Chapter I: Kyubi

A thick rain fell on the muddied ground. Thunder roared as lightning clashed against the ground and flashed through the dark clouds high above. The storm-riddled night was dreary and exciting all the same. The trees bowed with the howling wind; and as lightning struck a nearby cliff side, rock and stone tumbled down with a fierce avalanche. But there was also an agony about it all, and down in a rolling plane the rain washed away deep puddles of blood.

"Rin!" Obito cried while he held the still body of a brunette woman, whose eyes were snapped wide as the gaping hole struck through her chest. "Rin!" he shouted again. Her eyes, though wide, were dull and lifeless. She was his teammate, his friend, and the love of his life; and she was dead. Just another corpse added to the pile of bodies Obito had personally slaughtered in his rage at Rin's demise. Now it was only him; him and, somewhere lying comatose on the side, another, silver-haired teen who had fallen unconscious several minutes before, and hadn't awoken since.

The lightning flashed once more, and Obito let out a monstrous scream towards the blanketed sky, one of rage and agony. Another flash...

Obito gasped, and pulled himself up off the craggy rock he was using as a pillow. Another nightmare. One of many he had had since that night when the most important person in the world to him was taken from his grasp. It had been two years since that fated day. Now it was October, and a pleasant fall breeze, brisking through the surrounding trees, soothed his nerves and the hot, feverish sweat that had begun to creep down his neck. The bright blue moon was full and large, casting a luminescent light over the forest that revealed naught but several meters in all directions.

"Hallo!"

Obito shouted a shrill gasp, and in an instant clung to a branch hanging over! Standing beneath was a pale white man; who may not have been one, but certainly bore some resemblance. Its skin was knotty like a tree, its face mutated into a spiral reminiscent of a black hole, with a single eye hole visible on the right side of its face. For a short time it still looked were Obito had been, its hand raised in a wave, before it finally looked up with an exclamation of surprise. "Guruguru! You bastard!" Obito snarled with a rapidly beating heart.

"Eh?" said the creature with an air of innocence and ignorance, and it pointed towards itself. "Who, Tobi?" The being's name was Tobi, although Obito took to calling it Guruguru due to the spiral pattern on its face.

"Yes, you!" shouted Obito as he dropped back to the ground. Then, after a breath: "Tonight is very important. You almost gave away our position and ruined our whole plan."

"Tobi understands!" said Tobi with a nod.

"If we are discovered too early we won't be able to catch our opponents off guard. The forces we deal with will not allow us the luxury of underestimating them." Obito continued, oblivious. "You have to be serious at all times, Guruguru!"

"Tobi understands!" Tobi replied again.

"I'm not sure you do..." Obito sighed. "Anyways, this will b-" He blinked, and looked around. Tobi was missing! "Guru?" Suddenly, a chill ran down Obito's spine, and a hand touched his shoulder. And then, in a raspy, spooky whisper:

"Tobi scared you, didn't he?"

"Absolutely not!" Obito yelled angrily as he turned around, to see Tobi standing behind him. "Guru this is serious! My whole plan depends on tonight! If anything goes wrong I'll have to rethink everything. I've waited for this moment too long for that to happen, understand?"

"Hai!" Tobi announced with a raised fist and a cheery voice.

"Excellent." said Obito, and he turned and led them a short ways through the forest. The tree halted at a point, revealing a rocky outcropping; and at the other end it dropped sharply down hundreds of yards. They stood atop a head, sculpted into the side of a mountain, that overlooked the valley below. And there, surrounded by tall, heavily fortified walls, was a city. A city that lived in harmony with the foliage that flanked it on all sides, a city that used that relationship with the woodland to find its name. This was Konohagakure; the village hidden by tree leaves.

It was on this village that Obito and Tobi looked, with one's expression being hidden while the other's was sullen. The distant lights below shone with a radiance so bright that it lit the four faces guarding the mountainside with the light of a fire, symbolic of their titles as the Hokage - The Fire Shadow's. The leaders of Konoha, they had their busts carved into the mountain in honor of them, their power, and their memory.

"Once I wished for my own face to join these." mused Obito with a far-off gaze. "No longer. Come, Guru. It's time to change the world."

