brian12345
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There was an explosion. Two. Three.
Three men stood at the blown-up gate to the Hidden Leaf, ready to enter.
"Where do you think he is?"
"Where who is?" came a weak voice from behind the men. The three men, all wearing headbands clean of any village symbol, turned to face an old man in white robes and a red hat.
"That's easy," the man on the right, a big man who looked like he could lift more than three times his own weight, said. The big man and the man on the left then disappeared as the man in the middle, a thin man, short when compared to his companions, exhaled a torrent of fire onto the old man. As the flames dissipated, and the man was left on the ground, the other two men reappeared.
"That was easy, wasn't it?" came a voice from overhead, and the two men who had just appeared once again vanished as a giant ball of energy smashed into the short man. The man holding the ball of energy, a rather young man of about late twenties to early thirties, then stood over the man whose body was completely crushed into the torn-up earth. The old man then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"You should be done, now," the young man with a Leaf headband said, before a sharp pain shot through his back. He turned his head to see a kunai protruding from his back, the man he just killed holding it. Then his feet fell out from under him as the crushed corpse grabbed his ankles.
"You'd think so..." the man said. "But death only makes me stronger."
"Daddy..."
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"What were those explosions? Is someone attacking the village again?"
The Leaf Jonin, Saiato (say-at-oh), looked at his twelve-year-old daughter and sighed.
"Yes, there are people attacking the village. They think because the Hokage is old, they can kill him."
"You mean-"
"Yeah, moron; grandpa!" The girl's seventeen-year-old sister walked into the room and sat on the arm of the chair her father was sitting in. "If the village is being attacked, why aren't you out there fighting?"
"Because your grandfather is stubborn as a mule! He won't let anyone help him in a fight, so his ANBU are almost useless."
"Is he going to be alright?" the younger girl asked. Her older sister stood up and began to leave the room.
"Haven't you heard of grandpa's childhood? I think he'll be fine," she said as she left.
"So you've come to kill me, have you?" the Leaf ninja asked as the three invaders surrounded him. "Would you mind explaining those plain headbands?"
"We're going to restore peace to the Ninja World," the third man, a tall man with glasses, said. "Ninja villages competing with each other for power will make peace impossible. To truly bring about peace, we must destroy every village."
"You think by killing an old man you'll destroy the village? There will be another to take my place and destroy you three. The Will of Fire will always live on!"
"By killing you, Hokage, we will lower the moral of the village, even if just for the short amount of time it will take to destroy it. This entire forest, in fact, is currently being prepared for a sealing to wipe it clean; back to desert. We will get rid of every trace of the Leaf village throughout the lands, and then do the same with the other four villages."
"You mean the strongest village is the one you picked as your first target?"
"This is my point exactly," the man with glasses said, bending down to look the man in the eyes. "The balance of power is no balance at all. Any hope to restore peace to a divided system rests in balance, and you proved this is impossible. Therefore, we must destroy villages."
The Leaf ninja on the ground grunted, and spat in the man's face. As the man took off his glasses you clean them, the Leaf ninja spoke.
"There's just one thing you didn't count on, four-eyes!"
"What is that?"
The Leaf ninja's eyes gained orange rings around them, and then he poofed away in a puff of smoke. The loogie on the leader's glasses then poofed into an exact copy of the man who was previously on the ground, also in Sage Mode.
"THE WILL OF FIRE BURNS STRONG!" The man sent the leader flying with a punch to the nose, and then spun around to knock the advancing two men away. "DATTEBAYO!"
"So you're sure that grandpa will be alright?" the little girl asked.
"Of course he will. Your grandpa is the most stubborn person I know; he looked death in the eye on several occasions and spat in its face! Never once has he given up, and as long as he can move he will never let anyone hurt another Leaf ninja."
The muscular man ran at the Hokage, but the Hokage disappeared from sight with extreme speed. He then reappeared behind the man with a Rasengan to the back of the head. There was a crack, and the large man lay there with a broken skull.
"One down-"
"Not quite!" came a gruff, unintelligent voice from behind. The Hokage barely had time to spin around and catch the fist coming to his head with a hand of invisible Senjutsu chakra.
