Fifteen things that would have happened had the Yondaime Hokage lived. Not written by a particularly talented writer, this is lacking in the poignancy department...
Check out Catch 22 or Kraken's Ghost 's 20 Truths trilogy if you want something good. Go, shoo.
1. Jiraiya, the Sandaime and the Yondaime Hokage spent almost exactly twenty four hours discussing the Shiki Fuujin. With two seal masters and the Professor, a seal that would have taken at least a month to design was done in one desperate day. The three rode out to meet the Kyuubi with Minato's son on Gamabunta, and when the Yellow Flash prepared to quickly slash down the seal on the infant's stomach, his predecessor did something utterly unexpected and knocked the seal master out and did it himself.
All Jiraiya did was jump the falling blond and carry him to safety, while he watched the death of his mentor, the defeat of the Kyuubi and the ruination of a child's life, and wept for the last time in his life.
2. The Council, yet uninformed of the fact that the Third had taken the Yondaime's place as the sacrifice to the Shinigami, was well into an argument about the Jinchuuriki, and the majority was for the child's death. When Namikaze Minato entered the room with a fearsome scowl on his face, a large bump on the back of his head and a blonde infant cradled in his arms, the room hushed before exploding into an incredulous questions.
The first thing the Yondaime was to do was yell "Quiet!" and when the noise died down a bit- "Naruto is sleeping."
3. There was a two year war with Kumo, from when Naruto was three to when he was five. It was in this time when Naruto decided to be a shinobi, just so that he wouldn't be left behind whenever his father went out to battle. He tracked down a Special Jounin named Mitarashi Anko and begged to be taught by her. He was four.
Anko, who couldn't go out to fight because she was still on probation, gladly (A bit too gladly) taught the boy about chakra, and skipped straight from the basics to B-rank jutsu. Naruto was five when he learned his first Katon jutsu, and when his father finally came back, weary but triumphant, Naruto was home to greet him with a large, shit-eating grin and a fireball.
He was admitted to the Academy the next week.
4. The Uchiha Massacre never happened. Uchiha Shisui was captured by Kumo on the grounds that the Sharingan was at least as useful as the Byakugan. Uchiha Itachi was sent on a retrieval mission, which he, against all odds, succeeded in. Unfortunately one of his last two opponents was a medic-nin who damaged certain neural pathways with a genius combination of lightning and medical jutsu. Itachi, bereft of any memory of his life or proper function of his fingers- his other opponent had sliced his tendons with wire- woke up in a rural village, where he spent most of the rest of his life in as a farmer, doubling as a barkeep.
5. Uchiha Sasuke made a promise to himself to bring back Itachi. He was the only one who believed Itachi was alive. He entered the Academy a year after Naruto did, and became Rock Lee's unwilling 'rival', and (although he would never admit it) best friend.
6. Umino Iruka was the eighth assassin to come after Naruto. Naruto was five years old. Taking advantage of the dearth of guards- as most of the more experienced shinobi had been called to the battle- he somehow managed to sneak into the Namikaze Mansion, and found himself entrapped in the other genjutsu that Anko had been teaching Naruto- Rabirinto.
When he finally thought to dispell the illusion, he was tied up and in a cell.
Taking advantage of the dearth of guards, a smirking Naruto cut his ropes with a kitchen knife, pressed said knife to Iruka's jugular, and told him not to return again or this time he'd tell Ibiki who exactly he was behind the mask.
Iruka made chuunin the next year, and stayed away from the blonde.
7. Haruno Sakura never became shinobi. The war with Kumo frightened her civilian parents, who moved out of Konoha to a rural village south southeast of Konohagakure. She grew up and married a man eight years her senior, a bartender named Yuta.
8. Uzumaki Naruto was destined to never be normal. He graduated at the age of nine, with average marks in genjutsu, lower than average chakra control, above average taijutsu (Mostly owing to his height) and genius ninjutsu and good marks in his exams. Desiring to stop being compared to his father, he made a promise to himself to SURPASS him so his father's name would be nothing but an inkstain next to his in history books.
Ironically enough, Sasuke was in his team again. Naruto had missed a year when he was visiting Uzu no Kuni with his mother, where he learned several water jutsu and the basics of his family's taijutsu style. When he came back, he was in the same class with Sasuke.
They never liked each other.
9. Hyuuga Hinata's jounin-sensei was Mitarashi Anko. No one was sure how to feel about this except Shikamaru, who had a fairly simple view on everything. Naruto because a chuunin in the same year, and was well on his way to becoming a legend. When the two were introduced, and actually liked each other (Naruto almost never got on well with any member of a noble clan) Hyuuga Hiashi decided to marry off his daughter to the Yondaime's son.
Minato was not very pleased about this. Neither was Neji, who was Hinata's staunch protector. He challenged Naruto to a spar when he heard the news, taunting him that he had made chuunin only because of favoritism, and that it was fate that Naruto should lose. Not happy with this verdict, Naruto beat the Hyuuga tensai with Kage Bunshin, a bastardized version of Hiraishin and- when he realized he was actually in danger of losing- his personal kinjutsu.
