10[Lives] Naruto Never Lived, and Some He Didn't
[Note: I was not aware of the circumstances on Kushina being a previous jinchuuriki. When did that make any sense?]
Idea: [drabbles where Naruto lives and doesn't…]
Naruto is not mine!
Rated T for Teen.
oO[Oh Look, something else I am posting because it is sitting around on my computer molding. Happy Valentine's Day, and happy B-Day to point-three percent of you as well.]Oo
1.
Naruto is born on the tenth of October to bright red chakra swarming like radioactive blood among the battlefields outside Konoha. His mother screams as he his born but his cries out weigh her own.
She lives long enough to kiss him and name him and bleed out with those words falling from her lips. She dies quickly with his pinched and newborn baby smell around her. It isn't the best death but at least she is not torn apart by youki or demons. It is unfortunate that most will choose to forget her in order to pretend that her son is not a part of the town.
Minato comes in, kisses her, kisses the boy, and then faces the battlefield. He calls on the Shinigami, chooses to seal the nine tailed demon into the furious blonde babe with his blood running hot through the tiny body. The Death God looks down at the cherubim babe, sees destinies and yet chooses to follows none.
The Shinigami says "no" and Kyuubi no Kitsune retroactively destroys Konoha then the rest of Fire Country, before moving in righteous anger on to the rest of the Elemental Nations.
2.
…The Shinigami says yes but there is something the Yondaime did not even think to take into account, something very hazy-a clear fact ignored by ninja as they are built for such environments. Newborns are notoriously unhealthy and liable to catch sicknesses with a simple cough or sneeze and a battlefield is no place for anyone without the ability to fight.
Kyuubi no Kitsune is sealed in full but the youki spread among the field like radiation kills baby Naruto just as the Yondaime is sucked away with the God of Death.
Somehow, Konoha's most surprising ninja that never becomes what he was meant to be grabs onto two of the tails and takes the demon screaming into the after life anyway.
Such is the deaths of martyrs, mother and father and son.
3.
The Kyuubi youki infects the land around Konoha and nothing grows, nothing is born, nothing exceeds in the once great town. What comes afterwards is a legion of inedible mutant plants, talking animals bearing a hatred for humans and other disasters.
Like the farce of the council. Like the hatred for the jinchuuriki. Like the blood from self-cut wrists.
4.
Minato sends his girlfriend off to the hospital as she goes into premature labor, her pains a harmful thing to watch. His hands hurt from her strong grip as she screams bloody murder at him with words a seasoned sailor could note down in awe.
Three days later there is word of the missing Kyuubi. Six days after the babe is born to the Yondaime's legacy, the demon is near and anyone unavailable to fight must run to safety outside of what they know.
Kushina bitterly thinks that she is never going to be able to settle down again. She is just another immigrant to a foreign place. But she is Uzumaki Kushina and her son (she cannot give her son his name of "Namikaze" because Iwa and enemies will find them) and her son Naruto will live somewhere away from where he is born.
Many of the survivors will settle in Wave country but others move out. Twenty years later, her son will be hailed the Shodamai Uzukage of the resurrected Whirlpool Village and it will be the once great fire village that remains in gossip and memory and whispered Legends. Kushina will stand below and watch Uzumaki Naruto at the coronation, wishing so badly that his father was here to see this too.
5.
It is six years after the Kyuubi attacked that the horrors of Orochimaru finally come to light. Laboratories hidden beneath the leafy ground are open to the sun and the stink of old blood and decay haunts once vibrant battlegrounds. Notes have been dug up and through all of the horror there is light.
Sarutobi sits strong and silent while so very sad in his office, a blonde little boy with a haunted face looking up at him in confusion, with no memory of his life before-just pain and needles, tests and snakes.
"You wanted to see me, Hokage-sama?" Anko has short purple hair and her skin has become sallow. It is apparent she has not slept well since her old sensei's horrors came to light and the old man in a soft plushy chair feels weary as he notices a seal written in such complicated nonsense it simply looks like lines at her neck. Disturbingly, he thinks he can see it throb with the beat of her heart like a freshly opened wound.
He nods, pushing a hand through his hair as he sets aside his hat, showing her this is not going to be anything about war or true serious concerns. Sort of. "Yes, Mitarashi-san. I see you are still with us," she looks at him, says nothing, "and that you do not look like you have been sleeping well at all."
She shrugs, uncomfortable but professional besides. "The dreams aren't so bad," she lies, "and they don't stick with me long," more lies, he knows, because it was her that came running to him when her sempai turned out to be a psychopath with a target on her and Konoha that spoke of ambition for power and revenge that does not make sensible logic. "But it's this damn tattoo that Sen-" no, not sensai, "The Snake Sannin," she remembers she shouldn't love him anymore, "put on me," Matarashi Anko traces a slightly bump shape on her neck.
He nods, motions for her to sit down. She doesn't-is afraid she will fall apart with rest, but moves instead to the front of his desk where she can lean against the side of one and still be part of the lesser cast to her master. "What do you think of this?" she is confused but he again motions and she finds herself looking into clear blue eyes. She jumps. Anko had not been aware of anyone else in the room.
"Who-" she begins but three lines on each cheek like whiskers tell her. She is silent as she considers her words. The Kyuubi had been dangerous but it had been dealt with. Thankfully she had not been old enough to truly be involved. Still, she knew the truth, but what was she to complain? To be honest she figured she could sympathize with how all the bastards in Konoha were looking at her now. "He's the boy many hate."
He frowns, disappointed in the village but knows it is the truth. Why was it he got sentimental again? "Yes, he is, but he is also one of two survivors found in Orochimaru's labs that survived what was done to him."
"How long was he down there?"
"He has been missing for three years." He looks at the quiet boy that had once looked up to him with such love and happiness and feels so old he could cry. There are no more cries from the silent creature of "Ojii, Ojii, look at me!"
The Hokage tells her of what she has to do. It is mandatory for her to receive counseling and the strange throbbing seal will need to be looked at by a number of seal experts employed by Fire country. She expects that. What she does not see coming, though maybe should have, is when he asks her, "how do you feel about fostering someone?" She is hesitant but he talks her into it with plenty of perks; hazard pay, a salary because of the way the boy will be treated; lesser taxes; an ANBU mask. Yes, there are perks for doing it and maybe a bit of bribery but between the Hokage who has long been considered a bleeding heart and one of his own ninja who receives the devilment by those who should know better.
There is also the fact that she is to be pulled into an SS-class secret, the highest there is, even greater than the fact that he is the Kyuubi container-that he is the son of The Red Death and The Yellow Flash. That's okay, and she has some weird brief vision of him dressed bright orange in a similar crowd of orange, but it passes and she shakes it away.
But really he just looks at her emotionlessly as if it has all drained away but those big blue eyes stare up at her. She thinks that one day they can kill Orochimaru together. Exhausted and curious, she shrugs as if he is asking her whether she likes red or green better before giving her consent.
End.
Maybe I'll post more, maybe not.
Note: I was not aware of the circumstances on Kushina being a previous jinchuuriki. When did that make any sense? I mean, for the first half of his life, Naruto is hated because of the Kyuubi, yet Mito Uzumaki and Kushina-his-mother Uzumaki held the same responsibility and were apparently respected for it.