"You guys don't die..." The Hokage chuckled, and then gave a cliché smile. "Kind of like me!"
The Hokage then threw his free hand forwards, watching the buff man's head explode with the force of the Hokage's punch.
"This guy's supposed to be old," came a soft voice, belonging to the short man. The Hokage spun around to see the short man performing medical ninjutsu on the corpses of himself and the large man, speaking to the leader with glasses.
"I am old," the Hokage answered. "But so was Granny Tsunade!" He then punched the ground and sent a large portion of Senjutsu chakra through the ground, where it erupted from under the corpses and living men.
"What kind of jutsu do you use? It's not Edo Tensei, I know that for sure. Is it a form of Granny's jutsu?"
"It's an advanced medical ninjutsu," came the voice of the short man. "Based on the Six Paths of Pein used by Nagato. You remember Nagato, don't you?"
"Uzumaki Nagato..." the Hokage responded. "I remember him."
"By using corpses, which we have modified to take on our appearance, we can send our souls into them as we die, allowing us to continually switch bodies and never die. Of course, because we only need functioning, and not living bodies, repair of them is easy enough; mend some bones here, stitch some flesh there, and we're good."
"So I have to destroy all of the bodies before the medic in your group can repair one, right?"
"That is correct," came the voice of the leader of the group. "However, we all have training in how to repair these corpses to be functioning for this jutsu, meaning you have to kill all three of us without letting anyone repair a corpse."
"What about when you took out my legs with the destroyed corpse?" the Hokage asked.
"Pseudo-Puppetry. Somewhat of a specialty of mine."
"And you're disappearing?"
"That shall remain a secret, Hokage," the leader's voice said. "But if I were you I'd turn around about now."
The Hokage raised his hand behind his shoulder, catching the fist coming at him.
"I'm a sensor right now; I don't need your help." The Hokage then threw the large man over his shoulder and onto the ground, creating a clone as he did so. The clone stood over the man, ready to react if anyone came to repair the corpse. "This'll be a little more taxing than I thought it would be..."
"You can't find them like this," came a voice from inside the Hokage's head. "I can help."
"Are you sure you want to?" the Hokage thought, directed to the voice in his head.
"If you want to finish these guys quickly, you'll need my help to sense them."
"Well then..."
Inside of the Hokage's head, he stood before a large cage with a spiral lock.
"Kurama, you're up!"
The Hokage spun the spiral lock, and threw open the cage. The giant fox within then let out a war cry as his chakra spread through the host.
"We haven't done this for a while, Naruto."
"Too long, Kurama."
"Dad!" the little girl said as the building shook. Her father ran to the window, and saw the yellow glow at the edge of the village.
"Don't worry, that's grandpa. Whoever was trying to get in doesn't stand a chance now."
"Was that Kyuubi!?" the older girl asked, running into the room.
"His name's Kurama, Keshi," Saiato said. "And he won't be out for long..."
The Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki, stood in his Bijuu cloak, his age finally showing as Kurama's chakra dispelled the transformation jutsu.
"It's been so long since I've done this..." Naruto said, both to Kurama and the invaders.
Then he disappeared in a golden flash, and using Kurama's emotion sensing, destroyed body after body as the men's souls and intentions fluxated into different, hidden corpses. After only five minutes of running, crushing, and sensing, there were no more emotions besides his own.
"That was fast," Naruto said.
"We weren't fighting Tobi here," Kurama commented. "I'd be more surprised if it took longer..."
Naruto grunted, and Kurama's chakra recited back into himself, his age showing even more prominently without the cover of the Bijuu cloak. "I suppose."
"So that's it?" Kurama asked. "We're not going to look for more?"
"I'll send a squad of ANBU through the forest."
"They're not as fast as us; and you heard what they said. There are men planning to seal the forest away back to desert. No squad of ANBU will be able to stop them as fast as we can."
"When did you start caring? Or are you just caring about your chance to get some exercise?"
The Kyuubi chuckled. "Either way, you know I'm right."
"Tell ya' what I'll do." Naruto exploded back into his Bijuu cloak, and did a few light stretches. "I'll run throughout the forest, and look for intentions matching those guys'. After that, I'll take a leave back to the Leaf."
