Bab 2: Rebirth
Adrift. That's what I felt like. I couldn't feel my hands, the wind, even my heartbeat. They just weren't there. Like I was floating in a pit of nothingness, I felt nothing.
Where am i? What happened? I thought to myself, desperately trying to piece together what I last remembered. Glass breaking. Shouting. The squeeze of a trigger. A shadowy silhouette striking the ground. Another comes from the other door. I turn, but too late. Several somethings punch me repeatedly in the chest, knocking the air from my lungs. I only realized what had happened when I fell to the ground, unable to get up. I'd been shot. No, not like this, God. Please, don't let me bleed out alone. There was something rather tragically ironic about one beseeching God for salvation at the moment of death. Especially when you can't even speak through the blood filling up your lungs.
Does that mean I'm dead?
I thought, desperately trying to understand what situation I'm in. Didn't think Heaven, or Hell for that matter, was supposed to be a void. Unless I'm Not Dead. Coma, maybe? Blood loss causing brain damage resulting in a works. Better than dead. I just need to lay here and wait it out.
And I waited, and waited. For an inordinate amount of time, I waited. Until eventually, I felt, the first time in a while since I felt something, yank at my being, for lack of a better term, and i felt my thoughts begin to unravel.
I have no idea how long it took for my thought processing to begin to resemble stability again, but it eventually did happen. When it did, i noticed something had changed. I could feel. Very minute, but i could feel. My whole body seemed to itch and I couldn't scratch it. I tried to open my eyes to see, but they refused to open.
Damnit. Why won't you let me see. I shouted in my mind, at nothing in particular. Open. Open. OPEN.
And like that, a seething inferno seemed to explode within my senses. Reeling from the pain, I pulled back the feeling that had caused it.
Okay, lets try to be a little more careful. Trying to keep myself calm, I tried to recreate the feeling of what I had just done.
Reaching out, but without my hand. Seeing, but without my eyes. Grasping, but without my fingers. Calm. Slowly reach out. There is nothing but yo-. There. There it is.
Slowly gathering my courage, I reached a little harder to paint a better picture of my surroundings. There, 3 lights, from what I could feel. One felt bright. Like a warm campfire in the night, it gave me a sense of ease simply by being near it. Another felt smaller, but so, sobright. Like a fresh fire, it felt so chaotic and in flux, but it was the one nearest to me, only slightly closer than the first.
But the third is what frightened me. It felt biting cold, yet it felt like an inferno at the same time. The shear presence it held was something unimaginable.
What's going on? I wondered. If I'm not dead, than I've gone mad. People can't sense others like that. It isn't Star Wars.
But the longer I remained there, I began to wonder what the things I was feeling might entail. I didn't notice it before, but I can feel a heartbeat. It's surrounding me. I can't tell where it is. It's everywhere. What else. My whole stinking body itches, but I seem to be getting better feeling to it. And It feels like I'm floating in som-...ething... GOD PLEASE NO.
I couldn't accept it. It wasn't possible. I didn't believe in reincarnation. People aren't even supposed to keep their memories if they did have a second life. It can't be.
After I had calmed myself down to a reasonable level, I tried to look at the evidence, or lack thereof, involving my predicament.
Fact: I got shot repeatedly in the chest. Opinion: I could've survived, but it's unlikely. Fact 2: I can feel"lights" around me, something that's not generally supposed to be possible. 3: I can hear a heartbeat that is not my own. Heartbeat indicates either my hearing is useless, or there's something else alive near me within hearing range.
The more I thought about it, the more the likelihood seemed that I had been given a second life. But one, and only one thing, was stopping me from concluding that. How am I capable of this level of thought?Babies don't have the brain growth currently to maintain that high of cognitive function. If I'm not even fully developed, how the hell can i think this in depth? No point to think about it repeatedly. Something else... If I'm a baby in the womb, would that mean that the bright light is my mother? What would that make the smaller one? A sibl-... yes... a twin. A twin sibling. But what does that mean about the cold/hot one? Not Dad, I'm sure as hell that biology doesn't work that way.
This was the last thought I had before deciding to stew on it, for the time being. I had no want to continue nearly driving myself insane trying to find out what the hell's going on. Deciding to do something more productive, I began reciting every word, sentence, and phrase I knew that wasn't in my native tongue. But I needed more. I moved on to songs, film plots, and even philosophical works. But it wasn't enough, I needed something else. Something nice and totally not requiring a lot of thought.
After doing this, and a great deal of other mental gymnastics to break up the monotony, somethingshifted. And by something, I mean myself. The small bright light, my sibling, and the light that I assumed was my mother, was flickering repeatedly.
