Author's Note! I will soon begin posting a new version of this. It will be titled The Quick and the Dead. It will have many differences, though there will also be several similarities. I apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause for you, as well as for the long wait. I cannot promise to be better about updating the new version, but I have a prologue and three chapters written. As thanks for having followed and/or favorited this fic, I am posting the prologue to The Quick and the Dead along with this note. Also, if anyone wants to be a beta for the story, that would be awesome. Have a great day! :)

P.S. - Feel free to hit me up with any questions or comments you may have. :)

Dear Naruto,

You may wonder why I left this package for you with the toads, or indeed, why and how I knew to leave it with them. Suffice it to say that such questions will most likely be answered in the following documents I have written for you. I want do whatever I can to possibly help you, and I feel that you, at least, deserve to have some explanation. Your life is and will be difficult enough, though I have faith that you will find a way to prevail over whatever challenges you may face. The following papers contain secrets that I have revealed to no one else, and I hope that by reading my story you may better understand your own.

I know how your story happens - or at least I did, once upon a dimension. I believe that merely the nature of my existence has likely caused some changes to occur. One change that I can mention for certain is that, in another dimension, I was your father. You read that correctly. In another dimension, the person known as Minato Namikaze, Konoha's Yellow Flash, was a man who married your mother. That dimension's Minato died on his version of this very day. I do not know if I will survive today, or if I survive this day that I will continue to survive the days and years that follow it.

If you are reading this, I am currently either dead, or incapacitated in some manner. I have done as much as I could to prepare for this day; hopefully my efforts will result in fewer lives lost including my own. In the alternate dimension, Minato sealed the Kyuubi into you, his own son, at the cost of his own life.

As I recall, Minato did not want to do to another person's family member what he would not be willing to do to his own. Minato also realized that you would face many difficulties in life, and sealed the Kyuubi into you in order that you might have the strength to meet and surpass those challenges.

In this dimension, I do have an experimental seal that I believe will allow the Kyuubi to be safely sealed inside of you and that will not require the forfeiture of my life. However, there is always the possibility that the Kyuubi will kill me himself, or that I will be forced to use the same seal my alternate self used.

Naruto, if ever you are tempted to feel guilt over the lives lost to the Kyuubi, remember this: the blame lies on me alone. I could have used the information I possessed to prevent the series of events that lead to the Kyuubi attacking Konoha. As for why I did not do so? Well, I will get to that in the story.

I know the story of your life in the alternate dimension because it was a famous story in my previous dimension, and everything other than the nature of my existence and the changes I have wrought seem to match with what the story says. I, Minato Namikaze, was born in a small village in the Land of Fire, but I somehow retained my memories from my previous life in what I believe was another dimension. If you doubt my sanity, I hereby grant you, Naruto Uzumaki, the right to view my psychological evaluation results. Seeing as I just went in for my latest evaluation this morning and was deemed to be "…sane, sound of mind …and able to distinguish reality from fantasy," what I have written is not merely the ramblings of an insane woman. Also, the fact that I am not that much of a sadist may help convince you that I am not writing this as some cruel joke on you.

I can be extremely selfish, even when others may claim that I am kind. Indeed, even writing this out and leaving it for you is selfish, in a way. Writing my story has allowed me to confess many things that others may not know or even guess at, while leaving it for the toads to pass on to you relieves me from facing any derision or reprimand you may have for me. It even spares me from the possibility that you can forgive me, for some acts I have committed (or failed to commit) are reprehensible. That's the thing about heroes, Naruto: one person's hero is another's villain.

Perhaps I am judging myself too harshly, but I will leave that to history and you to decide. Naruto, I am no great writer, but I hope you may find some answers to questions you have had about yourself, Konoha, and life in general, especially if you desire to become a famous shinobi, such as the Hokage.

Sincerely,

Minato Namikaze