"Yay! Tobi's excited!" said the being, and the spirals of his 'flesh' separated and pulled apart, and they surrounded Obito and covered over him like a suit of armor. "Let's go!" shouted the creature; and they leaped off the earthen structure to free-fall down the cliff side, towards the city below.

"Wait! No! Guru! You fool!" Obito barked as he flailed. "We weren't supposed to jump! We were going to use my ability to get in!"

"Wee!" Tobi exclaimed, ignoring Obito outright. And so they fell, for a moment their visage clear as day thanks to the city lights, but soon they were shrouded by darkness as they passed under the shadow of a large, cylindrical, red building that towered over all the others. They landed with a loud thud.

"Guru..." Obito groaned, his face smashed into the ground.

"Tobi's a good boy?" Tobi questioned with a nervous giggle. Obito tenderly pushed himself from the crater they had created with their face. Were it not for the hard shell Tobi had formed around them, Obito would have had more than a broken nose. Their gaze turned sharply to the side, in the direction that three figures approached over the nearby rooftops. "Oh! Tobi sees friends!"

"Not now Guru!" Obito ordered as he rushed into a nearby alley, using its shadow to hide them from the attentions of their pursuers. When the three emerged into the light, Obito grit his teeth. Each of them wore headband wrapped around their foreheads, and at the front marked on a silver plating was a pattern of a single leaf. Shinobi of Konoha; their appearance was no surprise. Shinobi were, after all, the police and army of Konoha.

"Whoa." One exclaimed to the other. "What'd you think made this?"

"Who knows. Had to be something big to have such an impact." The other replied, as he investigated the crater with a tilt of his head. "And... Is that a head imprint?"

"Be on the alert." Another interrupted. "We need to inform the other squads to be on the look out. Whatever this thing was may still be here." And then, after having a short look around, they all left.

"Hmph." Obito grunted. "See, Guru? Now we're going to have to speed things up."

"Tobi's sorry..." Tobi said dejectedly.

"No matter. The objective is still the same. Give me full control." Obito replied. It was Tobi's shell, and so Tobi had most use of their joined body, but Obito could still move somewhat against Tobi. Fortunately, the being was more than willing, nine times out of ten, to lend complete control of their body over to Obito. He flexed their pale hand. There was no more interference. Obito's eye flashed a colorful crimson, with little mutated pupils surrounding the main one. The Sharingan - a special ability belonging to Obito's family, the Uchiha.

Obito's Sharingan gave him a special ability, however, beyond that which most Uchiha had access to. Through the use of an alternate dimension, belonging completely to Obito himself, he was capable of teleporting himself and anyone he touched, through a portal, through that alternate dimension, and into another part of the world. The act took the form of a sort of swirling air surrounding him, like a miniature black hole, and it sucked him in as if he was but a piece of paper.

Then, several seconds later, they reappeared in a dimly lit room. It was quiet and small, a single lamp in the middle on a round table that gave light to the dark grey file cabinets that lined the walls. At the table was a lone man, who reclined in a chair with his legs stretched over the table, and his eyes closed and brow furrowed. Obito absorbed the sleeping shinobi with his technique, his Kamui, to give himself free reign of the room.

Tobi detached from Obito, and reformed as the full creature that it was before. "We are still undetected?" Obito asked as he briskly looked over a short folder left behind by the sleeping man.

"Hai! Tobi thinks they're still perplexed by the wonderful mark your head left!" Tobi replied, ignorant of the tick that appeared on Obito's brow.

"That was your doing!" Obito growled, then with a snort, "Look for anything detailing the locations of Minato's safe houses. The child will be born in one of those."

"Tobi found it!" declared Tobi as it shoved a thin folder at Obito's nose.

"Wha-?" Obito started. Regaining his composure, he quickly snatched the documents from Tobi's hands and flipped through it. Within was a single page, and every word was encoded in a strange gibberish that was completely illegible. "And how, precisely, do you know this is the information we seek?"

"Tobi's gut tells him!" Tobi replied.

"Guru, you don't have a gut." Obito informed.

"Eh? Tobi wants a gut!"