God, if you're listening, f-ck you. Second, I don't want to remember being born. Three, please don't let me be a girl.
With that heartfelt prayer finished, I felt the third presence seemingly move. It had never done that before. After a truly traumatizing event that seemed to carry on for hours, I felt the air on my skin for the first time in this new life.
Let me tell you, being a tiny little thing, naked, and covered in liquid sucks. Within moments, I was shivering uncontrollably, even when I was dried off and bundled up into a blanket. It wasn't simply due to the cold that I was shivering, it was also the emptiness I felt from not having the warmth I've been so used to for the last several months of my to feal that warmth again, I reached out as I did before, feeling only a slight spark. Less than a couple feet of range. I thought to myself. I was shaken out of my thoughts when I heard a baby scream just a minute or two later.
Trying to feel what was going on, I pushed my sense, hard. I felt a headache building, but I could feel what was around me. I was being held by someone, the feeling felt similar, but not the same as my mother's. A woman, maybe.
A few feet in front of me, I could feel my mother's presence, it felt diminished, but still burning bright. No suprise, she's just given birth. My mother, the person holding me, and my sibling had a certain feel to them that were similar. I think my sibling is a girl. I thought, before moving on to the only two other presences I could one, I was all too familiar with. It was the one that had been playing the part of a mysterious guest with me, my sister, and mother. It seemed to be stretching or pushing to expand, I'm not sure how to describe it.
The second presence was what had me looking closely. It was different from the others. It didn't have the same feel to it as what my mother's was. But it felt slightly similar to my sisters. This must be my father. I thought. Thankful that my mother didn't have some deadbeat ditch her when she got pregnant. That's good.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed something very peculiar. His presence seemed to move outside him and towards my mother and the unknown presence. Almost as if he were surrounding the unknown presence to hold it in place.
Before I could think on what that might have meant, I felt something behind me for a split second and then the light holding me winked out of existence. I felt as if I were bathed in ice water in that instant. But that wasn't the worst part. I felt a spray of liquid that fell on my face. I didn't even need to think on what it was until I was hit with the smell of it like an out-of-control freight train.
No. No. Not blood. I couldn't think. Could barely breathe. The last thing I smelled before I died. The thing that I choked on, was the first thing I smelled coming into this new life. I did the obvious thing an infant does when exposed to something terrifying to it, I screamed.
The next few seconds, Or was it minutes? Hours? To this day I can't say, were shear madness. One moment I was being held by a thing, the feeling to it was nothuman. Not the way my mother, sister, and father felt.
The next, I felt myself in my fathers arms, a wave of warmth attempting to calm me down. He spoke a few words that I could not understand. He was stopped in his attempt when the unknown presence, the one that was as much of a companion as my mother and sister, exploded. The feel to it before was like a localized inferno. But now, it felt like my own envisioning of Hell. All encompassing. All powerful. Immortal.
Drawing breathe was a victory unto itself when in this Demon's presence. I couldn't remember much but the fight to suck in much-needed oxygen into my lungs until the presence seemed to vanish from my field of range. I assume I had been taken somewhere. I remember the cold feeling of a brush painting something on my stomach, my sister was beside me, I assume being given the same treatment as I was. The next moments were some of the worst I ever felt.
I pulled back my sight as much as I could, so to not feel the Demon's presence, but it still didn't stop it all. I could feel it coming towards me and my sister. For the first time since my birth, I opened my eyes. What assaulted my vision is something I will never forget.
A Beast, one the size of a mountain, and 9 tails swishing behind it furiously, was roaring in fury, attempting to break free from a collection of glowing chains holding it down. I looked to see where the chains were coming from. I saw a woman with red hair, her face and body screaming exhaustion, with chains coming out of her body to hold the creature. To the left was a man with golden blond hair, doing something that i couldn't even describe.
There are times where someone is confronted with certain indisputable things. Even when they seem sounlikely as to court madness, one must still acknowledge when the option is true. I was in that situation.
Nothing gives a man recently reborn a bigger madness check as seeing a real living Bijuu trying to kill you and your new family. Especially who your family was.
No. Not possible. I thought, desperately trying to make sense of the impossible. You're not real. It can't be. You're ink on a page.
No matter how much I tried to say that it wasn't real, they were still real. I knew what was about to happen, and I knew I was powerless to stop it. I should have shut my eyes, but I didn't. I couldn't help but see the catalyst event that would create a protagonist. Me. I thought. It all seemed to go in slow motion. The chains weakening. A tail shooting forward. A shout of warning. It all came to where my baby sister and I were sat, upon the cold ground outside of the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
I saw it all. The blood running down their faces. The soft smiles they gave me. The gentle words said in a language I didn't know enough to understand. And I cried. I cried as the Kyuubi was sheared in two. I cried as my sister was given one half. I screamed as the other half was sealed in me. Molten iron seaming to course in my blood.
