Namikaze Minato was a genius, gifted to levels hard to describe when it came to that most esoteric of the shinobi arts. Even he could not say why, not fully. This was not due to a lack on his part, but rather a common flaw amongst the supremely gifted. Things that normal people would struggle to even comprehend, concepts that they could grope and grasp around the edges, fumbling towards an approximation of understanding by aping the effects? To him, they were obvious and simple, things so foundational that they did not need to be mentioned. And yet, he was human. And to be human, was to be in error.
For on that fateful October night he invoked the Shinigami, called forth a god according to the bargains and the pacts. In many ways, it was one of the few choices that had a good chance of success, given what he knew. But he was a mortal, and there were things that he did not know. Could not really, as Kurama had never told Kushina, let alone him. Secrets that the tailed beasts kept among themselves and jealously guarded, not letting the lore pass into mortal hands, not letting it pass into their captors hands.
For you see, the Ten Tails was divinity, no matter how corrupted and debased, and when sundered into the nine, each of them maintained a whisper, an echoing shard of that greater self. Each had attempted to cultivate it, to turn that ember of something grand and majestic into more than a shadow of the flame it could be... and each of them had various degrees of success. Each of them had various degrees of failure. And so it had been, that inside of a womb, chakra running through a body yet unborn, that an old beast felt sentimentality stir.
Gently, the fox had run a claw over the unborn soul, holding them in their arms and simply looking, finger moving over a giggling brow, small fingers looking to grasp him. Or at least, if they were physical, that is what it would be. As this was all spiritual, it was the closest we would be able to grasp without a great deal of mind altering drugs. But still, even before his birth, Naruto was considered, held and for a certain interpretation of the word, loved as a child inside of his mothers womb.
And so it came to pass, that one by one, his parents were torn from the child and he was nearly subjected to infanticide by one who shortly before held his very soul so tenderly, who marked his cheeks with their claws. All as a reaper of souls watched. All ritual was performed, of blood and sacrifice and souls. A soul offered to the death god, as Minato, a genius in his craft, sundered the very essence of That-Who-Was-Kurama (for if your very soul is sundered and torn apart, is that not a great change?), drinking in the debasement and corruption, staining and darkening his too mortal soul, as an ember flared in a marked child.
And so it was, that the God of Shinobi found young Naruto, crying out for his parents, bloody and marked on an altar of black stone. But two of them where gone beyond the reach of mortals, and he would not hear from his other parent for years, as they slowly transformed and became something other inside of his soul. In some ways, he was indeed a Jinchūriki, a human sacrifice to contain the mightiest of the tailed beasts. Yet, as that transforming power ran through his coils, he was as much a shrine for something not seen in two ages of the world.
Anko never got bored of fox-brat watching duty. Okay, that was kinda a lie, as most of the time the kid was just a loud mouthed brat that ran around and wanted to try and prank people. But the kid could be surprisingly stealthy when he wanted to be and there was something off about the brats henge. Granted, as she moved from tree to tree in her little home away from home, some of it? Sometimes he didn't seem to exist at all, until he was there. And sometimes, he visited a shine he made in the depths of the Forest of Death.
How he managed it? She didn't know, and the brat could keep secrets. But as far as the people who would know could tell? The fox wasn't controlling him (did a parent need to do more than speak and be supportive to their child?), there was no signs of him going crazy on the villagers and he was just getting started on some of the good ole lifestyle crazy. Sure, the ropes of bear guts that were somehow still dripping blood despite them never being changed, the bones and skulls of reptiles and mammals alike almost making the opening in the roots of the tree like the boneyard of something savage, something deadly.
And Naruto had gone missing shortly before the genin were let in for the exam. And so, as she breathed in the air that was rich with the water of life, bones fashioned into chimes that made music of last breaths, flesh that decayed into the earth and stone that nourished the roots of the tree-shrine, even as eyes watched, burning and set in braziers, she had not a care in the world. "Oi, brat!" Still, it was best to call out, as while the brat was cute when he was twitchy, knife red as butchered whatever he had down here on that altar? He wasn't old enough for her to get properly playful yet.
She saw, but did not notice the walls of the tunnels breathe and constrict, the fact that dimensions folded and uncurled as she sauntered into a hidden fane. Genin that never made it to the tower looked down on hooks, squirming and waiting as a small figure worked his bloody trade, a knife made of stone, its handle bone, carving through a screaming Baku's thick skin as it was pinned to the altar, roots impaling it. "Whatever do you have there?"
She looked around, and there they were, still squirming, still thrashing as they were halfway sunk into the walls. "Going to need some of the roots brat, you wouldn't say no to your Anko-nee, would you?" Even as she spoke, she moved, hugging him, the brat squawking and protesting as he flailed, as she wondered. Really, she thought Danzo got the message after last time. Poor old man Hokage, something unpleasant was going to be happening to his little crush if last time was any guess.