"No, you really don't." Obito stated quickly. "Well, we have the key. We'll find out if this has the safe house's location soon enough." Suddenly there was a crash behind them! They both turned towards the thick door, still closed, and behind it there was a series of mutters and complaints spoken by a man, though details beyond that were scarce. Then all was quiet for several seconds. Eventually the silver doorknob turned and the internal latch clicked, and the door was pushed inwards allowing a man carrying disheveled folders and documents to enter. But by then, Obito and Tobi were already gone.

The dimension that belonged to Obito's eye was vastly different than anything seen in the world they all knew. Within, there was no sun, no moon, no stars. There was no space, there was no grass, nothing living but Obito and those he brought with him resided within. No mountains, no oceans, no dirt to sift their feet within. Rectangular platforms made up what amounted to the landmass, the tops stood on but the bottoms vanished far beneath into a black abyss that even Obito dared not explore.

Laid out on the platform before Obito was the spiky-haired young man he had found at the Anbu's central information library. Still fast asleep, as if he had never awoken. "Wow! Deep sleeper; Tobi wonders how loud we can get before he wakes up!" Tobi wondered, now once more forming a protective shell around Obito.

"Noise will not be our method." Obito stated simply as he stretched a hand over the sleeping man's forehead and, placing his palm just above his eyes, grunted, his Sharingan flaring a bright ember. Immediately the man tensed and tried to sit up, but found himself unable to, and he screamed as pain overwhelmed his mind. With his head firmly clenched in Obito's fingers, the Uchiha made a simple, yet undeniable demand. "Tell me the cipher."

There was much groaning and gasping, and such restrained shouts of agony that Obito nearly feared his victim would grant himself an aneurysm and an early death before he revealed the information Obito sought. "I... I don't know..." he spat with grit teeth.

"Who does, then?" Obito demanded further.

"The... The intelligence filer - he knows."

"And where is he?"

"I was... Waiting for him in... In the file room." Then he gave another agonizing cry, and his arms and legs and neck spasmed and contorted in inhuman ways; and then his eyes rolled back in his skull and he went limp. That was the death of him, one which Obito would not remember. It was just one out of several others, both that had occurred in the past and those that would happen in the future.

"The filer... Guru, find him." Obito said, as he unceremoniously kicked the corpse off the platform, without ever giving it a second thought.

"Tobi found him already!"

"What?" Obito turned sharply at a smash behind him; it was the same one who had almost discovered their presence by barging in on them, and only failed in doing so because of the unintended distraction the dropping of his folders had afforded. "Hm. Well, let's see what you know."

The interrogation went on for several minutes, as Obito peeled the information from the man's mind itself; his screams, however, were never heard by anyone on the outside world, and he would never be seen again. Meanwhile, on the other side of Konoha, another event of less diabolical form was developing. And the shouts there were not of pain, but of a severe dislike of a baby no longer being within his mother's womb.

"I'm... A father!" Cried a clear-skinned man with long, blond hair. Tears of joy fled from his eyes and descended his cheeks as he looked down on a sniffling little baby who, even now, bore a great resemblance to himself. Holding the baby, with her nose to his, was an exhausted woman with long, dark red hair. Minato the father, Kushina the mother, and Naruto the son. Biwako Sarutobi, who was the wife of the retired Third Hokage, had never seen a more perfectly happy family. But then almost immediately, it was interrupted when Minato resumed a far more serious role. "Okay. Now to strengthen the seal."

The seal. Kushina was, as were at least eight other people in the world, the holders of one of nine terrible beasts. These were ancient demons, each called by the number of tails they possessed, and each were sealed long ago into individuals across the world. It had been said that the more tails the demons had, the stronger they were. No one knew for sure if that was true, but the Kyubi who resided within Kushina was a powerful being indeed. It was the ninth, having nine tails, and bore the appearance of a massive fox.

Now, the seal which held the Kyubi at bay was weakened, weakened by child birth, and the fox wanted to be free. There was no time to waist. Biwako immediately grabbed up Naruto and, alongside the other nurse, took the baby to safety while Minato worked. He was not only a powerful shinobi, but he was also the Fourth Hokage; and knew seals better than anyone. It fell to him to ensure the demon didn't break free.

