A/N - Been a while since I did anything. Thought I'd try and rewrite the story I liked best since it had time and plot errors.
SIX YEARS AFTER THE THIRD SHINOBI WORLD WAR.
A man stared off into the distance as he stood within the busy space of Pain's Tower. Chunin level ninja scurried left and right within the central radio hub that Pain had installed within the tower to serve as Ame's number one radio centre, so as to keep himself updated instantly. The amount of radio traffic within the past hour had intensified to a level only seen in war, which is why the man had come down from the upper levels to personally see to the situation - and no one dared to disobey as another chunin hurried over and deposited yet another report on his desk. With a swift, downward look at the paper and its bold heading, the man sat down at his desk once more to read it.
*URGENT*
TAILED BEAST ATTACK CONFIRMED AGAINST THE LEAF VILLAGE. THE NINE TAILS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED TO BE AT THE SCENE, OVER HALF OF THE LEAF DAMAGED THUS FAR IN ATTACK. REPORTED CASUALTIES IN THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. MINATO NAMIKAZE NO WHERE TO BE SEEN, HIRUZEN SARUTOBI AND JIRAIYA OF THE SANNIN REPORTED TO HAVE ENGAGED THE TAILED BEAST. MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW.
As the man put down the report, his face was finally thrown into light unlike where he stood in the shadows previously. His face was much different to any other on the planet, with apart from the crop of semi-spiky orange hair atop his head, his face seemed to be a swath of metal - definitely not piercings, for the metal imbedded within were short rods. With six short metal pieces in his nose and seven in each ear, it made for a defining look that seemed to amp up the intimidation factor. However, speaking of such, the most intimidating feature on his face had to be his eyes - with a look of utter disdain that seemed to somehow convey the magnitude of power this man held, his eyes were something to behold. A deep purple entirely filled the eyes, with concentric jet black rings spaced evenly apart so five filled each eye with a solid black iris at the centre.
Standing up from his desk in a prompt fashion befitting the nature of the situation, he strode over to a peculiar looking woman who sat at a table which was pushed up against a metal bank of electronics, a thick black wire extending from said electronics to feed into a pair of headphones she was wearing. The woman was decked from neck to toe in a full metal armour suit that gleamed a dull white on its surface, apart from a black stripe that went down the sides of the arms. Upon seeing her master approach, the woman quickly stood from her chair to attention and snapped the national salute - the gloved metal left hand impacting the right shoulder, fingers curled inward to provide a flat surface against the armour as her fist pressed against the shoulder.
"Sir." The woman snapped out professionally as she took off the headphones and awaited her orders.
"At ease, jonin." The Deva Path spoke as he regarded the woman, who was actually an elite jonin, then relax her posture and drop her arm back to her side. "I require an immediate message to be drafted that I can only trust my elite organisation with. A message of condolence must be sent to the Leaf, along with a reassurance that any information we have will be passed on. However, explain that due to limited resources and finances due to a particularly costly civil war, we can offer no actual help to the Leaf. Include some apologies that sound sincere, then sign it in Hanzo's name. Get your best graphologist on that."
The elite jonin, whom had been writing down what Deva had been ordering, gave a nod of her head as he concluded. "Yes sir." She replied.
"Very good." Deva stated in response before he turned round and began walking out of the radio room, chunin who were running about doing their duties having to forcefully stop in order to make way for their leader. Striding past the open metal door that gave access to the radio room, the Deva Path continued on into corridor. A simple corridor decorated with a simple navy blue carpet with dark wooden panels lining the walls, the occasional painting hung from the wall to give it a more tasteful atmosphere.
Deva looked over to his right as he walked down the corridor, before looking ahead once more. "Come out, Zetsu. What is it you have to report?"
Two big leaves, just like those on a venus fly trap, emerged from the floor followed by the upper half of a body that was dressed in that of a black cloak. They suddenly parted open to reveal a most disturbing face, that of a complete distinction in colours on the opposing halves of the face - one a complete white, and one a complete jet black with glaring yellow eyes on both.
The strange man called Zetsu gave a bow to Deva before speaking. "Lord Pain, Madara asked for me to send for you, he wishes to meet you in your office."
Deva just regarded with eyes of apathy, as Zetsu stared right back. "Very well." Deva spoke after a moment's pause. "I will be there momentarily."
