Everything related to Naruto is owned by Kishimoto, the man who somehow hasn't run out of sharks to jump.

Chapter One: Yondaime's Last Resort

Minato Namikaze was having a pretty good day.

"Push!"

"HAAAAAAA!"

The Village Hidden in the Leaves was thriving more than ever before under his watch, the paperwork had been mild, and he was about to become a father to boot!

"Push!"

"GRRRRAAAAAA! GOD! THIS IS YOUR FAULT, MINATOOOO!"

Holding the seal in place was surprisingly easy. All he had to do was place a few fingers here and there for as long as this supposed 'all-consuming pain' lasted. And to think that a few gentle taps on his wife's stomach could hold back the most powerful demon in existence.

Then again, sealing arts in general weren't something to sneeze at, especially the Uzumaki variety. The clan of red-heads his wife originated from really knew their stuff, most likely surpassing the rest of the Elemental Nations put together by a considerable margin. Too bad most of them were dead.

At least Kushina had been able to leave just before her clan got wiped out. Not that he didn't feel bad for her, but Minato couldn't deny that her convenient escape from that massacre eventually led to the happiest years of his life. He was sure she loved him as much as he did her.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! YOU HEAR ME!? I WILL RIP OUT YOUR—"

Whatever it was that his beloved was about to say, it was cut off by a sudden jerk inside her belly. It must've felt terrible. Kushina was usually so strong when it came to this kind of stuff.

Good. His eardrums needed a break.

Giving her a dashing smile, one that he knew Kushina would've usually made fun of for highlighting his more feminine features, the Yondaime Hokage of the Hidden Leaf made an opening between two of the fingers covering his face. He only needed one hand for the seal, which was convenient, because otherwise he would've needed to use his headband like Kakashi, and it would be a cold day in hell before he started mimicking his student instead of it being the other way around. Then again, maybe he didn't need to cover his eyes at all?

"DON'T GIVE ME THAT FUCKING SMILE!"

Never mind. He definitely didn't want to know what was going on down there.

"You're the one who wanted a kid, remember?" Minato said, absently trailing his index finger around the seal on her belly, tightening it's hold on the power it had trapped inside. It wasn't his fault this was happening. Months of wanting to 'take the next step' and this was how she reacted right when they were about to do it?

He was joking, of course, and Kushina knew the chipper tone he liked to use when doing so, but all her humor had left her at that point. She didn't say anything, instead focusing on having her child and getting it over with already.

Biwako, Kishina's midwife and wife to his predecessor, had no such restrictions. "Stop running your mouth, Minato-kun. I'd like to see you try your hand at childbirth."

The mere thought of it made the Hokage grimace. "No thanks. I think I'll leave that to you gals."

Just then, Minato's trained ears picked up a sharp thud from outside.

Now, that shouldn't of been anything to worry about. After all, he had made sure that the birth of his son was done in a secret location, inside a cave, away from the village, with several ANBU squads surrounding and guarding the entrance, which was filled with traps of all kinds that would make even the most elite ninja flinch, which were themselves only the second line of defense, right after one of the strongest barrier techniques he knew. Even then, such an inconsequential sound could've been anything, from a wild animal to one of the ANBU being less careful than they should be. But he didn't become Hokage without a healthy amount of paranoia, so even with all that, Minato decided to play it safe.

He made sure that the seal was stable enough for him to step away for a few moments, and turned away. "I'm gonna go check that out," the Hokage said, as he was sure he wasn't the only one to hear the noise. "Be right back."

The blond walked over to the entrance of the cave, and it didn't take long for him to notice that all the elite black-ops ninja he had set up there were dead, even with their bodies hidden in the shadows. Without missing a beat, Minato turned around and was met with the sight of Biwako laying on the ground, a kunai buried into her skull, and an empty bed where his wife was not a minute before.

How? After all the weeks of preparation, all the defensive lines he'd assembled had somehow been breached. Whoever was behind this had even gotten past him. It was almost like the culprit popped inside, took Kushina, and popped right out.

He considered using the Hirashin seal placed on Kushina, but decided to save it and catch whoever was behind all of this off guard. Instead, Minato sought out the overbearing energy that everyone for kilometers upon kilometers away could surely feel, and teleported to the perimeter seal nearest to that location. An instant later, he found himself in a forest clearing, his wife trembling in the arms of the enemy, a kunai held against her neck.

The man wore a simple black hood, with a mask that covered his entire face, save for his right eye. All in all, it hid nearly everything about his identity.

"Yondaime..." The man's voice was deep, but it didn't sound all that natural. It was probably artificial, an attempt to intimidate others. "I expected this to be harder than it was, but you gave me more time than I could've asked for. You were always too careful for your own good."

Minato thought he heard a sliver of amusement at the end there, but it didn't matter. "You sound like you know me, but I don't think I've ever met you. The mask isn't really helping, either."