Kushina gave her approval, and Minato took a breath; but then something terrible happened. Biwako and the other nurse, they were hit from behind; non-fatally, a simple chop against the collar, rendering them both unconscious.

"What?" Minato gasped as he looked on the intruder's appearance; not failing to realize that he held Naruto in his hand. He wore a thick, black cloak with long, baggy sleeves, and a orange mask that had but one eye hole; within which nothing could be seen. "Who are you?"

"That doesn't matter." Obito answered. He revealed a dagger in his free hand. "You will step away from the Jinchuriki, Yondaime. If you do not, your child will die. Far too early an end, wouldn't you say?"

"Naruto!" Kushina shouted; her outburst caused the baby to cry even more. And then she gasped, and a big black bulge formed on her stomach and grew, as writing in ink appeared all around her; the seal was weakening, and the fox was threatening to break loose! All the while, Obito waited patiently for Minato's answer. The sharp edge moved, achingly slow, towards the child's neck.

"Let's not do anything hasty!" Minato pleaded, worry etching its way over his normal poise.

"I'm not the one who needs to worry about being hasty." Obito countered. He tossed Naruto up into the air, and then leaped after him, fully prepared to dig the blade into the innocent boy's back and put an end to his crying. But before Obito could reach, Minato vanished, along with Naruto, and they both reappeared on the far wall with Minato cradling the child. Naruto's tears ceased, which for a mere moment gave Minato pause, but quickly he looked over his shoulder to get a view on the masked man.

"Impressive." said Obito. "Your speed is to be respected, Minato. Fortunately, killing Naruto was not part of my objective." Minato gasped, realizing too late that Obito stood right next to Kushina. He had done exactly as Obito had originally instructed; he left Kushina's side. Obito placed a hand on Kushina, who flinched away from him to no avail, and to Minato's horror they both were sucked into a sort of vortex that he had never before seen. They were gone. Minato grimaced and looked down at Naruto, who began to show signs of shedding further tears.

"Don't worry, Naruto. I'll get her back." He told the baby. He dropped down to the floor, just in time for Biwako to groan and raise herself up off the floor. "I need you to look after Naruto." He said quickly, handing a stunned Biwako the child. "Keep him safe. I'll deal with that masked man."

Meanwhile,

Obito and Kushina reappeared, with Obito standing on the mainland, and Kushina collapsed to her knees on a thin little island in the middle of a lake. It was surrounded by large standing stones, that towered above. "This will suffice. Your husband will find us soon, so I suppose I should hurry." At a mere motion of his hand, writing appeared all along the stones and stretched down to Kushina, and bound her by the arms. "I'm afraid this is going to hurt."

"What do you want?" Kushina demanded, with a defiant glimmer in her eyes. "No one can control the Kyubi! If you release him you'll be killed!"

"No one can control him?" Obito repeated. It was a rhetorical question. "Perhaps, no one of normal means. But I believe I am not remiss in saying an Uchiha has been able to take command of the demon." Kushina gasped. Even while the pain intensified and the bulge expanded further, she understood. "I, having the powers of the Uchiha, should have no trouble making the beast kneel. But don't worry, Kushina. Your death, and the death of Minato, are not part of my plan. I have no want to kill you. On the contrary, I want you to see the world I have envisioned. Now, about releasing the Kyubi..."

Kushina let loose a cry, one that was drowned out by a ferocious roar. And then there was an explosion of epic proportions, one made not of fire but of smoke, and the shock wave could be felt for miles away. When the blast cleared, a beast so massive that it dwarfed nearby mountains stood. It was a fox, with burnt orange fur. It's rage-filled eyes were red and slanted, and its teeth were bared, and nine giant tails flicked and wagged this way and that in sporadic, angry patterns. Kushina fell on the stone, sweaty and in great pain.

"The Uzumaki clan is gifted with among the strongest wills in the entire world. Most would have been killed instantly. Fortunately, that isn't the case, making this beast's extraction bloodless." Obito explained as he turned to walk away. The Kyubi breathed heavily, and its slanted eye had morphed into an exact replica of Obito's Sharingan. Then, Obito stopped, still facing away from Kushina. "I used a special seal, combined with my own power, to release the Kyubi. Painful, yes, but it had only a minimal effect on Kushina's chakra network. So long as she is given proper medical attention, she will survive. I advise you to take that into consideration before you attempt to stop me, Minato."