Zetsu only gave a nod before melting through the floor once more, not that Deva gave it much thought as he himself then disappeared. Standing up from his crouched position, as well as wafting some of the smoke from the summoning, Deva looked to his right with his eyes without turning his head to see the Animal Path staring right back at him. Giving it no thought, Deva looked ahead once more before opening the wooden door to his office.
Before stopping one step into the office as the Deva Path just looked at the scene before him. He allowed his eyes to roam around the office for a moment, out the windows that allowed a magnificent view from the second to last highest floor of the building; before focusing on the subject of interest. The three walls around him were cluttered with posters and papers, ranging from maps on the wall of each and every nation along the left wall to the right wall which was cluttered with Pain's own notes stuck next to printed sheets containing numbers and information. Posters and other large sheets were stuck along the wall with the doorway, an Ame recruitment poster having been put up above the door itself. Nestled along the left wall were several filing cabinets as well as a desk with stacks of paper already on it shoved against the wall. The entire back wall was made up of several large panes of glass, currently featuring a dark view of the angry rainstorm outside, lashing against the windows with the lights of Ame's skyscrapers penetrating through the cacophony. And in the middle of the room, bleeding onto the normally plush chair facing his desk, was Madara Uchiha.
Or at least he would be if his orange mask wasn't lying cracked and broken upon Pain's desk, leaving the man's true face exposed.
"You are not Madara Uchiha." Deva commented, getting a contemporary glance from the mysterious Uchiha bleeding in his chair, before he went back to trying to bandage up a gaping wound in his leg.
"No, I am not." The Uchiha muttered out. His black cloak that he'd been wearing was shredded and ruined, leaving much of the torso exposed. Scars and cuts littered the exposed flesh, much of it bruised and damaged. His hands were black and scabbed, flesh burnt with chakra burns - which explained why he didn't try to heal any wounds with medical ninjutsu. There was a nasty wound punctured right through his thigh, most likely from the downward stab of a sharp kunai, but the worst wound was most definitely in the back. It was like a wide drilling motion on the back, scars and burnt flesh spiralling round an ever deeper wound that actually showed bone in the centre - most likely the move that had finished the fight. Pain was somewhat impressed that he'd crawled back in that condition.
"Your chakra is all but gone." Deva idly stated, viewing how nought but dregs and slithers ran through the chakra network of the man, with not enough left to produce even a normal clone. Whatever finishing move the man had pulled, it had drained everything from him, leaving enough barely for him to sustain himself with - let alone use offensively. "Judging by your present state, as well as the signature signs of a spiral attack only the likes of which the rasengan has; you fought Minato Namikaze. Which would make you the perpetrator of the tailed beast attack against the Leaf tonight."
The man gave a wheeze, causing some blood to drip from his mouth which brought no discernible reaction from the Deva Path. "Heard about that, did you?" He muttered out, voice quiet and hearse like it pained him to talk.
"Uchiha, the radio waves are practically alive." Deva stated, unimpressed. "It is undoubtable that the entire continent knows by now." He went around the desk and sat down at the head of it, just plainly staring at the man.
"Oh." The Uchiha let out, disinterested as he let out a hiss as he wrapped another length of bandage around his thigh.
"So who are you really?" Deva asked, uncaring of the man's state as he merely pried for more information.
The Uchiha paused for a moment before he resumed tying a knot in the bandage. "That is none of your concern." He softly let out.
It was a testament to the emotion the actual puppet master of the Paths must have felt that the Deva Path replicated, however minutely, the curl of distaste upon his lips that replicated from the controller several floors up. "I will get an explanation for what's in the bag at your feet, though." Deva demanded, his special eyes seeing straight through the desk to view something only he could see at the moment. "There is a live chakra network within it."
"Oh, nowthatis." The Uchiha spoke, grunting as the very motion of lifting the bag pained him. Placing a leather black bag on the desk, Deva's face remained unchanged as the bag began to writhe and muffled cries start to emanate from it. "That's the latest jinchuuriki of the nine tails that Namikaze created."
Deva took a glance once more at the bag, viewing the weak chakra traces within actually containing flickers of red now that he focused. "I see." Deva spoke, before bringing the bag to him and opening it up. "I had best get medical attention for them, whoever they are."
"Who cares?" The Uchiha scoffed. "Just kill them, extract the beast from the boy."
