Author's Note: Okay, so I've got an issue. I have a tendency to come up with story ideas faster than I can finish them. Then I start to get in my own head about it thinking stuff like, 'I want to write more about this story, but I still haven't finished any of my other ones.' Then other stuff happens in my life and I just end up not writing anything for over a year. So I have decided that before I try to work on anything else, new or old, I'm only going to be working on this fanfiction until it's done. I will not be writing any new stories and the others will be on hiatus until further notice. I'm really sorry about this but I really need to finish something and I also really wanted to write this. Thanks for understanding. On with the reading.

Chapter 1: A Narrow Escape

Jor-El was many things. A scientist, an expecting father, a soldier. The one thing he considered most accurate about himself now most of all however, was a failure. Brainiac was meant to help not just Krypton with things like resource distribution, but neighboring systems as well. It was never meant to take control of everything. Brainiac hijacked all the weapons, computer systems and star-ships they had. All their technology had turned against Krypton and he was to blame. The resistance had recruited him as a soldier and offered his family protection. Even with the knowledge of Brainiac's weaknesses and their abilities given to them by Rao, they were still losing.

A large company of Kryptonian soldiers led by a tall, blond man with the house of El on his white and black uniform, were racing through space to the yellow star their planet orbited. They were racing against Brainiac who, in a move to end the war permanently, went after their sun in the hopes to turn it into a red star. The effects wouldn't be immediate but from then on they'd be fighting a war of attrition. They could have evacuated the planet, but without their star-ships, the children who hadn't unlocked their power yet would be stranded on a planet with Brainiac, including his unborn son.

As they were starting to outpace Brainiac's ships, Jor-El heard the most terrifying sound in the universe. His wife screamed out to him in fear. "Jor-El!" He looked back to the bunker Lara and his son were in. They were under attack! Brainiac's drones were at the door and the stress had caused her to give birth a few days early. She was clutching the crying baby in her arms, looking exhausted and haggard. One of the drones almost had the last door down and Lara was in no condition to fight. In a split second decision that decided the fate of his home and his family, he abandoned his mission to fly back down to the family he needed to protect. He supposed he could add 'selfish' to the long list of things he was.

There was a loud BOOM as Jor-El landed and the drones stopped tearing down the almost destroyed metal door to try and kill Jor-El. They stood no chance, Brainiac knew this and it didn't matter. It had lured Jor-El away from his post and now it was only a matter of time before the others fell. After destroying the drones, Jor-El tore down the now useless door and made his way to Lara. She called him here and they both knew what that meant for their planet, but neither of them could allow for Kal to get hurt. They spent all but a moment together as a family before a shock-wave tore through the bunker and the light that shone through the door turned blood red.

Kal cried harder and the two knew parents walked outside and looked out towards the sky in fear. It was too late to turn back now the explosion that went off in the core of their star had caused it to expand and because of this, Krypton started to be pulled in. Lara tried to sooth their son while looking to Jor-El. "We need to get off Krypton!" Jor-El shook his head. "Brainiac's satellites would catch almost any ship that exited orbit." He looked down from the sky and saw his wife holding their crying baby, tears falling onto Kal's face. He looked down at his son. Kal was the spitting image of his father. Blonde hair and blue eyes. He had an idea. One that would allow their son to live.

With the diminishing power Rao had given him, Jor-El used his enhanced speed to gather all the parts he could find in the bunker and brought them outside where his family was. Using that same speed he built a small star-ship, only big enough for a baby. After assembling the vessel, they looked at each other with sad expressions. She had figured out based on the size of the ship he was building that it was only for one person. One child. Lara, looking down at Kal-El one last time wrapped in his red baby blanket, kissed him on the forehead and said with a trembling voice, "I love you Kal." There was another tremor as Krypton drew closer to it's destruction. She handed Kal-El to Jor-El and he kissed the top of his son's head as well. "My son. Live."

He set Kal-El down in the arrow shaped star-ship as one last tremor shook the ground and caused Kal-El to start crying again. Both their hearts ached at the sound. The pod's opening closed and launched off into the sky, undetected by Brainiac and guided by an AI copy of Jor-El himself. Lara-Lor-El and Jor-El looked on as the Last Son of Krypton was sent into the sea of stars, hoping he would be alright. They looked at each other one last time and embraced as their planet was destroyed.

Land of Fire - Outskirts

Minato was busy setting up the tent while Kushina was making the fire. They had both managed to get some time off ninja duties for a few days. Minato surprised Kushina with a camping trip since they both loved the outdoors and really needed to get away from things, for a while at least. He was almost done with the tent and Kushina was done with the fire so she was just sitting in front of it, staring at nothing. It was twilight and the stars were beginning to come out by the time Minato finished the tent they'd be sleeping in and he sat next to his wife. Minato wrapped his arm around Kushina and when she didn't respond he said, "This sort of thing, it isn't anyone's fault."