"Let's go!"
After a few minutes of searching through the forest, Naruto and Kurama found no intentions matching the men they had confronted earlier, nor any intentions at all, for that matter, and returned to the Leaf, where Naruto met with the head of his ANBU division at the entrance to the Hokage's mansion.
"Hokage-sama, it's good to see you back."
"It's good to see you as well, Hatake Obito," Naruto said, walking straight through the doors with Obito following him. "How has the village been since I left; any more intruders?"
"Not that I've been able to sense."
"Excellent." Naruto stood outside the door to his office and turned to Obito. "Anything else to report?"
"Not from me, but a report from you is requested."
"I know; these men had an irritating Kinjutsu which allowed them to revive themselves instantaneously upon death. It was like a weak, self-affecting Edo Tensei."
"Interesting," Obito said. "I look forwards to reading the report. Oh, and sir, your age is showing. Would you like me to retrieve your Medic for the jutsu?"
"Not right away; I'll be myself for a while."
"As you wish, Hokage-sama."
Naruto then walked into the room, and Hatake Obito walked away towards the rest of the ANBU.
As Naruto walked into his office, there was something tugging at the back of his mind.
"NARUTO!" Kurama was shouting, nearly hurting Naruto's ears from the inside. Naruto turned around and the man with glasses whom he had killed earlier stabbed him in the stomach.
"Your time has come, old man..." Naruto doubled over in pain, and the man made a single handseal, creating chains of chakra from the ground. "Don't worry, it's not fatal; that tailed beast inside of you is vital to destroying the Leaf." The ninja made another handseal and the chains pulled Naruto onto the floor, as if he were bound to an operating table. The man then tore off Naruto's jacket and shirt and examined the seal. "You should've let us catch you back there; Haito was the expert at this sort of stuff, he could've had this done by now."
Yellow flames appeared around Naruto, and the man hit the seal on his stomach with his fingertips, leaving five small flames on the seal, cutting off the yellow flaming chakra of the Kyuubi.
"Please, I can do that at least. Now, I've been informed on the amount of time you need to go Sage, so I'll have to do this quickly."
The man placed both of his hands on Naruto's stomach, and Naruto could feel the piercing chakra cutting through his system.
"I'm not as precise as Haito, but it's better than Kū doing this. If this were his job, you'd be dead already."
"So you're going to extract Kurama, and then use him as a weapon? You're no better than Nagato before I spoke with him."
"Well don't expect to be able to talk me out of this; it won't work. I have a radio on so Haito and Kū can hear our conversation, and if it sounds like I'm giving in, the seal is going ahead as planned."
"Seal? Kurama and I checked for people setting it up and found nothing."
"Please; we knew you'd look for it, so we set up this master plan. We set up all the seals except the master before-hand, and then fought you. If we won it would be a celebrated victory. But if we lost as we expected, and did, we had a corpse set into your office for me to switch to as a last-resort, with two more corpses a ways away for my partners. I'd kill you here, by surprise, and once my job is done, I'd kill myself and join the rest of my squad in the final corpse, where we would then go to place the master seal and destroy the forest."
"And how did you get the corpse in my office with no one noticing?"
"All a part of the corpse hiding technique we used earlier; unnoticeable even by sensor until the corpse is ready. And you're trying to waste time to go Sage, aren't you?" The man turned the kunai, making Naruto scream in pain, although the sound was inaudible to anyone but the Hokage. "That'll mess up your concentration."
"Wait for it..." Naruto said weakly, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
"For-?" The door was kicked in, and Hatake Obito stood in the doorway, three more ANBU behind him, all of them with their shoulders out, revealing the glowing ANBU tattoo.
"Hokage-sama!" they all said in unison.
"Communication Seal connecting you to the ANBU... Activated by pain, I'm assuming?"
"Not just pain; I send chakra to the seal so my ANBU feel what I feel. I only use it when I need it because it's a waste of chakra."
"I apologize for not responding sooner," Obito said. "I thought you were just sitting down, not bound."
"No more apologies, Obito; no time!"