Even as he said this, the Hokage scanned the man for weapons. It was hard to spot anything under that robe, but he could make out some faint bumps along his arms. Probably chains, god knows he's had his fair share of them, considering who he was married to. Despite this, he would have to be ready for anything. Kushina was trying to be calm, he knew, but she was going through labor, not to mention whatever this man had done to her in the short amount of time she'd been held captive. His family was on the line. The next few seconds were crucial.

"I don't think you'd like to see what's behind this—"

Minato didn't let him finish, and teleported to the Hirashin seal placed on his wife. To his credit, the masked man immediately jumped back, letting go of Kushina in the process. The blond caught his red-headed partner before she could fall to the ground, holding one of his infamous tri-pronged kunai at the ready. Kushina was shaking, her teeth clenched in pain and fatigue.

"M-Minato... The Nine-Tails... H-H-He..."

She didn't need to say anything more. Even at a glance, the sealing master could tell that Kushina wasn't a Jinchuuriki anymore. The extraction must've taken its toll on her, if the pale white skin she had meant anything.

The Nine-Tails gone, a mysterious enemy, Biwako and all the ANBU dead, and to top it all off, Kushina's still in labor and could die at any moment. God really fucked me today, huh?

It took all of his mental fortification to not break under all the pressure, but Minato was Hokage for a reason. First thing's first, it was time to take his wife somewhere safe. All he had to do was focus on the Hirashin seal he had at a safe house not far from the village.

At that moment, a callous voice reached his ear. "About to make your escape, right?"

Minato immediately jumped away, Kushina in his arms, his training being almost overridden by the complete bafflement that overtook him. He had been sure that the masked man was in front of him when he closed his eyes for the half second it would take to flash to his safe house. The man's presence didn't move either, it just... disappeared and reappeared right behind him.

It seemed that he wasn't the only ninja around who could teleport. That explained how he had gotten past all of Minato's defenses. It also threw his plans of getting Kushina to a secure location out the window. He didn't know what kind of space-time technique this was, and for all he knew the man could reach him anywhere on a whim. There was nothing for it, then. He had to fight.

Minato lay Kushina on the ground and ran at the man with his own formidable speed, his kunai set to rip through the man's throat. The man also readied a blade, about to throw it, but it was already too late. He'd be dead before he could do anything.

But, when the Kage stabbed his weapon into his enemy's neck, the masked man didn't die. His kunai phased right through, as if the man wasn't there at all.

What!?

In his surprise at seeing something he previously thought was impossible, Minato stumbled forward. It was barely a step, an infinitely small moment of hesitation as his body passed through his opponent's.

That was all the masked man needed.

The mysterious assailant released his hold on his own kunai, and it cut the air in a flash. The sharp sound of steel sailing the winds seemed to fill the otherwise silent clearing, and the following thump brought everything else to a screeching halt.

Minato felt it, or rather, he stopped feeling it. That overpowering presence that was her chakra. Her ragged breath. Her desperate support. Gone.

And his son...

The Hokage of Konoha turned, and he saw his wife, her wide eyes staring back at him, and the kunai that had stabbed through her stomach.

And then, he was the angriest he'd ever been in his entire life. Quick as a whip, he threw a Hirashin kunai at the back of the man's head, only to see it phase through. It was a good thing he had been expecting that.

Just as his signature weapon came out the other side, Minato flashed to it, appearing right in front of the masked face of the person he'd just swore to kill, and with all his rage, all his earth-shattering, soul-consuming fury, proceeded to slap the shit out of him. The attack didn't do as much as a good old punch would've, and only snapped the guy's head back, but it did the job.

The masked man, not having expected that, could only pause for a brief second. It passed though, and he knew that it would be best if he left as soon as possible. "Sorry to cut things short, but I've got an appointment. The Leaf won't destroy itself, after all."

With that, reality warped around the mask's empty eye-hole, sucking in the man and taking him away.

Minato kneeled on the ground, slumped over. To think that just a few minutes before, he had been about to become a proud father. There was no reason to check for a pulse, because he knew. He knew that everything he had was just taken away from him.

His eyes hardened. Not everything. The masked man talked about destroying the Leaf. After extracting the Nine-Tails, it didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Soon enough, the world's most powerful beast would be rampaging through his village, killing his people.

There was no way he'd let that happen, not after all of this.

Hiruzen Sarutobi knew for a fact that this day would be considered the worst in the history of the Hidden Leaf. Never had an enemy made it past the village gates, much less a tailed beast, and much much less the strongest one of them all.

It had been a worrisome enough day to begin with, what with Kushina on the brink of giving birth, but the previous Hokage had convinced himself that everything would turn out alright. Minato had prepared so many safety measures that he found it hard to believe something would go wrong. Even when an unexplainable feeling of dread rattled him to his very core, he had passed it off as his well-trained paranoia.