Neji never told anyone about what had happened in the fight, afterwards. He just blushed. Naruto just put on a smug look and said, 'Well, now I know he's not gay.'
10. The Wave mission went a little different. The genin team sent with Tazuna never came back, and two weeks later, Naruto took his first A-ranked mission, with Hatake Kakashi. It was his birthday present. Kakashi knew that the Yellow Flash had a habit if signing without looking, and even more so if he didn't recognize the handwriting. Thus, when the Yondaime realized what exactly he had done, they were both out of Konoha.
Naruto was the distraction, while Kakashi did the actual killing. Naruto's 'distraction' involved five hundred Kage Bunshin, henge, multiplication genjutsu, and a rebellion of one person was born.
The Bunshin stormed Gato's little castle, with torches, dark clothes, emaciated faces. A few demonic touches here and there, and half the enemy had already wet their pants. They were quickly taken down. Only about ten skilled shinobi were present- Kakashi had already taken down three, another three had quietly run away, and Naruto tricked two into fighting each other and finished the job when they were tired out.
The other two... were a problem.
It was the first time Naruto had ever called up his demonic chakra to actually fight. Jiraiya had taught him what to do in case he needed it, but had warned him never to do it unless he was desperate.
When he came to, he was splattered in blood. The older one with a giant sword was already dead, but the younger girl was desperately clinging onto life, unconscious. Horrified, Naruto spent almost two minutes just looking at her breathing slow. Kakashi finally found him an hour later, sitting next to two corpses, half-asleep. The sun was rising.
11. Naruto took the sword, and tracked down Gekkou Hayate under henge. He recognized the illusion for what it was, but did not insist that Naruto take it off. As Momochi Haku, he trained under the young kenjutsu master for eight months, and mastered the Base style of the sword. After that... he made it his job to create a style, a mixture of Hayate's style, what he knew of Zabuza's style, and his own crazy, straightforward-but-oddly-sneaky trademark attacks.
He also mastered senbon, and never used it.
12. Naruto never wanted to be Hokage. Half the village took it to be granted that the Yondaime's son would become Godaime, the other half despised the idea. Naruto somehow remained clueless to the whole mess. Gaara, hearing the rumors, came to challenge his Leaf counterpart.
The fight... was epic.
Ultimate shield against powerhouse stamina freak. Unfortunately for Gaara, Naruto was a twisted genius. With a strong- note, strong- burst of chakra, he managed to overwhelm the control Gaara had over his sand for a moment. A moment was all he needed to knock the Ichibi Jinchuuriki out of his false sleep.
Treaties went well with Suna and Konoha.
13. At fourteen, Naruto finally grew taller. It took him two months to readjust his taijutsu style to his height, which had so far been designed to subtly depend on his small stature.
At the same age, Jiraiya taught him sealing. At he same age, he became jounin. The same year, the Yondaime Hokage died from an Akatsuki attack. Minato had managed to take down three of his assailants, who were later identified as a man named Hidan and a nukenin from Waterfall, Kakuzu, and Hoshigaki Kisame of Kiri, but the last one escaped.
Jiraiya became the Godaime Hokage. His inauguration ceremony was held a week after Minato's funeral. Naruto was laughing at his inauguration, and there were words in his laughter, and he was crying with a manic grin on his face. "How does it feel to be roped into a post with a 100 percent mortality, Jiraiya? Huh? Answer that!-"
14. Uzumaki Naruto became a Hunter nin at the age of fifteen. There, he became a legend. His first mission was to hunt down a B-class Iwa nukenin, who had been loitering around Konoha's borders. No one had managed to catch him yet. Naruto found him in two days, killed him before the nukenin realized he was under attack, hid the body, took the head, and spent the rest of the month he was given to track him down hunting Akatsuki.
His explanation when he came back with not one, but two heads, both from Iwa; "I sort of ran into him."
The next edition of the Bingo Book was missing the title S-rank nukenin Deidara, former village: Iwa'.
It was then that the Godaime Hokage started to take his student's little blonde brat seriously. Naruto then began to be sent out on longer missions.
15. When he was twenty one, the Akatsuki had been disbanded, most by one man. The last two, by the names of Konan and Pein, Naruto had been smart enough to know he couldn't beat by himself. He enlisted the help of the Godaime Hokage and Neji and two of his fellow Hunter-nin, Kakashi and genjutsu mistress Yuuhi Kurenai. The latter five were just part of an elaborate trap Naruto had designed to weaken his opponents.
The Godaime-turned-Toad-Sage did most of the work at first. Naruto, after analyzing his opponents' attacks, called for Jiraiya to retreat almost as he was about to be defeated.
Kakashi and the rest took Jiraiya and ran.
Two minutes later, the Hidden Village of Rain did not exist.
All the other hidden villages quietly ignored the incident.
One might note: for sixty years after that, during the reign of the Rokudaime Hokage, none of the wars in the Shinobi Continent involved Konoha.
None.