man who had been first on the scene and the man they held responsible. To avoid war, protect his village's secrets, save his brother, and most importantly choose his own destiny Hyuuga Hizashi, Hiashi's twin brother, would take Hiashi's place.
Few would understand the subtle intricacies of exactly what the Sandaime Hokage had done. Most would view his actions as a cowardly attempt to avoid war by sacrificing one of his own. In truth he had subtly dealt a crippling blow to the Village Hidden in the Clouds as certain details of the indecent filtered into the populous of the Elemental Nations. When word of Kumo's conduct under parley got around they would be barred from any form of peaceful entry into any Hidden Village, preventing them from being involved in any foreign Chunnin Examination tournaments. Rumors of how they had planned to turn an innocent child into a lab rat and brood mare would incense nearly everyone who heard them. Whispers of how Kumo had used peace talks to attempt to kidnap a little girl from her bed would destroy all credibility that they held. Business men would take their contracts elsewhere not wanting Kumo's new found reputation for deceit to taint their dealings. Mothers would spit at the feet of their shinobi and call them child abusers and rapists. It would be decades before Kumo could hope to recover.
Not long after business with Kumo was settled another disturbing fact was discovered. Uzumaki Naruto, the current Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko, was missing. The investigation that followed this discovery would turn up next to nothing. Many would feel it a blessing to be rid of the constant reminder of the Kyuubi's rampage. Some would fear that he had made his escape and was plotting revenge. Still others would fear if he had been kidnapped by their enemies and would be turned against them. A select few would worry about his well being and hope that wherever he was he was alright.
Years would pass and Konoha would be struck by tragedy again, this time in the form of the near complete genocide of the Uchiha clan.
In the confusion of the aftermath few would notice as a young blond boy quietly reintegrated himself into his academy class. Few people even noticed his return, fewer still would pay him any mind, most simply writing it off and saying that he had wandered off and somehow found his way back. One of those select few that did take notice would be a young girl, one of his classmates, when his face sparked a memory of a boy standing inside a ghost to save her from her captor.
Chp ?: Mine's Bigger Than Yours
(Naruto's match with Neji up to and including Neji's fate/seal speech)
"You don't have any idea what it's like to be branded with a seal you can never be rid of! That controls your life! Your fate!" Neji spat, but then Naruto did something he and no one else had ever expected.
Naruto laughed.
Hysterical, mirthless, haunting laughter that filled the arena, echoing back and forth until it sounded like it was coming from every direction all at once. "I don't know what it feels like to have a seal he says…" Naruto chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye as he straightened up.
"What's he doing?" Sakura asked, she didn't get an answer. Every Konoha adult in the stands was frozen as they watched Naruto's every move.
"Let me tell you a story Hyuuga Neji," Naruto said as he finally calmed down. "A little over twelve years ago a sentient mass of chakra known as the Kyuubi no Yoko attacked our village for unknown reasons. The story goes that after a drawn out battle the Yondaime somehow defeated it," Naruto spoke.
"What? Why's he bringing that up? That's the same story Iruka sensei told us," Sakura wondered, furrowing her brow in confusion.
"Sentient mass of chakra..." Hinata muttered the cogs in her head spinning at blinding speeds.
"To our generation," Naruto continued, as he started to casually pace his side of the arena, "that's where the story ends and, through a great deal of word play in our text books and a massive lie of omission, most of us assumed the Kyuubi to be dead," at this Naruto looked directly into Neji's eyes. "Tell me Neji, how do you kill energy?" he asked.
"No," Hinata whispered in absolute horror.
"What? What is it?" Ino asked but Naruto continued his narrative.
"The correct answer," Naruto continued, "is that you can't. You could disperse it perhaps, but in the case of the Biju that is near impossible and even then it would reform in a matter or years. So we are left with the question 'Where did the Kyuubi go?'" At this Naruto lifted this shirt and channeled a very minute amount of chakra revealing an intricate seal array covering his stomach. "He was sealed into the one thing that could hold him, a member of the Uzumaki clan."
As Sakura, Ino, Hinata, and many others stared dumbfounded at the seal on Naruto things began to fall into place, the stares, the whispers, everything made sense.
"And for just about everyone else that's where it ends, Namikaze Minato seals monster in kid, game, set, match, blah, blah, blah, a very heroic and tragic end for our honored Hokage, etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth," Naruto said, waving his hand dismissively. "But in truth it's only the beginning really..."
That got everyone's attention.
"You see, the purpose of the seal was not to imprison Kyuubi but rather to put the Yondaime and Kyuubi on equal footing," Naruto explained as he continued to casually walk his edge of the arena. "No jutsu, no tails, no summons, no breath weapons, no nothing. Nothing but their very essences. Mind verse mind, will verse will, Hokage verse Kyuubi, Minato verse Kurama," he said making a gesture with each hand to represent each side. "The imprisonment function was just fail safe in place so that even if the he should fail to destroy Kyuubi's mind Minato's seal would hold allowing the container, me," Naruto said pointing at himself absently, "to hold the Kyuubi back. He wanted me to be considered a hero for that," he said before absently adding, "shame being a war hero, Hokage, and martyr doesn't get you half as far as it used to."
The entire audience was dumbfounded to say the least but Naruto wasn't done… and more than a few of them looking ashamed.
"Now I have one more question for you Hyuuga Neji and this one's the real kicker," Naruto spoke in a deadly calm as he began to glow a pale yellow chakra that swirled around him like a gentle fire, "How do you think I know all this?"
At that moment a rolling chill swept over the crowd as the chakra washing off Naruto began to take shape.
"The answer is," Naruto said once the pale chakra finished taking shape and there, now standing behind Naruto, was the ghostly silhouette of the deceased Yondaime Hokage, "fathers always have things to tell their sons," Naruto finished as he dropped into a loose ready stance, his father mirroring his movements.
"What have we done..." a civilian woman whispered into the silence.
End Notes
I only ever wrote one scene for this, mostly because I realized about half-way through this that the majority of the story would be Naruto running circles around his opponents and dramatic scenes that had been done already.
Funny thing is that the idea for his later Jinchuuriki Cloak form was a cloak like the one his father wore... kinda flattering because that showed up in canon. So, either great minds think alike or the idea was good enough to steal.
Either way, there you have it.
-Delta