When the Nine-Tails itself appeared in the village, already destroying every building in sight and killing civilians and ninja alike by the dozens, Hiruzen couldn't deny that something horrible had happened. He could only hope that Minato, Kishina, and most importantly his wife Biwako were still alive.

There wasn't any time to worry, though. With the Yondaime most likely busy dealing with whatever had caused this catastrophe, it was up to the retired Sandaime to protect the Hidden Leaf to the best of his ability. Strapping on his ninja gear, Hiruzen rushed out of his home.

"Sarutobi-sama."

Hiruzen grunted out a greeting to the ANBU Commander, not even flinching at how the man appeared from the shadows as he jumped from roof to roof, intent on taking on the Nine-Tails head-to-head. The coordinator of the Leaf's black-ops forces wore a plain white mask to cover his face, with no distinguishing animal traits as was tradition. He was missing the red robe he usually wore over his ANBU clothing, though Hiruzen couldn't blame him for wanting to be as free of restrictions as possible.

"Commander. What is the state of the squads sent to guard the Hokage and his wife?" Hiruzen asked, wanting to get a report as fast as possible. He could already see the giant form of the Nine-Tails in the distance, and he needed to get everything ready before he got there.

"Their tattoos have been disconnected. They are most likely deceased."

That made his heart lurch, but Hiruzen forced it down. "How goes the battle?"

There wasn't any hesitation in the commander's response. "The entire western district has been destroyed. I estimate a loss of 2,500 ninja and twice that amount of civilians. Our border barrier is still up and running perfectly, and according to the surviving witnesses, the Nine-Tails arrived in an explosion of smoke, raising the possibility of it being summoned into the village."

Out of everything Hiruzen could've possibly heard, that was the absolute worst. Summoned!?

"There is only one man I know of with the ability to summon the Nine-Tails," he said.

With the slightest inclination of his head, the ANBU Commander nodded. "I am aware. However, that man has not been sighted, and our sensors are too overwhelmed by the Nine-Tails' chakra to properly seek out foreign signatures."

"Then there is nothing for it," Hiruzen said, his face grim. "The tailed beast attacking our village must come first. Commander, order an evacuation of all civilians, along with any ninja under the age of adulthood."

"Sir?" The commander rarely questioned the orders of his Kage, but Hiruzen figured that willingly thinning their numbers even more would raise anyone's interests.

"We will make our stand, and we will fight, but we must make sure to protect the younger generations. The will of fire has to live on no matter what."

"Understood."

"Dismissed, commander."

"Roger. And Sarutobi-sama... good luck." With nothing else left to be said, the ANBU Commander leaped away.

The retired Hokage had to smile at that, even if it was only a small quirk of his lips. It wasn't every day that the terse and cold commander of the Leaf's black-ops division let himself worry for anyone, and it spoke volumes of their long history as fellow ninja that he did so at all.

The Nine-Tails was close now, barely forty meters away. If the killing intent emanating from it had been abnormally large from a distance, it was nothing less than suffocating from as close as he was. It was a surprise that not too many ninja had passed out from the sheer intensity of it, but Hiruzen supposed it was the will of fire at work once more, Leaf ninja putting the protection of their home before their fear of death. Or maybe it was the fear of death that allowed them to stay conscious.

A throng of ninja surrounded it, trying fruitlessly to corral it away from the retreating citizens with technique after technique. All around him, homes burned in great swathes of flame. The sound of continuous explosions filled his ears. It truly pained him to see the village he loved so much be reduced to a violent war zone, but the grieving could come later. When his eyes roamed around the battlefield, Hiruzen found the man he needed.

"Fugaku!"

The head of the Uchiha clan turned, his stern face showing only the barest hint of relief. Around him, the ninja who had been busy pumping the raging demon before them with as many long distance attacks as they could paused in their attacks when they saw who had arrived, but returned to their duty after a harsh look.

"Sarutobi," the man greeted, bowing his head slightly. "I'm glad we at least have the Sandaime with us. Where's our Hokage when we need him most?"

"Never mind that. Why haven't you or your family members taken control of the Nine-Tails with your sharingan?"

The importance of the Uchiha Clan in the Hidden Leaf could not be overstated. Sure, they brought wealth and talented ninja to the village, but more importantly, without the Shodai Hokage's Wood Release, the sharingan had become the only deterrent against the Nine-Tails in case it ever escaped its host. The destruction of half the village spoke of a miscalculation of disastrous proportions.

Fugaku clicked his tongue. "We have a big problem, Sandaime. The Nine-Tails' control has already been taken ahold of. It seems that someone in my clan has decided to destroy the village."

Immediately, Hiruzen's eyes went to meet the Nine-Tails'. Squinting, he could barely make out the shape of a circular pupil surrounded by three tomoes that definitely shouldn't of been there.

Of course. It was stupid to think someone would summon something like the Nine-Tails without any way to control its actions. It was becoming more and more apparent who was behind all of this. But Hiruzen didn't want to believe it. If a man like that still lived, then they were all in more danger than he could imagine.