"Right!" Obito's eyes turned red and gained three tomoe. "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" A blaze flew out over the mysterious man with the blank headband, and burned him down. But as the ANBU examined the body, they noticed a wicked smile on his face.
"Why is he-?" Before the masked ANBU could finish his sentence, the flames on Naruto's stomach grew with greater intensity, and he yelled in pain. The intense flames then erupted again into the form of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Kurama, destroying the Hokage's mansion and throwing the ANBU back.
"DAD!" the girl screamed. Saiato was gripping his left shoulder, and scrunching his face in pain.
"I'm on it!"
Saiato made it feet of Kurama first, where Naruto lay, still bound by the chakra chains.
"Are these grandma's?" he asked.
"Similar idea," Naruto responded in a gasp. His full age was finally showing, and he turned his head to his son. "Some things never change..." he said.
"What do you mean? Assassination attempts on the Hokage?"
Naruto slowly shook his head, and then parted his lips shakily. "ANBU are completely worthless..." Naruto then chuckled and closed his eyes.
Saiato felt his father's pulse, and found that he was still alive, just resting.
"Be 'That guy' who actually does something, will you?" Naruto said in an even quieter voice, his eyes still closed. Wondering how long he'd have, Saiato silently nodded.
"Of course."
Hatake Obito arrived next, and looked at the Father/Son moment. "I'm sorry to interrupt," he said.
"Hatake Obito," Saiato said, standing up.
"Uzumaki Saiato," Obito said, nodding.
There was a roar from above, and everyone turned to see Kurama glaring off into the distance.
"I feel them..." he growled, and then leapt off of the ground like a true fox towards the intruders.
"I suppose there's no fox threat," Saiato said.
"For now..." Naruto replied weakly.
The third person to arrive was a young woman with bright pink hair.
"Look at you; my jutsu's dead already. I just applied that one!"
"He's almost dead!" Saiato yelled. "Help him, Sakura-chan."
"Give me a second, Saiato-san; this isn't instantaneous."
"Well hurry!"
"Seal... The fox..." Naruto said softly. "When he's done... He'll remember... How much fun it was... Destroying stuff. And we're right here..."
"What about being friends with him?" Sakura asked.
"He needs a new host... Someone who can keep up with his youth without Granny's jutsu..." Naruto coughed, spraying blood everywhere. "I've already outlived every Kage who has preceded me... It's time for the Will of Fire to burn on a new torch."
"So you don't want a healing?" Sakura asked with surprise.
"Dad, no!" Saiato said. "You can't do this! This- this is suicide! Denying healing is like killing yourself!!"
"Obito..."
"Yes, Hokage-sama?"
A smile spread across Naruto's face as he laughed at his own joke before he told it. "Pass me that kunai." Naruto chuckled for a while, and then said a final word. "Da...tte...bayo..." What little energy he had seemed to leave him, and Sakura quickly checked his pulse.
"No... No, he can't die; Naruto Uzumaki does not DIE!"
"Saiato-" Sakura began.
"NO!" he yelled. "Who'll be the next Hokage? The next Jinchuriki of Kurama? The next person with the power to defend the village? We've been attacked more and more frequently since my father has gotten older, and now that we're short a Hokage, we're bound to be attacked soon."
"Saiato, ninety-five is old for anyone; especially old for a ninja and even old for an Uzumaki. Be glad he was around as long as he was..."
Saiato pounded the ground, and a tear rolled down his face. "He shouldn't have died like this... In an ambush, and from extraction... He should've been killed in an honest battle like the other Hokage's... Even DANZO had a more honorable death than him!"
"What's done is done... All we can do now is send a squad of ANBU to seal the Kyuubi into a container until we can find a suitable Jinchuriki, and prepare the funeral. Hokage selection will occur after the funeral."
"Who are we going to pick?"
"That's up to the council. Though I'm sure you know who's up for consideration..."
"It's not fair... Not fair..." Sakura urged Hatake Obito and the other ANBU away so Saiato could spend some final moments with his father. As the ANBU attempted to seal Kurama away for the next Jinchuriki, it began to rain, as if the universe itself were mourning the loss of the one of the greatest ninja ever, Uzumaki Naruto.