I cried as their light faded from my minds eye. I cried out for anyone to save me from my pain. But not a soul answered. Not as my parents died. Not when the darkness, save for one bright spot, surrounded me. Not when unfamiliar people stole my last light from me. And not when the caustic chakra of the Kyuubi gnawed at my thoughts and dragged me into the realm of unconsciousness. Not a soul.
After dismissing the nurse so she could get some sleep, and more importantly give Jiraiya privacy to work, Hiruzen approached the crib, looking at the sleeping children alongside his former student.
"They look like them", he said softly, so as not to wake them,"The boy takes after his father by his looks, but has much of Kushinas' colouring. The girl has Minatos' hair, but Kushinas' face."
They stood there for a moment, the peaceful silence a welcome reprieve from the hectic nature of the hospital and the Village outside.
The silence stretched on for a moment until Hiruzen broke it with a question whose answer eluded him. "Did they decide on names?" He asked. "I know they had a couple of ideas, but I knew of nothing concrete."
Jiraiya stood silently for a moment, before answering his Sensei, "Rin," he said, pausing before giving the final part, "and Naruto." He finished, voice hollow.
"The character from your book", Hiruzen stated, a wave of sadness making its presence known.
Jiraiya voiced no response save for a slight tilting of his head in a nod.
"Your letter said there may have been something wrong with one of the seals. Which one?" Jiraiya asked, wishing to address one of his current prime concerns.
Hiruzen leaned forward, placing a hand gently on the boy, Naruto's, head. "Naruto is different from his sister, and his mother for that matter," he replied gazing upon the childs face. "His chakra is tilted towards Yin. This wouldn't be a concern for a child that wasn't an Uzumaki. But, as we both know, Uzumaki have more yang alignment for there chakra, much like the Akamichi."
Jiraiya nodded his understanding. Stepping forward to begin running a diagnostic on both children's seals, Jiraiya was thinking of potential possibilities of how this could happen.
Yin alignment isn't necessarily a bad thing. That's common in the Uchiha clan. Even the Nara and Yamanaka clan use yin-heavy chakra in their clan techniques. He thought to himself. But he knew Naruto wasn't any of those. Exposure to the Kyuubis' chakra prenatally? Maybe. But why only him and not his sister?
To the best of his knowledge, no female jinchuriki had ever birthed twins. Maybe that was why. One twin's chakra being influenced by one half of the Kyuubi and the other twin being affected by the other half. Yes, that could work.
"There's no issue with either seal", Jiraiya said, finishing his diagnostic on the seals,
"Minato seemed to have designed the seals to slowly let some of the Kyuubis' chakra drip into the two of them. It couldn't have been better designed." He finished, stepping back and flexing his fingers to get feeling back into them from his checking of the seals and brushing against a remnant of the Kyuubis' chakra still left over.
"Do you have any theories on how the chakra imbalance could have happened?" he asked his Sensei, hoping he had another theory that would make more sense than any of his.
"Few", Hiruzen responded. "And each one more unlikely than the last. The most likely I can think of is that perhaps exposure to the Kyuubis' chakra caused his yin chakra to expand, outpacing his yang alignment. But it's only speculation until a more in-depth study can be done. We will have to wait until things have calmed some. Until we can bring a Hyuga to have a look, we won't know for certain."
"That was the best theory I had as well", Jiraiya stated, his tone then switching to a more guarded one. "Which Hyuga will it be? I don't want word spreading about how children that resemble Minato are being given my attention. It's too dangerous right now."
Hiruzen knew what Jiraiya meant. Too much bad blood still remained between Iwa and Konoha. If it were discovered that Minato had not one, but twochildren, with an Uzumaki mother, and both were Jinchuriki, Iwa would resume conflict and Kumo would almost undoubtedly jump in, seeing the danger of letting Konoha have a few years of recovery.
Pushing aside that very real possibility for now, Hiruzen calmed his student's concern with a raise of his hands, "It will be one that is trustworthy, probably Hiashi. We need to be very delicate about the situation, I agree."
Jiraiya nodded to Hiruzens' choice. Hiashi could be trusted. He and Minato had gone on many missions before when they were chunin and some even when they were jonin. It had helped them to become close friends. Hiashi would not break their trust.