As of now, all he could say for sure was that the culprit was most likely an Uchiha. That was as much as he was willing to admit to himself.

Beside him, Fugaku stood tense. It was to be expected, all things considered, but his tomoed eyes kept glancing at him, as if waiting for some kind of reprimand.

"It's alright, Fugaku. You and your clan's loyalty has been proven already by your actions here tonight. I'm sure this is the work of a lone traitor." At least, I hope it is, Hiruzen thought. The only other explanation is too terrifying.

His assurances got no response from the man, as the Nine-Tails chose that moment to spin around, swishing it's tsunami-creating appendages around to blow apart an entire building complex.

"Whatever the case may be, our main priority right now is the Nine-Tails itself. Stay here, and keep hammering it! Even the smallest distraction could buy us enough time!"

After hearing an affirmative, Hiruzen roof-hopped away, trying to spot the one person he needed to organize a planned counterattack. It didn't take very long, as the majority of the Yamanaka clan had a very distinct look. Even better, the village's top tactician was there as well. Inoichi Yamanaka and Shikaku Nara turned to meet the Sandaime when he reached them, their sharp senses able to pick out his presence even among the chaos that was ensuing not thirty meters away.

"Hiruzen," Shikaku drawled out, his stance the picture of nonchalance despite the gigantic tail that flattened a nearby block. "It's about time. So, what are your orders?"

The previous Hokage looked up at the Nine-Tails, not even flinching when a whole platoon of ninja got blasted away by the sheer force of one of its roars. All around them, attacks of all kinds were being thrown at the beast. Fire balls, water bullets, windmill shuriken, big boulders... It was all getting thrown at it from everywhere.

"If we are to drive this beast away from our village, we will need to make a concentrated attack," he decided. "All these techniques coming at it every which way is just annoying it at the most, like a swarm of flies. If everyone can combine their power and hit it at the same time... It's the best shot we've got."

"I agree," the Nara said. "At least until someone can seal it back up. Hopefully our Hokage can hurry up with whatever he's doing, because anything we do can only delay the inevitable."

"Then we better give him as much time as we can. Inoichi! Connect me to every ninja still standing!"

The head of the Yamanaka clan nodded as Hiruzen kneeled down in front of him. After taking a deep breath while preparing his technique, Inoichi slapped the palm of his hand against Hiruzen's forehead.

"Mind Body Transmission!"

Without any special preparations, the amount of chakra necessary to spread the technique so far was incredibly taxing. Inoichi probably wouldn't be able to last more than a few minutes at the most. That was all Hiruzen needed.

Ninja of the Leaf! I am Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage! Cease your assault at once!

After the telepathic command, the constant barrage of attacks stopped almost simultaneously. Without anything to keep it occupied, the Nine-Tails continued demolishing everything in its path unopposed.

Seeing the worried looks of those around him, Hiruzen beat down his own unease before assuaging their fears.

Don't worry! Most, if not all the remaining civilians of our village have been evacuated. The demon can tear down as many buildings as it wants as long as we defeat it in the end, and to do this, we must all work together!

He could feel everyone's spirits rise with the thousands of shouts that followed, all full of the unbreakable tenacity he expected from all Leaf ninja.

Now let's drive this thing back! Here's the plan...

The masked man couldn't believe how smoothly everything had gone. The Nine-Tails was under his command and destroying the Leaf, it's previous container was dead and therefore it would be impossible to seal it back into her, and he got one over on the man who many considered to be the strongest ninja in the world.

I think I'll get myself something nice after all this, he decided, looking over the chaos from a tree in the outskirts of the village, right behind the Hokage Monument. Maybe a cinnamon bun, or the severed head of that jackass who bumped into me in Rain Country. Hmm... He'd stay there while the Leaf became an ash pile under him, call the Nine-Tails back, and leave. He already had a place in mind to teleport to.

And then Minato Namikaze was in front of him, a spiraling sphere of death in his hand. He was honestly so surprised that he didn't get the chance to even try to activate his intangibility technique. The Yondaime's attack grinded into his gut, tearing up his robe, shirt, skin, and insides, all in that order.

The technique then exploded, blasting him back in a spinning whirlwind that blew through at least six trees before slowing down enough to crash into one and cause it to splinter. Now breathing heavily, the masked man stood on a thick branch, leaning against the trunk of the seventh tree he had almost tore down with his flailing body. Standing on a branch a bit higher up than his was his assaulter, his blue eyes colder than ice.

"Damn it... I should've known it was too easy," the masked man said, looking down at his new injury. His belly was now covered with a spiraled gash that penetrated at least a full inch. I suppose that the death of his wife and unborn son weren't enough to break him, he thought. What a shame. "That's gonna scar. Thanks a lot, now I'll have to deal with this for the rest of my life."

Minato didn't even twitch, his face set in stone. "That should've killed you."