Deva quirked an eyebrow. "Boy? I thought only Uzumaki women were chosen to contain the nine tails." Deva stated as a question, but not listening for an answer as he reached in with both arms, and grabbed a bundle of cotton. Withdrawing the bundle from the bag, the crying momentarily ceased as the baby within the white towels was exposed to the office light as Deva unwrapped it from around the baby's face. "Those characteristics look familiar." He murmured as the appearance of the hour-old baby was thrown into light.
The Uchiha scoffed once more. "Of course he would, he's the offspring of the Namikaze and that woman he always went about with, Kushina Uzumaki."
Deva's eyes quickly shot a surprised glance at the Uchiha before looking at the baby once more. Undoubtedly, the cobalt blue eyes and distinctive angular nose as well as the general shape of the face had been claimed from Minato Namikaze. The hair colour though was all Kushina's - light red hair sprouting from the top of the baby's head as the natural fuzz of an infant; showing off the strong inheritance of Uzumaki genes from her side. Even the natural pudginess of the face seemed to resemble her a bit. It seemed the only thing the baby boy could truly call his own were the birth marks on his cheeks - six whisker marks in all, a thin black line that angled in such a way that when the face scrunched up to cry, it gave off animalistic vibes.
Deva looked back at the Uchiha who was now tending to a burn on his arm. "It was not part of the plan to take the jinchuuriki now."
"It has no consequence on the plan now." The Uchiha stated as he wiped blood up with spare bandage, his ponderings far from the current conversation as he instead thought of how long it would take to heal from his recently finished fight. "It makes no difference what order the beasts are sealed in, what the age of the container is or if one is sealed now ahead of the others instead of beyond the next decade. This, was merely a spur of the moment that shall indeed make our lives one step easier in future."
"Has the thought of angering the world's most powerful manandwoman not entered your mind? Or, was it supposed to have been the plan you killed them both this very night?" Deva questioned in a tone that sounded more like a statement, the piercing of his unblinking eyes conveying his confidence of how he was likely in the right. "Indeed, at least tell me you killedoneof them, Uchiha."
The Uchiha's own heavy gaze held the stare for a moment longer at Deva before returning to what he was doing. "No." Was the only word that spat from his lips then, the soft yet bitter tone that accompanied it making it unclear if the anger was to Konoha, Pain or himself.
The snort derived from Deva's side of the desk then, who refrained from making any more of his thoughts that had arisen from the Uchiha's response audible. "And so this is their child?" He merely asked instead.
The Uchiha's gaze was this time momentary as it then went to the child on the table, who still cried aloud - and yet failed to drown a single word in the men's conversation. "I just told you that." He responded, annoyance seeping into the words as his stare returned to Deva.
"At least give me a name." Deva demanded back instantly, the seriousness conveyed by the rinnegan surely enough to get what he wanted.
From the average ninja at least, as the Uchiha narrowed his gaze at Pain. "Why do you care?" He threw out a question of his own now, the annoyance fully translating to impatience. "I only came here to give you the child to get this over with. Not for you to question my every move tonight."
"You have refused to answer too many of my questions over the short time we have known each other, Uchiha, and I grow bored." Deva merely spoke back blandly. "Think what you will of the mystery. You have thus far not ever correctly given me your identity despite knowing of mine, and so the non-existent trust between us has become irksome."
"Watch your tone." The Uchiha hissed out quietly. "Do not think that the plans in place revolve around you being ineveryone of them, nor that my present condition forbids me use of all my abilities." In testament to his words, the three tomoes of the sharingan flashed in his eyes, with both men present knowing what ability the man was talking of should he evolve them further to the next level of the sharingan.
No more words were thus spoken as Pain did not allow the man to enact any such plans or abilities, and instead enacted his own.
The Uchiha could only widen his eyes in shock as he was cut off from doing anything further. A size 12 boot caved in the door to the office, literally throwing it off its hinges as a brute of a man forced his way into the office from where he'd been standing for much of the time. The Uchiha quickly made to stand up, but found himself quickly paralysed in his blood-caked seat. The culprit was quickly revealed to be Pain, as a a metre length piece of chakra rod was summoned by the Asura Path in the doorway and thrown straight into the Uchiha's torso, piercing straight through a lung. It had the combined effect of crippling the enemy and causing great imbalance in the chakra control of the victim - not that the man in the chair needed that in his pitiful state.