Three men stood at the blown-up gate to the Hidden Leaf, ready to enter.
"Where do you think he is?"
"Where who is?" came a weak voice from behind the men. The three men, all wearing headbands clean of any village symbol, turned to face an old man in white robes and a red hat.
"That's easy," the man on the right, a big man who looked like he could lift more than three times his own weight, said. The big man and the man on the left then disappeared as the man in the middle, a thin man, short when compared to his companions, exhaled a torrent of fire onto the old man. As the flames dissipated, and the man was left on the ground, the other two men reappeared.
"That was easy, wasn't it?" came a voice from overhead, and the two men who had just appeared once again vanished as a giant ball of energy smashed into the short man. The man holding the ball of energy, a rather young man of about late twenties to early thirties, then stood over the man whose body was completely crushed into the torn-up earth. The old man then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"You should be done, now," the young man with a Leaf headband said, before a sharp pain shot through his back. He turned his head to see a kunai protruding from his back, the man he just killed holding it. Then his feet fell out from under him as the crushed corpse grabbed his ankles.
"You'd think so..." the man said. "But death only makes me stronger."
"Daddy..."
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"What were those explosions? Is someone attacking the village again?"
The Leaf Jonin, Saiato (say-at-oh), looked at his twelve-year-old daughter and sighed.
"Yes, there are people attacking the village. They think because the Hokage is old, they can kill him."
"You mean-"
"Yeah, moron; grandpa!" The girl's seventeen-year-old sister walked into the room and sat on the arm of the chair her father was sitting in. "If the village is being attacked, why aren't you out there fighting?"
"Because your grandfather is stubborn as a mule! He won't let anyone help him in a fight, so his ANBU are almost useless."
"Is he going to be alright?" the younger girl asked. Her older sister stood up and began to leave the room.
"Haven't you heard of grandpa's childhood? I think he'll be fine," she said as she left.
"So you've come to kill me, have you?" the Leaf ninja asked as the three invaders surrounded him. "Would you mind explaining those plain headbands?"
"We're going to restore peace to the Ninja World," the third man, a tall man with glasses, said. "Ninja villages competing with each other for power will make peace impossible. To truly bring about peace, we must destroy every village."
"You think by killing an old man you'll destroy the village? There will be another to take my place and destroy you three. The Will of Fire will always live on!"
"By killing you, Hokage, we will lower the moral of the village, even if just for the short amount of time it will take to destroy it. This entire forest, in fact, is currently being prepared for a sealing to wipe it clean; back to desert. We will get rid of every trace of the Leaf village throughout the lands, and then do the same with the other four villages."
"You mean the strongest village is the one you picked as your first target?"
"This is my point exactly," the man with glasses said, bending down to look the man in the eyes. "The balance of power is no balance at all. Any hope to restore peace to a divided system rests in balance, and you proved this is impossible. Therefore, we must destroy villages."
The Leaf ninja on the ground grunted, and spat in the man's face. As the man took off his glasses you clean them, the Leaf ninja spoke.
"There's just one thing you didn't count on, four-eyes!"
"What is that?"
The Leaf ninja's eyes gained orange rings around them, and then he poofed away in a puff of smoke. The loogie on the leader's glasses then poofed into an exact copy of the man who was previously on the ground, also in Sage Mode.
"THE WILL OF FIRE BURNS STRONG!" The man sent the leader flying with a punch to the nose, and then spun around to knock the advancing two men away. "DATTEBAYO!"
"So you're sure that grandpa will be alright?" the little girl asked.
"Of course he will. Your grandpa is the most stubborn person I know; he looked death in the eye on several occasions and spat in its face! Never once has he given up, and as long as he can move he will never let anyone hurt another Leaf ninja."
The muscular man ran at the Hokage, but the Hokage disappeared from sight with extreme speed. He then reappeared behind the man with a Rasengan to the back of the head. There was a crack, and the large man lay there with a broken skull.
"One down-"
"Not quite!" came a gruff, unintelligent voice from behind. The Hokage barely had time to spin around and catch the fist coming to his head with a hand of invisible Senjutsu chakra.