"Yeah, but... ninja."

No sooner had he said this, than Minato was in front of him again, another glowing blue sphere now aimed at his head. Fortunately for him he had been ready this time, so the technique phased through him and into the tree trunk behind him, destroying it in an explosion of sawdust.

The masked man swirled into being on a tree branch right across from Minato. "Oh, don't tell me you put one of those seals on my mask. Do you know how mean that is? I actually liked this one."

"You killed my family, you fucking asshole."

"But my mask!"

Again, Minato flashed in front of him, and the masked man yawned into his hand when the attempt at his life ended in failure once again. "This isn't going your way no matter how many times you try that trick, you know. Turning immaterial is just cool like that."

Seeing the furrowed brow that broke through Minato's neutral features, the man chuckled. "It must be pretty frustrating to fight someone you can't hit. I mean, not that I would know anything about that, but I feel for you."

Minato took a deep breath and fixed him with a controlled glare. For the first time since the fight started, the masked man felt himself grow nervous. An angry and wild Yondaime Hokage was easy enough to avoid getting hit by, but a Yondaime Hokage that started to actually use that head of his? There was a chance that this could end bad for him.

He didn't have much time to think on it, because the next thing he knew, a tri-pronged kunai was hurled at his head.

Clicking his tongue, the masked man let the unique weapon phase through his head. The moment he felt the kunai's hilt exit the area where his skull should've been, he let himself become material again. "Haven't you learned already, I can-"

Whatever he had been about to say was interrupted by Minato teleporting right above him, the kunai in one hand and his swirling blue technique in the other... which phased through him once more as he re-activated his intangibility in the split second it took for Minato to fall on him.

The branch he stood on was completely disintegrated by the sheer force of the technique, forcing him to jump back onto another one close by. Seeing Minato's flash of shock as the Hokage fell down onto a branch parallel to his brought on a chuckle, which quickly turned into a full-blown cackle that made him hold onto his knees to stop himself from falling over.

"HAHAHAHAAHAHA! Sorry, sorry it's just—" The masked man raised his covered face to look at Minato's scowling one, bringing him another round of laughs. "Oh god! You actually thought that would work for a second there, didn't you? Hahaha! That's just hilarious!"

The masked man calmed himself down, holding his chest as he took ragged breaths. "Man, thanks, Yondaime. I haven't had such a good laugh in a long time. Seriously, you thinking that the same 'kunai through the head' thing would work on me a second time?" He raised his hand and placed it on the marked mask. "Me, the guy who killed all your ANBU guards and captured a tailed beast in the same night?" When it came off, Minato couldn't see the face hidden in the shadows of the hood. The Yondaime stood still, knowing that any attack he tried at the moment would fail. After digging around inside his robe, the man brought out a new mask with his other hand, this one red. "Classic."

He threw his old mask away, and the two opponents stared each other down, the mask's clattering journey to the ground below being drowned out by the Nine-Tails' rampage in the distance. "Let's see, Yondaime," the man said, chains sprouting out of his overly long sleeves. "Let's see how many more jokes you've got left in you."

In almost perfect synchronization, the two jumped at each other. They met in a clash of screeching steel, kunai against chain, and fell back. As soon as the two landed on their respective tree branches, they came at each other once more, the masked man's chain now trailing behind him, held on both hands. When Minato reached him, the masked man became intangible, and the Hokage's momentum carried him through his opponent and into the waiting hold of the chain.

Not wanting to get wrapped up in the metal links, Minato flashed back to a Hirashin seal he had placed on the tree branch he had just jumped off from, facing the falling form of the masked man. Going through hand seals, he built up his chakra. Try going through this! he thought, holding out his index and middle finger. "Lightning Style: Precision Shock!"

A thin and long ray of lightning shot out of his fingertips. He was banking on the hope that the masked man would try and phase through it, just to see if elemental techniques were useless as well, but his opponent had other ideas.

The masked man sped through his own string of hand signs and held out his palms in front of him. "Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"

The gust of wind that came as a result easily overpowered Minato's own technique and headed on straight for him. With a burst of speed, the Yellow Flash got out of the way just before the branch he had been standing on got practically disintegrated, along with the tree it was connected to and several other trees in the surrounding area.

The Yondaime jumped onto another branch only to abandon it when a chain slammed into the bark and broke it off. The moment he landed on the side of a tree, another chain headed for him and nearly cut the tree down. The same thing happened over and over, until Minato was forced to stay on the defensive, which basically meant he had to run around and try not to get blown apart.

The masked man only had one chain per hand, but he wielded them perfectly, not giving Minato any chance to counterattack. Whenever he attacked with one, he'd pull back on the other and fling it over his head before bringing it down in quick succession. The chains were apparently extendable too, so he didn't even move from his spot on a tree branch, content with wailing on Minato from a safe distance.