Deva was stoic as an agonised wheeze escaped the Uchiha, not having the lung capacity to scream as he withdrew his chakra powered hand from the control seal under the desk; leaving the paralysis seal on the two chairs in front of the desk powered for an hour more. "So, Uchiha." Pain spoke through the Deva Path as he stepped round the desk, baby still cradled in one arm and now falling asleep. "This time I will not ask. This time I willpryto see who you really are, and what you know."
The man, paralysed to the chair, could only move muscles not directly not affected by the seal that kept him forcefully in contact with the seat - such as the muscles in the face. "You dare betray me?" He whispered, not even being able to fully utilise the muscle in the mouth to shout like he wanted to nor use his full lung capacity.
The Asura Path in the doorway, a hulking seven foot being that wasn't even a corpse anymore as his footsteps suggested due to all the metal that now made up the being under the skin moved aside. Instead, a woman much shorter than the previous Path, draped in the typical Akatsuki cloak, stepped through and walked over to the paralysed man in the chair. Orange dyed hair draped to the Human Path's shoulders, rinnegan eyes looking past the metal embedded in the nose to look down upon the stuck figure before him. "Oh, I dare." The corpse smoothly replied in a feminine voice.
Her hand was quickly placed upon the man's head, the only signs of resistance being the contortions in the man's face as everything else was paralysed. The Path's eyes closed as she delved into the man's very soul and memories, before finding all that she sought - and more.
"The infinite dream project..." Deva murmured as he scanned through the memories of the Uchiha. "And people called me mad."
"Pain!" Came a shout from the doorway, causing the Deva Path to look over to the now open doorway of the office to see a blue haired woman standing there. Draped in the Akatsuki cloak too, the amber eyes of the woman was open in alarm and focused on the scene in front of her, which surprised her greatly. "What's happening?!"
"In a moment, Konan." Deva stated as he turned back to the Uchiha in the chair. "I must first deal with our manipulative partner here, one thought-to-be long deadObito Uchiha."
Obito only gave a splutter in response as his face trembled once more, blood flowing from between his lips.
Deva moved himself to stand in front of Obito, staring directly into the dark depths of the man's broken eyes. "You threatened me and my village, planned to use me and my village, my sole remaining companion and then manipulate it all - for what? As I see it now, you never cared for peace, but rather the delusions of your mind - you must be as insane as Madara Uchiha was, the man you claimed to be, Obito Uchiha. All to twist the world to one of your shaping, and to see some girl again." Pain's rinnegan eyes narrowed as he spoke, glaring at the wheezing, broken man before him. "And yet, I find some part of me seeing something similar in you to me - for we both were shaped by the deaths of our closest friend, wish to change the world; set it ablaze so as to remould it to our desire."
The Human Path whose hand was clamped on top of Obito's head pushed his head closer to the seat as the man twisted his face once more, keeping the connection between Pain and Obito secure as Pain scoured the man's memories. "But that is where the similarities end." Deva continued to speak. "And the differences begin. I have to commend you - where you saw failure in your loss in Konoha not being destroyed, you took some token out of it to aid you later. And you gave me an excellent opportunity."
Another cough was his only response.
Deva's purple eyes flicked back to the child that now remained on his desk, the commotion having now signalled the return of the boy's wails. "Naruto..." The man spoke aloud, as if testing the name alongside his thoughts to confirm the change in plans. "Yes, this will indeed be a better plan than being a slave to the whims of an Uchiha."
"Plans?" Konan uttered aloud herself, the confusion evident in her face and eyes now that she saw the entirety of the situation was under Pain's control.
"Yes, Konan, there has been a change in plans." Deva confirmed as he did not look to her, insteadlooking deeper into Obito's pained eyes, that despite struggling to even breathe as the Human Path forcefully compressed his skull down, Deva could tell he had his complete attention. "And this provides much opportunity for me with the Akatsuki. Not only will this be easier to move about in the unrest this will cause, but it will be easier to acquire assets too. We have still yet to acquire ten members, and yet there are multiple S ranks waiting to be recruited. And the best part is the fact that with you gone, the Akatsuki shall do my, and mine only this time, bidding."
It was a moment more of softly looking into the eyes of the man who had all but held him captive to his motives since he had appeared, before the rinnegan seemed to visibly harden."Goodbye, Obito Uchiha." Pain finalised, cold rinnegan eyes glaring into bloodshot coal-black ones. "A part of me does wish you success in finding the love you seek in the pure world."
With that, the Human Path tore out the soul of the depraved Uchiha with a simple movement upwards of the hand, the translucent purple figure that was sucked into the Path's hand seeming to give the final death screams before they were silenced forever.