"You guys don't die..." The Hokage chuckled, and then gave a cliché smile. "Kind of like me!"
The Hokage then threw his free hand forwards, watching the buff man's head explode with the force of the Hokage's punch.
"This guy's supposed to be old," came a soft voice, belonging to the short man. The Hokage spun around to see the short man performing medical ninjutsu on the corpses of himself and the large man, speaking to the leader with glasses.
"I am old," the Hokage answered. "But so was Granny Tsunade!" He then punched the ground and sent a large portion of Senjutsu chakra through the ground, where it erupted from under the corpses and living men.
"What kind of jutsu do you use? It's not Edo Tensei, I know that for sure. Is it a form of Granny's jutsu?"
"It's an advanced medical ninjutsu," came the voice of the short man. "Based on the Six Paths of Pein used by Nagato. You remember Nagato, don't you?"
"Uzumaki Nagato..." the Hokage responded. "I remember him."
"By using corpses, which we have modified to take on our appearance, we can send our souls into them as we die, allowing us to continually switch bodies and never die. Of course, because we only need functioning, and not living bodies, repair of them is easy enough; mend some bones here, stitch some flesh there, and we're good."
"So I have to destroy all of the bodies before the medic in your group can repair one, right?"
"That is correct," came the voice of the leader of the group. "However, we all have training in how to repair these corpses to be functioning for this jutsu, meaning you have to kill all three of us without letting anyone repair a corpse."
"What about when you took out my legs with the destroyed corpse?" the Hokage asked.
"Pseudo-Puppetry. Somewhat of a specialty of mine."
"And you're disappearing?"
"That shall remain a secret, Hokage," the leader's voice said. "But if I were you I'd turn around about now."
The Hokage raised his hand behind his shoulder, catching the fist coming at him.
"I'm a sensor right now; I don't need your help." The Hokage then threw the large man over his shoulder and onto the ground, creating a clone as he did so. The clone stood over the man, ready to react if anyone came to repair the corpse. "This'll be a little more taxing than I thought it would be..."
"You can't find them like this," came a voice from inside the Hokage's head. "I can help."
"Are you sure you want to?" the Hokage thought, directed to the voice in his head.
"If you want to finish these guys quickly, you'll need my help to sense them."
"Well then..."
Inside of the Hokage's head, he stood before a large cage with a spiral lock.
"Kurama, you're up!"
The Hokage spun the spiral lock, and threw open the cage. The giant fox within then let out a war cry as his chakra spread through the host.
"We haven't done this for a while, Naruto."
"Too long, Kurama."
"Dad!" the little girl said as the building shook. Her father ran to the window, and saw the yellow glow at the edge of the village.
"Don't worry, that's grandpa. Whoever was trying to get in doesn't stand a chance now."
"Was that Kyuubi!?" the older girl asked, running into the room.
"His name's Kurama, Keshi," Saiato said. "And he won't be out for long..."
The Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki, stood in his Bijuu cloak, his age finally showing as Kurama's chakra dispelled the transformation jutsu.
"It's been so long since I've done this..." Naruto said, both to Kurama and the invaders.
Then he disappeared in a golden flash, and using Kurama's emotion sensing, destroyed body after body as the men's souls and intentions fluxated into different, hidden corpses. After only five minutes of running, crushing, and sensing, there were no more emotions besides his own.
"That was fast," Naruto said.
"We weren't fighting Tobi here," Kurama commented. "I'd be more surprised if it took longer..."
Naruto grunted, and Kurama's chakra recited back into himself, his age showing even more prominently without the cover of the Bijuu cloak. "I suppose."
"So that's it?" Kurama asked. "We're not going to look for more?"
"I'll send a squad of ANBU through the forest."
"They're not as fast as us; and you heard what they said. There are men planning to seal the forest away back to desert. No squad of ANBU will be able to stop them as fast as we can."
"When did you start caring? Or are you just caring about your chance to get some exercise?"
The Kyuubi chuckled. "Either way, you know I'm right."
"Tell ya' what I'll do." Naruto exploded back into his Bijuu cloak, and did a few light stretches. "I'll run throughout the forest, and look for intentions matching those guys'. After that, I'll take a leave back to the Leaf."