Seeing this, Minato got an idea. When he next set his feet on a flat surface, this time a tall outcropping of stone that reached up through the branches, he didn't jump away as one of the chains sliced through the air towards him. Instead, he held out his hand and caught it.

Well, it wasn't really 'catching' as much as it was letting the chain slam into the palm of his hand and send him reeling off the rock and into the air. However, instead of a pain-filled grimace, Minato smirked as he twisted violently in midair. He opened a hand and activated his signature swirling technique.

When the masked man brought the chain back around over his head, Minato acted. He flashed to the Hirashin seal he had placed on one of the chain links that had most likely bruised his palm.

The masked man didn't even have time to react.

"Rasengan!"

The branch exploded as the sphere drilled into the masked man's back. He was then flung downwards, breaking apart everything within a five meter radius until he landed on the ground so hard that his body created a crater at least ten times his size.

He blinked, idly noting that his spinal cord was shattered. Such an injury would've usually ended any ninja's career, or any regular person's career for that matter, but it wouldn't be the first time he'd bounced back from such crippling injuries. No, the masked man was more worried about the fact that Minato had somehow figured out a way to debilitate him in the way he did.

That's... That's just unfair, he thought, truly speechless. Why can't my teleportation be that cool?

He heard Minato land next to him. "Just thought you should know, I placed a seal on you that negated whatever summoning contract you had with the Nine-Tails."

That did it. The masked man tried to laugh, but it came out as choked coughing. He'd been sure he had won just a moment before, and the Yondaime Hokage had brought him back down to earth after connecting with one move. "When... did you g-get the chance to do that?"

"Right after I finished breaking your back."

"Ah. Well... That sucks. I guess I'll have to come back for it later," the masked man said, mostly to himself. His injury wouldn't take him out forever, but there was no way he could keep fighting in the condition he was in. Lesson learned: don't get anywhere near the blue ball of death. He had known that the technique was dangerous before, but there was nothing like good old vertebrae demolition to really drive it home.

"You won't get the chance. I'm going to kill you now."

"No, you're not." That actually got Minato to pause, probably in preparation of some sort of last stand. Hesitating dumbass. "You know why? Because I can still do... this!"

With that, the masked man disappeared in a swirling vortex.

Minato had a long string of curses ready at seeing the man who had single handedly ruined his life get away, but the distant roars of the Nine-Tails as it kept flattening his village caught his attention.

Scowling down at the empty space where the masked man was just a second before, Minato clenched his hands. Next time... I'll kill him without hesitation. But first...

Now! All Leaf forces, attack!

With that mental command, all the remaining ninja who were well enough to fight launched a massive barrage of elemental and physical attacks right at the Nine-Tails, which was restricted in its movements by a cocoon of shadows, the entirety of the Akamichi clan holding it's tails down, and unbelievable amounts of ninja wire. The combined force of everyone's strength was enough to send the fox careening backwards over the village walls, where it stayed unmoving. Seeing this, a cheer arose from the assembled crowd.

The joy of his comrades put a bitter smile on Hiruzen's lips. Breaking off from Inoichi's technique, to which the man looked thankful, the previous village leader thought on what the next step would be. That won't take it down for long. What should we do now? Destroy it? No, it would only come back in a few years or maybe even months. We need a long-term solution. Looking back to the village, his smile turned grim. Over half of the village will need serious repairs. We're all just lucky that the Nine-Tails hasn't decided to pull out any of that mountain destroying power it's said to have, or else we'd all be finished already.

"You managed to knock it back, huh?"

Hearing that voice, though noticeably more somber than usual even considering their situation, made the weight on Hiruzen's shoulders disappear. Minato was younger than him, but his mere presence radiated a level of confidence that he himself had never personally been able to acquire.

"For now, yes, but not for very long," Hiruzen said.

Minato nodded, squinting at the still form of the Nine-Tails. "That's enough to seal it into someone and be done with this."

Inoichi, who had gotten enough of his bearings back to at least stand up straight, sent his Hokage a questioning look. "Speaking of which, where's Kushina? What the hell happened to make the demon escape from the seal?"

The question only brought about a palpable silence, and right then Hiruzen knew that he and Minato had both lost their wives tonight. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clamping down on his jaw to keep it from trembling.

"... We're going to need a new jinchuuriki."

The retired Hokage nodded in agreement of the current one. He signaled one of the ANBU that littered the scene. "Get the barrier team and tell them to restrain the beast for as long as possible, got it?"

"Roger!"

After the black-ops agent sunk into the shadows, Hiruzen turned to Minato. "That won't buy us too much time. A few minutes at most before it breaks out of whatever they decide to hold it with."

Minato frowned. "I know," he said, his eyes unfocused. A second later, they were back to normal. "I'll finish this as fast as possible."

After hearing their Hokage's last promise, Inoichi and Hiruzen watched him disappear in a yellow flash.