All was quiet in the office as the Uchiha's head slumped to the side, the body of Obito Uchiha now turning colder by the second as the warm blood spilled slowly out and stained the chair even deeper shades of crimson. Konan suddenly gave a gasp and turned to Deva, whose eyes flickered to her.
"What was that about?" Konan asked, shocked at the sudden violence that had occurred within their own base of operations.
"It is simple." Deva stated, eyes showing more emotion to Konan than they ever had to the dead Uchiha. "The Uchiha had overstepped his boundaries one too many times, acting as if he controlled us and daring to demand things from me even when he was crippled. His arrogance was his undoing." Deva was about to exit the room when he looked back at Konan. "Oh, and be wary of Zetsu. Do not trust him at all. The things I saw of him from that man's memories were... considerable, to say the least. He is to be classed as a potential enemy."
Konan only gave a nod as the Deva Path stepped round the chairs, and stopping in the doorway as the Asura and Human Path filed out before him, carrying the dead Uchiha and blood soaked chair respectively. It was only then that she saw a bundle of cloth in the Path's arms, the whiskered face of a red headed child tearily looking at them both, having fallen silent now the commotion had finished. Deva made a small gesture with his head, signalling Konan to walk with him as they both fell in step with the two Paths ahead of them. The Animal Path, a shorter woman than even the Human Path with short shoulder-length orange hair and wider rinnegan eyes, hurried past the procession of three corpses and one woman.
"I have mobilised all the Paths." Deva answered Konan's unspoken question as her face showed off her questioning state in that moment. "I did not lie in the office. This has indeed provided us with a great opportunity. This act of ravaging the strongest of all the villages will have at the very least unsettled the powers that be. Iwa and Kumo will see this as an opportunity to finally catch up to Konoha's strength after the third shinobi world war, which shall once again begin some sort of standoff between the major powers. The Leaf shall have to deal with more emboldened neighbours, the Sand will have to deal with securing their border and providing assistance to the Leaf. Troops shall once again march to begin confrontations as the strength of the powers that be are more evenly matched - and someone will inevitably want to begin something to strengthen themselves on this changed landscape where before nobody would challenge the Leaf who was the strongest."
Konan gave Deva her full attention. "And what will you do?" She asked, tone neutral.
"I will take advantage of the chaos." Deva answered. "We must move quickly before troops reinforce the borders of all nations. I will recruit two more S ranks before they move from their known locations in this commotion, as it is only us and Sasori as it stands." A glance back to her was followed with a relevant order on the topic. "Speaking of him, recall him from the Land of Fire before all of this happens. I wish to currently minimise the existence of our organisation from other nations beside Iwa, who has for a while now employed us."
Deva quickly turned on his feet and walked down the corridor a bit, the swish of his cloak behind him accentuating his movements. Idly gazing at the baby in his arms, Deva merely wrapped the towel tighter around the baby as he pondered on his minute surprise that Konan didn't question the baby - but then again, Deva had expressed his urgency of the situation. His recently changed plans were only in the preliminary phase of fruition anyway, having not yet even been checked against the data in his office to check its feasibility, but that would happen in time.
For now, he needed to ensure he remained in control, and that further danger to his plans were minimised at this time.
Emerging into another corridor, Pain quickly swept through and re-entered the radio centre he'd started in. The busy atmosphere within the room had died down to calmer levels, not that Pain hadn't already guessed that as the conclusion to the tailed beast attack lay right in his arms. Walking straight over to a row of chunin sitting at a bank of monitors, some listening into headphones as overs poured over reports and made comments in pencil on them.
The radio centre in Pain's Tower was not just the central command post for all of the forces in his nation, but also served as a listening post to high-end foreign communications. It made sense to Pain, as he had ordered decoders and listeners to be on standby within the room at all hours of the day; the most guarded building within the country would serve as an excellent place to intercept and decode the highest levels of enemy communications. With what he'd been planning, it was worth the cost - especially as it had already proven its worth in being able to mostly plot the major formations of troops within the Lands of Fire, Earth and Wind next door to them.
The jonin he approached was sat at an individual desk to the chunin who were sat at conjoined banks of monitors. With two blue stripes on each shoulder of the flak jacket he wore, the man at the desk could be identified as the jonin commander of Ame, or the fifth most powerful person within the nation. Currently, the man was going over reports on his desk before he looked up to see who approached him - standing up and putting his fist to his right shoulder as his leader approached.