"Let's go!"
After a few minutes of searching through the forest, Naruto and Kurama found no intentions matching the men they had confronted earlier, nor any intentions at all, for that matter, and returned to the Leaf, where Naruto met with the head of his ANBU division at the entrance to the Hokage's mansion.
"Hokage-sama, it's good to see you back."
"It's good to see you as well, Hatake Obito," Naruto said, walking straight through the doors with Obito following him. "How has the village been since I left; any more intruders?"
"Not that I've been able to sense."
"Excellent." Naruto stood outside the door to his office and turned to Obito. "Anything else to report?"
"Not from me, but a report from you is requested."
"I know; these men had an irritating Kinjutsu which allowed them to revive themselves instantaneously upon death. It was like a weak, self-affecting Edo Tensei."
"Interesting," Obito said. "I look forwards to reading the report. Oh, and sir, your age is showing. Would you like me to retrieve your Medic for the jutsu?"
"Not right away; I'll be myself for a while."
"As you wish, Hokage-sama."
Naruto then walked into the room, and Hatake Obito walked away towards the rest of the ANBU.
As Naruto walked into his office, there was something tugging at the back of his mind.
"NARUTO!" Kurama was shouting, nearly hurting Naruto's ears from the inside. Naruto turned around and the man with glasses whom he had killed earlier stabbed him in the stomach.
"Your time has come, old man..." Naruto doubled over in pain, and the man made a single handseal, creating chains of chakra from the ground. "Don't worry, it's not fatal; that tailed beast inside of you is vital to destroying the Leaf." The ninja made another handseal and the chains pulled Naruto onto the floor, as if he were bound to an operating table. The man then tore off Naruto's jacket and shirt and examined the seal. "You should've let us catch you back there; Haito was the expert at this sort of stuff, he could've had this done by now."
Yellow flames appeared around Naruto, and the man hit the seal on his stomach with his fingertips, leaving five small flames on the seal, cutting off the yellow flaming chakra of the Kyuubi.
"Please, I can do that at least. Now, I've been informed on the amount of time you need to go Sage, so I'll have to do this quickly."
The man placed both of his hands on Naruto's stomach, and Naruto could feel the piercing chakra cutting through his system.
"I'm not as precise as Haito, but it's better than Kū doing this. If this were his job, you'd be dead already."
"So you're going to extract Kurama, and then use him as a weapon? You're no better than Nagato before I spoke with him."
"Well don't expect to be able to talk me out of this; it won't work. I have a radio on so Haito and Kū can hear our conversation, and if it sounds like I'm giving in, the seal is going ahead as planned."
"Seal? Kurama and I checked for people setting it up and found nothing."
"Please; we knew you'd look for it, so we set up this master plan. We set up all the seals except the master before-hand, and then fought you. If we won it would be a celebrated victory. But if we lost as we expected, and did, we had a corpse set into your office for me to switch to as a last-resort, with two more corpses a ways away for my partners. I'd kill you here, by surprise, and once my job is done, I'd kill myself and join the rest of my squad in the final corpse, where we would then go to place the master seal and destroy the forest."
"And how did you get the corpse in my office with no one noticing?"
"All a part of the corpse hiding technique we used earlier; unnoticeable even by sensor until the corpse is ready. And you're trying to waste time to go Sage, aren't you?" The man turned the kunai, making Naruto scream in pain, although the sound was inaudible to anyone but the Hokage. "That'll mess up your concentration."
"Wait for it..." Naruto said weakly, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
"For-?" The door was kicked in, and Hatake Obito stood in the doorway, three more ANBU behind him, all of them with their shoulders out, revealing the glowing ANBU tattoo.
"Hokage-sama!" they all said in unison.
"Communication Seal connecting you to the ANBU... Activated by pain, I'm assuming?"
"Not just pain; I send chakra to the seal so my ANBU feel what I feel. I only use it when I need it because it's a waste of chakra."
"I apologize for not responding sooner," Obito said. "I thought you were just sitting down, not bound."
"No more apologies, Obito; no time!"