The hospital was easy enough to find. Along with the Hokage Tower and various other buildings of tremendous importance, it was completely surrounded by a white, luminescent barrier that reached far into the sky. The Unbreakable Wall of the Leaf's Unshakable Resolve, as he called it (much to the chagrin of everyone else), was a barrier technique designed to protect the material necessities of the village in case of an invasion. Completed with the help of Jiraiya, Kushina, and the entire barrier team, it was nearly impenetrable, and only nearly because Minato wasn't sure how many Tailed Beast Bombs it could take before it shattered.

That is, unless the enemy knew how to use space-time techniques, in which case getting past it was easy enough.

Being the Hokage, Minato had taken the precaution of placing a Hirashin seal in every block of the village, so it didn't take him very long to walk through the doors of the hospital. As he strode through the white hallways, Minato ignored the cowering and confused doctors and nurses in favor of planning out how he would go about re-sealing the Nine-Tails into someone else.

It'll be easier for a child to adjust than a grown adult, he figured, glancing at every room number he walked by. Realizing what he just thought, Minato cringed. It felt wrong to think that way, but he knew he was right. A kid could grow into their responsibility as a Jinchuuriki, while someone older would most likely refuse or turn away from it. He was sure that someone like Inoichi or Chouza would accept without question, so loyal they were to the village and to him, but they had families they needed to take care of. So it had to be a child, someone who had nothing to lose. That didn't make it easier for him to know that he was basically about to ruin someone's life before it even really began.

It couldn't be him, as the only technique he knew that could seal something like the Nine-Tails into himself would end up killing him regardless. And if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he couldn't die. The Leaf would need its leader now more than ever.

That sent him on another line of thought. He was the Hokage, and could, according to his authority, order others to do whatever he thought was best for the village. However, he didn't think he could look into a parent's eyes and order them to hand over their child to serve as a sacrifice. An orphan then. God, I'll never be able to live with myself after all of this is over, will I? But who could he chose? It didn't feel right to just walk into a room full of newborn orphans and pick out whichever one he thought had the most chakra.

It would've been so much easier if... if Naruto had just been born a little sooner, or if that man had just shown up a little later. He could've sealed it inside his son knowing that he wouldn't be let down. He'd still feel terrible, but at least he would've been able to rest easy knowing he'd placed the Nine-Tails in trustworthy hands.

When Minato walked by another room, he heard a furious cough. The kind that could only mean one thing. On a whim, if only to satiate his brief curiosity before resuming his duty, the Yondaime Hokage opened the door, and changed the world forever.

Standing before the trapped Nine-Tails just outside the village walls, Minato wracked his brain for anything that could allow him to seal the beast into the newborn babe that was resting on his summoned altar. For all his knowledge of sealing, Minato had never been faced with a problem so frustratingly simple and yet difficult as this.

The Nine-Tails had way too much chakra. Just a ridiculously unimaginable amount. He didn't have a seal that could contain even a little more than half of it.

He'd never thought about how difficult it must've been for the Leaf to find suitable jinchuuriki before. The first one had been so good at sealing that she made any side-effects of getting a tailed beast sealed inside her moot for all intents and purposes, doing such a good job of it that its influence was nearly nonexistent. Then Kushina came along with her convenient chakra chains, easily submitting the demon to her will. It made him wonder what the plan would've been when she had to pass it on and they'd find themselves short of any more special Uzumaki.

... Kind of like what was happening now, actually.

The obvious solution was to split the Nine-Tails in half, storing one in him and the other in the child with the Eight Trigrams Seal he'd been working on, but the Dead Demon Consuming Seal he'd have to use on himself would kill him, and he wasn't about to abandon his village in the aftermath of everything that had happened.

It was only when the beast behind him figured out what he was trying to do that he found the solution to his dilemma. It hadn't been tested, there was an approximately fifty percent chance of failure, and it could end in the Nine-Tails just getting more pissed off than it probably already was after getting mind controlled, but it was the only thing he could think of with even the slightest chance of success. Plus, by the way it was roaring its heart out inside the barrier it was contained in, the Nine-Tails couldn't get any more pissed off anyway.

The Eight Trigrams Seal was actually pretty simple when one looked at it from a surface level. It was just two Four Symbols Seals tethered together. By that logic, Minato could theoretically keep adding as many Four Symbols Seals as he wanted and it would all work out. Now, he was sure that each individual symbol would eventually start to negatively affect all the others the more of them he drew, but it wasn't like he'd actually go and see how many he could add before the whole matrix imploded. Sixteen trigrams shouldn't be too many, right?

It was an easy thing to draw up his half-baked idea. Each symbol had to be extremely small, considering how many there were and what he was drawing them on, but it only took him a few moments at best, as all sixteen symbols were uniform. The baby was helpful too, laying still and not squirming much. He was quiet for a newborn, with eyes opened and staring up at him, making him feel even guiltier.