"Jonin commander, this is indeed a fluctuating circumstance that is about to begin with a major attack against the most powerful nation. I want the border guards against the Land of Grass and Stone to be at least doubled, and the major nations that surround us to be tripled. I want extra accommodations and barracks to be constructed for at least twice the guards already there at the border, with the remainder of the guards at the major nation borders having to sleep within temporary accommodations." Deva spoke to the commander, who held his salute firm. "I also hereby grant you full permission to use as much expenditure as you need in the allocation of training and practice missions for field experience for the troops - I want the quality of our troops to be upped considerably at a shorter time. I wantmoresoldiers in my army, with higher quality - is that understood, commander?"
"Yes sir." The commander spoke as he dropped his salute and nodded.
"Good." Deva replied. "I want a full report on our troop movements and how you will conduct training and field mission allocation by next week, 12 o'clock. Discuss this with the other troop commanders for better ideas. Also, war-time identification protocols are to be used effectively immediately, I want those implemented as soon as possible. I will not have my nation infiltrated. Go now."
The man nodded to his leader before running over to a jonin who was in charge of broadcasting to troop barracks within the city they stood in. Deva paused as Pain thought before suddenly turning to a chunin who gave off an expression of slightly horrified shock at such a legendary man consulting them.
"You, chunin. Get a genin team to deliver supplies for an infant to my office at once. When you and the genin get there with the supplies, I will pay you an appropriate reward for it and your silence on the matter." Deva ordered. The consequences for breaking said silence did not have to be discussed.
"Yes sir." The chunin managed to get out stably before dashing out of the room to complete their assigned mission promptly.
Deva watched the chunin run out of the room, past the amused guards at the door before striding over to his own desk, which was unlike the rest of the room which was crammed with desks with chunin and a few jonin working at them as well as banks of technological equipment; all of which was fashioned in a central way to allow wires from each desk and tech rack to run to the centre of the room. There, a metal support beam stood in the centre of the room and was seemingly clogged in wires, colours running up it and occasionally overlapping it as it all merged and disappeared into the roof of the room, up to the powerful transmitters on the roof.
Instead, Pain's desk had a good bit of space around it with only one simple monitor and printer placed upon it. A tidy income tray was placed upon it as it received few reports - only the most important ones for his eyes only went to that desk or his main office upstairs if he was working there. Taking a seat at the desk, Deva gently placed the bundle in his arm upon the desk to reveal the young infant inside, now asleep. Pausing only a moment, Pain carried out his self-assigned task and exposed the torso of the child, before placing a chakra-lit finger upon the chest region. The baby gave a shudder in discomfort from both the poke and sudden contact with cooler air, but still carried on sleeping regardless.
Deva watched as the seal containing the great beast was displayed before his very eyes, the ancient language of kanji appearing in their fresh black ink state upon the skin. Watching as more was revealed past the point of his finger, Pain realised he had guessed somewhat correctly - instead of the six trigrams seal Mito Uzumaki had designed to hold the nine tailed beast within a younger Kushina Uzumaki, here upon his nephew lay an eight trigrams seal. It had obviously been improved by either Kushina or her husband.
The larger kanji within the spiral itself was the main formation of the seal, that group of centimetre long kanji surrounding an even larger kanji that read 'contain', belying its own function. The much smaller kanji that made up the circle itself had varying functions, with the entire spiral holding interlinking 'storage' kanji for the extreme amounts of chakra stored within, the four spikes set on the corners of the circle holding the larger, centimetre long kanji once more that acted as 'distribution' formations to place the tailed beast chakra within the baby's own chakra network.
It was the furthest he understood of the art of sealing however, and he trusted that the work of Minato Namikaze, the man most renowned for his sealing expertise, could contain even the most powerful of the tailed beasts.
Instead, there was a smooth slide of a metallic grey rod into his right hand, before the bare strength of the Path was enough to easily snap through the solid metal to retrieve only a small piece. Just small enough to sit in torso area of his nephew on the desk, to be hidden away and uncompromising of his growth. The creation of the Paths was his sole activity, and so he knew enough of biology that he could do this with confidence.
It was a shame that he did not know enough of the sealing to understand that the containment seal to the nine tails held no defences at all as Naruto had been snatched before its ultimate completion, and was literally that - a storage seal.