Strength of Fist and Heart
by Darklion74
A/N: Standard disclaimer, I do not own Naruto nor it's characters, only the plot of this alternate beginning. A few surprises are in store. I think you'll enjoy it.
Chapter One
Child with the Seal
It was only two years since Kyuubi had attacked Konohagakure, and the town had just gotten back on it's feet. This beginning, however, isn't out in the cool nighttime air, as the Hidden Village of the Leaf is just starting to fall back asleep, except for the shinobi guards around town, but in a darkened room with only one candle providing light, and several figures clad in the ninja shozoko of the Leaf.
A female voice spoke out. "Nobody must know of this meeting, not even the Hokage. If he were to find out... well, I think everyone here knows. This is a special mission that we chuunin must carry out for the future of our village."
A younger male voice spoke out. "Anko-senpai, are you certain this is a good idea?"
Mitarashi Anko merely growled. "Listen, Iruka. I understand you just recently became a Chuunin but you need to understand that this is necessary."
Iruka merely grunted. "Hey, I have no problems killing the kid, but this child is someone whom the Hokage favors, and wants to see grow..."
A nondescript chunnin then responded from the shadows. "Which is why he has to be dealt with now! Are you in, or are you out?"
Iruka growled. "Listen, I'm not about to make an enemy of the Hokage. I'm out." With that he vanished from the room.
Anko shrugged. "Forget him, he's not important. So here's the plan... we need to get a few people to start..."
Sleeping within his little bed, Naruto quietly napped through the night. Only two years old, he seemed oblivious to the world, happily dreaming of fuzzy bunnies with shuriken and flying with pigs. Except for the huge mark on his stomach, the little blonde seemed to be a normal two year old kid.
A shattered window ended his dream as he looked around trying to see what made so much noise. An explosion, a few seconds later hurled him out of the window and into the arms of an angry villager.
"I have the demon in my hands! I have him! Let's burn it at the stake!"
The kid, not understanding what was going on, did the only things he knew how to do, he wet himself, struggled, and wailed like mad. Struggled as the kid might, he couldn't escape the grasp of this huge man who only had a face full of fury. He tried to bite the man, but the man merely kept himself moving so that the kid couldn't get a good target.
"Hurry up! Let's get him before he bites my... urk!"
The man holding Naruto was immediately silenced by a thrown kunai that got him in the throat, forcing the enraged villager to drop the toddler. The kid managed to land on his feet, painfully, but still land. Then he noticed other ninja attacking the villagers, driving them back.
"Get back! By order of the Hokage, this boy is not to be harmed!"
"What do you mean? This is a demon waiting to be unleashed on our town! If he dies, then the threat dies forever as well!"
The jounin shinobi who made the proclamation growled in anger. "Do you forget what his line has done for our city..."
An older villager interrupted. "His father is to be honored, yes! It is sad that his kid is the bearer of such misfortune, but that misfortune threatens all of us. He must be put down!"
"By order of the Hokage, what you speak of is forbidden! Nor disperse or you will be the ones we put down!"
Mitarashi Anko scooped up the child and nodded to the shinobi. "I have him, sir! I'll have him taken home."
The jounin nodded as the villagers began to disperse back into their homes. As the pitchforks and the torches were laid down, extinguished, a relative calm came back, as the second part of Anko's plan came back into focus, as she sped off to the outskirts of the city, as the guards let her out of the village, as they were also willing participants in her plan.
After about a mile into the forest, Anko merely smiled at the kid. Naruto, obviously scared and confused tried to talk.
"You take Naruto home?"
Anko merely gave a poisonous smile. "No, kid, not yet. Listen, I knew your father, the Yondaime Hokage, and he was a great man, just like you were supposed to be. But there's something about yourself you need to know. Do you have any dreams?"
Naruto smiled. "Yes, good dreams with bunnies and pigs." He then frowned a bit as he remembered something else. "Bad dreams about big fox on fire telling me bad things, wanting to get out."
"That fox, kid, is Kyuubi, and he nearly destroyed our village two years ago. That is what your father sealed in you to save us. And as much as I don't want to, in order to save the village..."
Anko took out a kunai and held it to the throat of the toddler, as a mark on her shoulder glimmered slightly. She grimaced a bit, but held back the waves of pain going through her. Her gaze at Naruto, which was once smiling, melted a bit at the kid's look of fear. He reminded her so much about the Yondaime, about his father Arashi. But now, even as her convictions began to falter, her voice remained firm, if laced with sadness.