Kushina looked up at him. "I know Minato. I just... I just wish I could blame someone." She laughed bitterly. "Someone that isn't me anyway." They had been trying for a year to have kids. They decided to just get it over with and go to a doctor so they could know what they were doing wrong. It wasn't so much what as it was who. They had mourned the fact they couldn't have children for a few weeks before they went on this trip.

Minato looked up at the sky when he said, "We could adopt, you know." Kushina was thinking much the same thing, however she had wanted to carry Minato's child since she got married. Right now she just wanted to go to bed.

She stood up and kissed him on the cheek, "I think I'll go to bed now, love you." Minato nodded and started roasting marshmallows. She was sleeping quite peacefully for someone who was supposed to be depressed. She was dreaming of tucking a young boy who looked nothing like her or Minato into bed. A young boy that called her 'mommy.' In her dream she went to bed shortly after that which caused her to wake up as most dreams do. She wasn't as saddened by waking up as she thought she'd be. It was because she knew it didn't have to be a dream. She remembered how much she loved the two people that took her in when she had just moved to Konoha and had no one else to look after her. They had treated her like family and, in time, she treated them the same.

Adopting a child who needed a home seemed like a wonderful idea.

She stepped outside, careful not to wake her husband. She sat on one of the logs in front of the embers and poked at it, then threw a log onto it to get it started again. She looked up at the starlit sky and smiled at the small meteor shower taking place. Huh, that one's getting a little close. Indeed it was, the small meteor was slowly but surely growing into a ball of fire. IT'S HEADED THIS WAY! She scrambled over to the tent to wake up Minato while screaming at the top of her lungs, "MINATOGETUPRIGHTNOWWEREGONNADIE!"

Her shouting and the sound of several large objects approaching at mach speed woke Minato up. As he sped out of his tent the fireball got closer and closer until it grazed the trees and past their camp completely, that little moment was followed by a deafening *BOOM* and shock wave that washed over them and knocked down the tent. They both had wide eyed looks on their faces as they processed what happened. Minato was the first to react as he went into Hokage Mode and started to go check out what just landed and see if it hit anyone. Kushina saw he was sprinting off and followed, going into Ninja Mode.

As they approached the crater, following the path of fire and destruction, they stopped with jaws dropped. It was in fact not a hunk of space rock they were expecting but instead a small, metallic and aerodynamic object. They had seen movies of this kind of stuff but never expected anything like this. They decided to slowly get closer not knowing what this truly was and the fact that there was a lot of heat around this place. When they reached the ten foot mark Kushina threw away all caution and made a dash towards the object. Minato got closer to stop her and questioned. "Kushina! What are you doing?! We don't know what that thing is!"

She had a serious and worried expression on her face. "I hear crying."

Minato strained his ears trying to hear what she heard. While he was doing that Kushina got closer. Sure enough, as Minato got closer as well, he could hear a baby crying. He caught up to Kushina and as he did the thing made a noise. "ATMOSFERAJ KONDICOJ RENKONTIS. KAL-EL ESTAS SEKURA."

The doors to the arrow shaped construct opened like a flower petal and sitting inside, wrapped in a red baby blanket and crying as loudly as he can, was a blonde baby. Kushina wasted no time in picking him up and cradling the child, soothing him by rocking him back and forth. Minato just looked at the child and then back to the ship. He sighed to himself as he decided to bring it back with him. He pulled out a scroll and went to work. The ship went away in a poof and Minato put away the scroll. Kushina was already walking back to camp. Minato followed and began talking to her. "Kushina where are you going?"

She didn't even hesitate as she cradled the sleeping baby. "Back to camp."

Minato pressed further. "And then what?"

She looked at him. "And then home."

He was afraid she'd say that. "Kushina we can't just keep random children that fall out of the sky."

She brushed that off while she checked to see if his diaper needed changing. "Why not? If they need a home and someone to take care of them, then why not?"

He was normally very calm. This was not a normal situation but he was careful not to raise his voice too loud. "Because we don't know where it came from. It could have parents, it could-"

She interrupted his rant. "Him. He's a boy."

Minato didn't respond to that for a moment. Kushina continued. "Besides, almost no one knew where I came from. And parents don't put their babies in space ships because they can take care of them."

She wasn't finished. "We can't say we want to adopt, and then abandon a child that needs a home because we don't know where he came from. Imagine we give him to an orphanage and then someone like Danzo or Orochimaru comes along and finds out he's an alien." They both shivered at that. The boy just looked at them with those big blue eyes, trying to understand their conversation. He could pass as Minato's son.