He had no idea what the seal would do. The Eight Trigrams Seal would've slowly integrated the Nine-Tails' chakra into its jinchuuriki as time went by, and would've even allowed the jinchuuriki to use their demon's chakra in exponentially expanding amounts if they ever had the need for it, but a Sixteen Trigrams Seal was a complete unknown to him, at least right now when he was rushing it before the demon broke out and skewered him with one of its claws. Even now it was banging against the almost transparent wall that separated it from it's potential jail.

"Don't you dare! I'll rip your worthless sack of a body to shreds, you hear me!?"

Huh. The Nine-Tails could talk, apparently. He didn't know that. It was actually the first time he really got a good look at it, much less heard it speak.

"You think that puny scrap of life can hold me back from turning this entire village into a canyon!? He is no Uzumaki! Those damned chains might've been able to restrain me, but this baby!?"

Oh well, the seal was already done. All that was left to do was place its prisoner inside.

Minato whistled at one of he ninja holding the barrier in place. "Oi, drop it. Let it out."

The ninja spluttered, looking up at the great beast he was helping to hold back from his kneeling position. "Wh-What!? Are you sure, Hokage-sama?" Not like he could complain, since it looked liken he and the rest of the barrier team were on their last legs anyway.

"Do I look like I'm not sure? Just do it. Have some faith in your Hokage."

"Y-Yes, Hokage-sama!"

The Nine-Tails, having heard this, got ready for when the barrier was dropped. Its whole body tensed, and its glowering red eyes set themselves on the one man who could realistically stop it.

The almost invisible wall that surrounded its massive form disappeared, freeing the tailed beast. It immediately went for Minato, its claws stabbing forward, tearing through the air.

"Tch, so predictable."

With one sharp tip of a claw only millimeters away from his forehead, Minato, raised one hand towards the beast and lay the other on the newborn's stomach, his five fingers spanning the seal placed there.

The moment his hand touched the man-sized claw that had just been about to kill him, the Nine-Tails became visible chakra, passed through him, and ended up inside the seal. It was a weird feeling, having what could very well be the biggest amount of chakra to ever exist briefly inside of him. It hadn't exactly hurt, but it was intense. Oppressive. For a second, it had almost felt like he was about to explode, and then it was gone. And that's what this kid will have to live with.

The danger now gone for good, the ninja barrier team that had been anxiously standing all around him finally relaxed. Actually, it felt as if the entire village could finally breathe again, as damaged as it was. The mere presence of the Nine-Tails had been enough to instantly put everyone within a thousand meter radius into fight-or-flight mode, and now that it was gone, the pure relief that spread was overwhelming.

Hiruzen reached him soon enough after that, staring intently at the bundled baby in Minato's arms. "Is that..."

"Yeah..."

It took a moment for Minato to realize that he was crying, and when he did, it all came down. With the Nine-Tails taken care of, there was nothing to hold him back from thinking of Kushina, their son who had never been given a chance, and the life he had been ready to begin. The village, or what was left of it. The countless amounts of people who had surely lost their lives. The man who had caused it all, who would surely come back for his stolen weapon one day.

Hiruzen didn't look to be doing much better, but that was okay. As the two Hokage looked on at their ruined responsibility, and thought back to their deceased loved ones, they allowed themselves to mourn.

"What is his name?"

"Hm?" Minato snapped his head down to the new jinchuuriki in his arms, who finally slept soundly.

"His name..." He knew it alright, had it branded to his memory to remember for as long as he lived. The name of the life he had sacrificed because of his duty, taken straight from the mother's lips.

"... Arashi."

AN:

Yes, believe it or not someone just made a Naruto story in which Naruto dies in the first chapter and is subsequently replaced by someone else in his role as the jinchuuriki of the Nine Tailed Demon Fox. Well, not really dies, since he was never technically born, but that's a whole different discussion.

Now, hold on with those flames, please. Before you burn me alive, let me tell you all why this came about. I've been thinking of starting this story for a while now, and kept having new ideas, so much so that even now I've got this story pretty much locked down in planning up until the end of part one at least. As I kept thinking about it, there was only one problem I ran into: Naruto. The more crap I piled on my story, the more Naruto himself didn't fit, to the point that he eventually became an OC in all but name. So, naturally, I decided that if the main character was going to basically be an OC anyway, I might as well actually go through with it.

Why Arashi? Well, the name had to be fit or else it would sound stupid amongst all the Hinatas and Shikamarus of the world, and I didn't want to try my hand at making up my own Japanese name, because that would've sounded even worse than if it was English. 'Arashi' is a somewhat recognizable name in Naruto fanon, it isn't taken by any canon character, and it sounds halfway decent when put next to all the others, so I went with it.

That's it, then. I'm done trying to justify killing off the protagonist of this entire series in the very first chapter. Don't worry, the rest of this story will hopefully more than make up for it.

Next time, we see the Leaf's jinchuuriki grow up in a town that seems to think he doesn't exist, the Yondaime living on when his wife and child do not, and how to skip rocks.