Minato growled. He had appeared suddenly, just as Obito turned to leave, and had a triple-tipped dagger held in his hand. Then, Kushina groaned from behind him. "Kushina!" He called, turning and lifting her up into his arms. "Hang in there. I'll get you to Biwako, she can take care of you."

"The... The village..." She grunted, breathing uncontrollably in exhaustion and agony. Obito chuckled as Minato, with Kushina in his arms, vanished in an instant. They appeared in a brightly lit room, where off to the side little Naruto laid in a crib sucking his thumb and sniffling, and Biwako turned with a gasp.

"Minato! Kushina! What happened?" Biwako demanded, calling for several nurses to pull a table over.

"The Kyubi has been released! Kushina needs help, now!" Minato told them.

"What?" Biwako gasped, "Minato, it's impossible! If a Jinchuriki has her tailed beast extracted it's a death sentence!"

"I know... I know that. That masked man... He said he released the Kyubi in a way that doesn't destroy the chakra network." Minato explained. "We can't believe him. But I can sense her chakra. It's weak, but it's not draining. There's still a chance."

"Healing her from this is beyond my ability..." Biwako admitted hesitantly.

"Then call her." Minato ordered. Then, he grasped Kushina's hand tightly within his, placing a kiss on her pale forehead. "Don't worry. I'll protect everyone. That's the Hokage's job, after all." he said, and then vanished away.

"Minato..." Kushina uttered faintly under the nurses' watch.

Biwako didn't waste any time. "Call her here, now!" She shouted, and a nurse rushed off to do just that. Biwako bent over Kushina and, with her hands glowing a dark greenish aura, she hovered over Kushina's forehead and stomach where most of the damage lay. "This... Is amazing. I didn't think it was possible."

"What is it?" Asked another nurse who brought forward a bucket of warm water and several rags.

"It's just as Minato said. Her network is virtually undamaged. Whatever method that masked fellow used, it wasn't intended to kill her. It seems as if it was just the opposite. All the points where her chakra fused with the Kyubi's, they have been carefully separated and reconnected with her own network." Biwako explained in pure amazement. "This level of control; I'm not sure even Minato is capable of it. Maybe with his Flying Thunder God, but even that would leave severed chakra nodes. Whoever that man is, he's either a genius or has one powerful Kekkei Genkai."

When Minato returned to the scene where Obito had removed the Fox, having placed a marker for his technique there before, there was neither masked man nor Kyubi; although the signs of them being there were still readily visible once observing the smashed trees and large, claw shaped marks found dug into the dirt. The carnage created by the Kyubi's massive tails, was like that of a hurricane or tornado thrashing through; it might as well have been worse. But all the same, there was no sign of them there.

"The village." Minato told himself. "I need to make sure it's not under atta-" Suddenly, there was an explosion. One just as massive as when the Kyubi had been released from Kushina, and with just as impressive of a shockwave. In shock, Minato turned the direction of the village; and just as he knew, there stood the Kyubi angrily beating down on the until recently unsuspecting citizens of Konoha.

Minato teleported once more, and this time he stood atop his own visage on the monument of the Hokage. The sight before him, it left him lost for words. Already fires had surfaced; shinobi left and right were being brushed aside by the Fox's brutal force! The gates had been useless, the beast was summoned right in the middle of the village.

Then, to his surprise, the Fox turned to him with a horrible growl. "That was quick."

The beast's fanged maw opened, and a large, purplish bubble formed in front of it. The ball grew and grew, with little red and blue orbs rotating around it like little planets around a black sun. It was an attack famed out of lore - the Bijudama, Tailed Beast Ball. An attack that could form or destroy mountains, landmasses, entire oceans in the span of a few passing seconds. With a pulse of its neck, the Kyubi sent the ball flying directly at Minato.

And then it vanished.