"I assume you have an excuse cooked up for why I will be staying in the Village for the time being?", Jiraiya asked, his brow raised a bit in question, "It would do no good for us to look suspicious. I need a reason for being around them." he gestured towards the children.
"As a matter of fact, I do. If people talk, I can head it off by announcing that it was the Yondaimes' wish that the children be seen as heroic for their sacrifice. No one would think twice that you're ensuring your students legacy, now would they?"
Jiraiya grinned at the plan. "That'll work."
The following weeks were hard on Hiruzen. Somehow, it had been leaked that the twins contained the Kyuubi within them, and it was a miracle that much of the villagers, and even some shinobi didn't rise up to try and kill them. Too many people were still grieving for their loved ones to look at things reasonably. With the rumour mill already giving false or misleading information, it was nearly impossible to clear up any of it.
He had hoped, at the very least posting some ANBU to be seen would prevent some drunk from doing something he would regret. But it didn't stop a few fools hellbent on trying.
A couple of drunken chunins attempted to sneak into the room that housed the twins. "Getting rid of the demonspawn", a couple of the ANBU had heard them going on about. "My sister's a nightshift nurse. She said that after that one nurse, Akira I think, ends her shift, there's a small window's open to get in. It'll take to two of us to get in", he finished, his voice wavering from the alcohol.
The two ANBU radioed in to the ANBU charged with guarding the twin jinchuriki at the hospital, warning of a potential attack.
Spotting their arrival at the hospital, the ANBU guarding the twins got into position, ready to deliver death upon the two drunk Shinobi.
I won't lose another. The masked ANBU thought to himself.
Not even after taking half a step into the room, their was a soft whistle of metal cutting through the air, followed by a wet thunk, and the sound of two corpses hitting the ground.
The two drunks were dead, a kunai buried hilt deep in both of their spinal columns. The next day, the hospital was down a nurse. None of the nurses knew what happened to her. Some assumed that she quit and left the village to be off to greener pastures after the tragic death of her brother from falling and breaking his neck after he staggered home from a bar.
ANBU are considered to be capable, ruthless, and above all, got results. And Inu was one of the best.
Hiruzen set down the ANBUs official report with an irritated sigh. It wasn't simply that he had to deal with civilians, and even a low level Shinobi or two, talking about "Finishing what the Yondaime started". It wasn't that his ANBU had to carry out more than one assassination on valid threats. He could deal with were within his realm of expertise. But the medical report he had received not 2 hours before hearing the news from Inu of an attempted attack on the Uzumaki siblings in their hospital room was not something he could solve, even with his decades of experience in understanding chakra and the wonders and great destruction it was capable of bringing.
The medical report was a difficult thing to understand. For Rin, it was normal, aside from an elevated chakra pool, no surprise there. But when it got to the point on Naruto, it was very strange indead. As was suspected by both Hiruzen and Jiraiya, and later confirmed by Hiashi's Byakugan, little Naruto had a chakra consistency that was naturally more yin than an Uzumaki should have.
His yang aspect was potent, but his yin was even more so. When it was discovered that he had the yin half of the Kyuubi in his seal, it all made sense.
The influx of yin chakra consistently fed into his chakra coils was making the difference dangerous. When a person is in possession of a yang dominant chakra system their physical prowess is generally higher. This is seen with the Akamichi clan, the Senju, and the Uzumaki.
Individuals who are in possession of a yin dominant chakra system generally have a more esoteric collection of potential jutsus. The Uchiha and their eyes, the Hyuga, the Nara, with their shadow binding techniques, and the Yamanaka with their ability to project their consciousness outside their bodies.
Where the danger lay, was so much yin chakra being dripped into young Naruto's fragile system. An overabundance of yang chakra would make the person more physically robust, but could lead to an overdeveloped appetite and potentially hyperactive behavior. But an overabundance of yin chakra, especially in one so young, could lead to malformations in the brain and potential personality issues.
Minato had no way of knowing that his son would have a stronger yin level than an Uzumaki should, even before the Kyuubis' yin half was sealed. If the boy's alignment was a normal yang level like his sister, it wouldn't be an issue.
Jiraiya tightend the seal as much as he could without damaging the seals ability, but it wasn't a guarantee that issues will not arise in the next few years. They could only wait and see what the future held for the young boy.
Chapter 2 is done and it's much longer than the first. I haven't watched the series for a few years. If there are canonical issues, that's why. I'm getting a refresher on the 'verse from reading other fics on the site, so some tropes may be noticable. If there are certain things that don't add up with canon, chalk it up to being AU. This is a fanfiction after all. I'll try to put as much original stuff as I for reading. Any constructive criticism is welcome.
Raging Smurf, out..
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