They'd arrived at camp and Kushina started tickling the boy's belly which he found hilarious. Minato watched as the child, that looked remarkably human, laughed as his wife tickled his belly. Minato ran a hand through his blond hair and took a deep breath. "We need to do a DNA test first. To see if he really is...what we think he is. I'll talk to the Hokage when we get back and have some documents forged. We also need to tell him and Jiraiya about where we found him."

Kushina nodded her head enthusiastically. "Of course, of course. He also needs a name."

Minato chuckled to himself a little about the absurdity of the situation they were in. "For now let's go back to sleep. I can tell the little guy is also tired." Indeed, the young alien had fallen asleep again during their conversation. Minato set the tent back up and the next day the boy was hungry, so Minato sped off to a settlement a few miles off to get some baby food. Kushina stayed with him and realized at some point that he seemed to get less fussy when he spent some time in the sun. She'd have thought that would upset him more but he calmed down considerably as the sun shined on him.

They stayed out for a few more days just entertaining and taking care of the baby when Minato mentioned possible name. "You know, I think Naruto would be a good name."

Kushina asked him about the name. "You want to name him Fishcake?"

Minato rubbed the back of his head and chuckled. "Well, it's actually the hero from Jiraiya sensei's first book."

She was still reluctant to name their new son after a character from one of Jiraiya's books. "So long as it's not from one of his porn books." She turned to the boy and started talking in her baby voice. "How's that sound, Naruto?" Little Naruto started laughing, whether it was because of the name or because she was talking in her baby voice she didn't really care, he was laughing.

They stayed at the camp for a few days, mostly to see if there would be anyone to inspect the crash site. No one came after four days so they packed up camp and left for another three. Normally their pace would be much faster but they had a baby on board.

Konohagakure

As soon as the new family got within a mile radius of their home village Minato teleported the three of them inside the middle of the Hokage's office. Since it was Hiruzen's office and not the mission room he was mostly alone right now, save for the three people that literally just popped into his office after being missing for several days longer than they were supposed to.

He screamed at them, not realizing in time Kushina had a sleeping baby in her arms. "Where the hell have you two been?!" As soon as the baby was rudely awoken from his nap he began crying, and Kushina started to try and soothe Naruto before giving Hiruzen an ear full. "Are you happy now old man. He was tired and now it's going to be a mission on it's own just to get him to go back to sleep."

Hiruzen's eyes bugged out and he said more quietly this time. "Where did you two find a baby?"

Minato took a deep breath. "I think it'd be easier to just show you." He took out the scroll from his back pocket and unfurled it onto the ground. Once he had backed away from it a good few feet and made the Release hand sign. A large puff and there, in the middle of the Hokage's office, was a space ship.

The Hokage's jaw dropped. "Wha-what... exactly is this Minato?"

Kushina explained while holding the now sleeping baby. "While we were camping in the middle of the night, this crashed a little ways away from our camp and we found him inside."

Hiruzen took off his hat and rubbed his head for the oncoming headache. "Have you had a DNA test? We need to be sure he really is, what we think he is before we make any assumptions."

Minato answered this time. "No, not yet. We wanted to get back to the village first and then talk to you and Biwako san."

Hiruzen was getting ready to call his wife. "Good, we don't want anyone to know you have him yet until that test comes back."

They stayed in the Hokage tower until nightfall which meant that everyone had gone home and the Hokage was free to call Biwako over to his office without anyone noticing. They explained the situation to her and showed her the ship Minato brought with him. It was very shocking for her but she agreed to do the test. It wasn't invasive, just a swab of spit in the analyzer and then in a couple of hours they'd know who the boy's parents were.

Minato was talking to Kushina while the three of them were waiting on Naruto's test. "What if we find out who his parents are?"

She gave him her answer. "Then we find them and give them an ear full of why they shouldn't put babies in space ships. And if he really is an alien, then we go home."

A few hours later Biwako walked into the room with a few pieces of paper. "Okay, so a little information of how this test works. Everything that's alive on this planet shares some amount of DNA with each other, including humans. Monkeys are just an example but really it works with anything from plants to insects."

Everyone in the room was getting nervous at the long explanation but didn't dare interrupt her. "Well, everything except little Naruto apparently. He shares an impossible zero percent of his DNA with humans."

All was silent in the room. They knew in the back of their heads but to have it scientifically proven that the little boy was in fact an alien was another thing entirely. Hiruzen was the first to break the silence. "I'll... I'll falsify some adoption papers and birth certificates. You two should probably go home and put Naruto to bed."

Minato, who was now carrying the baby, walked with Kushina to their apartment. They mostly just talked about what they needed to get Naruto in the morning. In the mean time one of them needed to sleep on the couch with Naruto until they got him a crib in the morning. Kushina decided that she wanted to do it and in the morning Minato would get all the supplies they needed.

Before they went to bed, they each rubbed his sleeping head and Kushina said to Naruto before going to sleep herself. "Welcome to Konoha Naruto."