A distance away, an explosion resonated high and wide, out of the sight of Konoha; but they all felt the blast. Now they all knew who stood atop the monument. They all knew their Hokage had joined the fight. In the few seconds that the Kyubi had formed the ball, Minato had used a technique of his own. To rip the ball from one plane and place it in another; essentially, another form of his Flying Thunder God. Minato leaped and, after a series of teleportations aided by his special kunai marked with the writing that allowed his technique, appeared above the Kyubi.

He landed on the Kyubi and immediately smashed his palm down on its fur, and from the impact emerged an expanding gauntlet of writing. It stretched all the way around the Fox, until its back, neck, head, paws, and tails were all covered over with it like a long strand of rope. The Minato fell to the surface, and once more placed his palm in front of him; from this came another series of lines, which formed a circle around the Kyubi and linked with the other lines, which stretched out to meet this new one. Panting, Minato said "This won't hold him for long. We need something to seal him in, now!"

"A new Jinchuriki." Replied an old man, in black armor that seemed similar to that of a Samurai. His name was Hiruzen Sarutobi. Biwako's husband, the Third Hokage, who himself was sometimes referred to as a god. "Nothing else is strong enough to hold the Kyubi. If we attempted to seal him in an object, he would simply break free. We require someone with strength of will to hold it."

"We can't reseal it in Kuchina. That would kill her. But who...?" Minato started, when a voice interrupted them both.

"Perhaps I can offer a suggestion?"

Minato and Hiruzen, and all the surrounding shinobi who had formed together to defend their village against the demon's onslaught, watched on in equal measure of shock, horror, and, for some, admiration, as the Kyubi was literally sucked down as if absorbed into the vacuum of space itself. It roared and scratched at the ground, grasped at buildings that crumbled under its strength, in a vain attempt at preventing itself from falling into the portal. And with one final roar, it vanished entirely.

"No..." Minato whimpered. There at the point, stood the masked man; and in his arms was a still, and quiet, Naruto. It was plain to see the markings that had engulfed the child's stomach; a new seal. Yet Naruto made no sound, and lay perfectly still. "What have you done?" Minato demanded as his eyes flashed with a rage and fury uncommon of him.

"You need to take your own advice, Minato. Don't do anything hasty." Obito calmly taunted. He looked down at the baby in his arms, as the markings gradually shrunk down and faded until they could no longer be seen. Finally, once they had disappeared, Naruto coughed, and began crying and squirming once more. "The sealing is complete. Congratulations, Minato. Your son is now the new Jinchuriki of the Nine Tailed Fox."

Obito revealed a kunai, and held it close to Naruto just as he had done before. "Now, I'm afraid I must make my leave. We will meet again."

"Wait!" Minato called as he rushed forward, but it was too late. Obito, with Naruto in tow, disappeared within the vortex with which he teleported himself. Teeth grit, and to the surprise of everyone around, Minato vanished. He reappeared some distance from Konoha, and immediately upon arriving he looked in all directions. Until, finally, he noticed the cloth at his feet. The cloth that Naruto had been wrapped in. On that cloth was his mark, the mark he had put on Naruto to get to him at a moment's notice. And that cloth had been removed. "Naruto." Minato whispered, his heart beat increasing.

"Naruto!" He called again, met only with quiet. His breath caught in his throat, and he collapsed to his knees, reaching down and grasping the little wrap tightly between his fingers. "No... Naruto."

"Um, Obito?" Tobi poked at Obito persistently, within the dimension of Obito's eye. "You want a baby to help you change the world? I really think you've finally gone insane. Maybe we should get you to a doctor! You could DIE!"

"You're the insane one!" Obito snapped. Still held in his arms was the naked Naruto. "Naruto is just the beginning of my plan. A very important piece on my chessboard. When all the pieces are in place, my plan will begin. The world will know peace at last."

"But," Tobi pressed "he's just a baby."

"I know that!" Obito answered, annoyed. "But soon he'll be older, and he will be able to undergo training as a shinobi."

"...How long will that take?" Tobi asked.

"Several years, Guru."

"Tobi understands!" Tobi said, placing a fist on his palm as if some great discovery had been made. But then his shoulders slouched, his head dipped forward, and his posture bent.

"How long is that?"