"Right!" Obito's eyes turned red and gained three tomoe. "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" A blaze flew out over the mysterious man with the blank headband, and burned him down. But as the ANBU examined the body, they noticed a wicked smile on his face.
"Why is he-?" Before the masked ANBU could finish his sentence, the flames on Naruto's stomach grew with greater intensity, and he yelled in pain. The intense flames then erupted again into the form of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Kurama, destroying the Hokage's mansion and throwing the ANBU back.
"DAD!" the girl screamed. Saiato was gripping his left shoulder, and scrunching his face in pain.
"I'm on it!"
Saiato made it feet of Kurama first, where Naruto lay, still bound by the chakra chains.
"Are these grandma's?" he asked.
"Similar idea," Naruto responded in a gasp. His full age was finally showing, and he turned his head to his son. "Some things never change..." he said.
"What do you mean? Assassination attempts on the Hokage?"
Naruto slowly shook his head, and then parted his lips shakily. "ANBU are completely worthless..." Naruto then chuckled and closed his eyes.
Saiato felt his father's pulse, and found that he was still alive, just resting.
"Be 'That guy' who actually does something, will you?" Naruto said in an even quieter voice, his eyes still closed. Wondering how long he'd have, Saiato silently nodded.
"Of course."
Hatake Obito arrived next, and looked at the Father/Son moment. "I'm sorry to interrupt," he said.
"Hatake Obito," Saiato said, standing up.
"Uzumaki Saiato," Obito said, nodding.
There was a roar from above, and everyone turned to see Kurama glaring off into the distance.
"I feel them..." he growled, and then leapt off of the ground like a true fox towards the intruders.
"I suppose there's no fox threat," Saiato said.
"For now..." Naruto replied weakly.
The third person to arrive was a young woman with bright pink hair.
"Look at you; my jutsu's dead already. I just applied that one!"
"He's almost dead!" Saiato yelled. "Help him, Sakura-chan."
"Give me a second, Saiato-san; this isn't instantaneous."
"Well hurry!"
"Seal... The fox..." Naruto said softly. "When he's done... He'll remember... How much fun it was... Destroying stuff. And we're right here..."
"What about being friends with him?" Sakura asked.
"He needs a new host... Someone who can keep up with his youth without Granny's jutsu..." Naruto coughed, spraying blood everywhere. "I've already outlived every Kage who has preceded me... It's time for the Will of Fire to burn on a new torch."
"So you don't want a healing?" Sakura asked with surprise.
"Dad, no!" Saiato said. "You can't do this! This- this is suicide! Denying healing is like killing yourself!!"
"Obito..."
"Yes, Hokage-sama?"
A smile spread across Naruto's face as he laughed at his own joke before he told it. "Pass me that kunai." Naruto chuckled for a while, and then said a final word. "Da...tte...bayo..." What little energy he had seemed to leave him, and Sakura quickly checked his pulse.
"No... No, he can't die; Naruto Uzumaki does not DIE!"
"Saiato-" Sakura began.
"NO!" he yelled. "Who'll be the next Hokage? The next Jinchuriki of Kurama? The next person with the power to defend the village? We've been attacked more and more frequently since my father has gotten older, and now that we're short a Hokage, we're bound to be attacked soon."
"Saiato, ninety-five is old for anyone; especially old for a ninja and even old for an Uzumaki. Be glad he was around as long as he was..."
Saiato pounded the ground, and a tear rolled down his face. "He shouldn't have died like this... In an ambush, and from extraction... He should've been killed in an honest battle like the other Hokage's... Even DANZO had a more honorable death than him!"
"What's done is done... All we can do now is send a squad of ANBU to seal the Kyuubi into a container until we can find a suitable Jinchuriki, and prepare the funeral. Hokage selection will occur after the funeral."
"Who are we going to pick?"
"That's up to the council. Though I'm sure you know who's up for consideration..."
"It's not fair... Not fair..." Sakura urged Hatake Obito and the other ANBU away so Saiato could spend some final moments with his father. As the ANBU attempted to seal Kurama away for the next Jinchuriki, it began to rain, as if the universe itself were mourning the loss of the one of the greatest ninja ever, Uzumaki Naruto.