Minato rushed down the halls of the safehouse he had left Kushina at. His cheeks were scarred by the tears he had shed; those not of joy, as they had been barely an hour before when his wife gave birth to their son, but tears of sadness and pain. He was exhausted, the strain of using so many high level seals had done its work, especially when he restrained the Kyubi to the ground. But all the same, he pushed his legs to keep moving. Finally, he reached an area watched by two Anbu guards.

"Kushina! How is she?" Minato asked. The guards looked at each other hesitantly, before the one on the right answered.

"She's still undergoing surgery. As of fifteen minutes ago, her condition was still critical." He said in as even a voice as he could muster. "But, sir, there was an intrusion and..."

"I already know." Minato interrupted shakily, glancing down at the brown garments he still clenched. Once more the guards looked at each other, and the other chose to speak on this occasion.

Hesitantly, carefully, and even a little fearfully, "You don't mean he was...?"

"Taken. The Third is organizing search parties, but..." Minato's voice caught, and he trailed off as an obvious sting overtook his eyes. The Anbu remained quiet after that. For a while, Minato remained still in front of the closed doors that the Anbu guarded. But then, several minutes into the waiting, he took to pacing up and down the halls. This served not to sate his nerves, but to make them worse. His breathing intensified, his heart rate increased. Finally, he whispered softly, "Please... Please, Kami. Don't take this from me, too."

And then the doors opened. Minato and the two guards swung around and stared intently at Biwako, who stood in the doorway and wiped away a trail of sweat with a thick, white cloth. Breathlessly, she eyed Minato, and then turned and motioned for him to enter. This he did quickly, immediately placing his eyes on Kushina; and his heart nearly burst from his chest at what he saw. She lay, pale as a ghost, eyes closed and mouth hung open. "No..." He whispered. But then his eyes turned to her stomach, and to his great joy he could see it steadily rising and falling.

"It was close." Biwako informed him. "Several times we thought we'd lose her. Even with the low damage to her network, the pain of child birth and having the Kyubi taken from her was almost too much for her system to handle. That and after that monster came in and took Naruto, she went into shock all over again."

"But she's alive." Minato replied, by her side and grasping her hand softly.

"Minato...?" Kushina quietly whispered. Minato swallowed hard, but forced a smile.

"The village is safe." Minato said quickly, in an effort to calm the worry evident on her tired features. "We lost a lot of good men and women, and several buildings were destroyed, but we can recover. It's over."

"What about Naruto?" She pleaded. Biwako stepped away, leaving all except one nurse to monitor the recovering woman's vital signs to ensure no sort of relapse would happen. Minato's smile dropped, and he looked to the side as he fought back tears. "Minato." Kushina pushed, giving her husband a stern look in the eye. "Where is Naruto?"

"I... He's... Gone." Minato struggled to say, and had to fight back even harder when he saw the horrified expression that filled Kushina's eyes.

"He's dea-?"

"No!" Minato interrupted, quickly. "No, he's alive. He... He was taken by that masked man, but he's alive. But, also, he... He's now the Jinchuriki for the Kyubi; the intruder's doing also." Minato explained as best he could. His voice was strained, still he waged a vicious war against himself as the emotional and logical sides vied for control. It finally became apparent which side won, when the tears finally streamed down his face. Only this time, it was tears both of sorrow, but also joy. Joy that, at least, his wife still lived. "Kushina. I'm so sorry. But I will find him. I give you my word."

"No." Kushina replied. Minato's breath hitched and his mouth hung open. But Kushina gave him a weak smile, which allayed his fears. "Not without me you won't." Kushina's eyes drifted shut then, and she softly laid back on the soft pillow underneath her. Minato looked nervously at the nurse, but she merely smiled at him.

"Well, you two really gave us a scare!" Interrupted a woman's voice from the doorway. Minato took a breath, no longer forcing his tears back, but still managing some amount of control over his lungs. The woman, who had bob-cut brown hair and brown eyes, and wore a thick white doctor's coat with rolled up sleeves, smiled at the two. "I thought it was the student's job to worry the sensei?" She asked lightheartedly as she scratched at the purple marking on her cheek.

"Maybe, but the roles were reversed today." Minato replied. "Thank you, Rin."