"I have to kill you, of all people. I don't want to kill the son of the Yondaime Hokage, but I don't have a choice. You need to die for all of our sakes. Yondaime, forgive me for what I must do!"
A crack to her skull ended her indecision as the last thing she saw was a black dire wolf dropping to the ground, growling angrily, growling hungrily.
As Anko awoke, only a few minutes later, she saw the dire wolf once more. It then hit her that the boy was a true innocent and there should have been a way around it. She had full intent of killing the boy, but whatever knocked her out, knocked some sense into her. Her eyes then looked to the pool of blood on the ground and the bits of tattered clothing the wolf had in its mouth.
The clothes of a toddler, soaked in blood.
'The child was an innocent...'
The wolf continued to chew at the clothing, disinterested in the shocked human.
'Innocent... completely innocent... he couldn't help being born the way he was...'
A ripping noise later found that the wolf tore away at the portion of the clothing that wasn't bloodied and it continued to chew.
'Innocent... blood of an innocent... oh Kami, what have I done?'
Anko then roared and threw a kunai at the wolf, her gaze blinded by a red coat of blood that seemed to radiate pure rage. The dire wolf, a little surprised at being attacked, surmised correctly that the human had a few screws loose, and was a danger to its existence, smartly bolted into the woods, leaving no sound or trace.
Anko then tried to find the wolf, but then remembered what it was. 'Shadow wolf, the Kageurufu, rare, and they don't leave trails, scent, or tracks.'
The wolf had devoured the toddler, and now she was denied redemption for attempted murder, by failing to kill the true murderer. She could never go back to the Leaf, she would have to become a missing-nin in order to survive. The tears began to pool in her eyes as realization hit her like an anvil.
'The boy was an innocent, but had strength in him...'
'He didn't deserve death, despite what others may have thought...'
'The Hokage was right, he needed compassion, not anger.'
'He needed protection from danger... not this... nobody deserved this...'
'No body left to mourn. From the kin of one of the greatest shinobi ever to exist, to being a meal for a beast. Ironic... wasn't it?'
It was ironic, as the tears hit silently on the ground, and as she turned she saw the wide eyes of Umino Iruka.
Iruka merely looked stunned, not seeing the wolf. All he saw in front of him was his senpai, the one who helped him gain the rank of Chuunin less than a year ago, someone who's always been there for him despite her curse, The Heaven Seal, one that should have killed her but didn't. Now she just lives with the curse, given to her by her former sensei, Orochimaru.
He also noticed the tattered pieces of clothing, only able to stare at the blood and at Anko.
"Anko-senpai! You... you didn't... please tell me you..."
Anko merely grabbed onto Iruka and sobbed her eyes out, telling him everything, from her intent to kill, to her hesitation, being knocked out and finally of the kageurufu that had the blonde toddler's bloodied clothing in its mouth. She was disgusted in herself in two conflicting ways, that she lacked the internal fortitude by taking an innocent child here in the first place, and being unable to kill when she was made to be exactly that, a tool of death.
Iruka saw the conflict in his senpai's words and on her face. He was saddened that the child was taken in the first place, but saw no lie in her words. The child was killed, but not by her hands, and it appeared she was about to relent, but for a tragic happenstance. He sighed and helped her to her feet.
"Let's go home. The Hokage will need to know of this."
He took her arm on his shoulders and they sped off towards Konohagakure.
"To think I was actually trying to make my peace with the Leaf, and they go and do this! Lucky I was there, kid or you would have been wolf chow."
The speaker was a blond woman who appeared to be in her late twenties to early thirties. The one she spoke to was a child who was sleeping peacefully, exhausted from the misadventures of the evening. He merely snuggled against the large assets of the woman who carried him. She chuckled a bit.
"Don't get too comfortable there. I might mistake you for an old teammate of mine, bloody pervert that he was."
A woman with short black hair and dark eyes appeared from behind. "Tsunade-sama, they've gone past the gates."
"And the response at the gates for those two Chuunin, Shizune-chan?"
Shizune sighed. "Rather heated, Tsunade-sama. The Hokage seemed to be rather upset with a few of the other Shinobi who were part of an assassination attempt. I think most of them won't be around very much longer."
"And the one who apparently tried to kill the boy?"
"Just as I saw, she seemed to falter. I doubt she would have killed him. She was foolish to bring him here, but it was a brilliant plan, if she only carried it out. Monstrous, but brilliant. The wolf would have made a perfect alibi. I think Sandaime knows that the child is alive, but will be keeping the secret."
Tsunade snorted. "And another dead Shinobi probably. That wolf could have killed both of them if you didn't rip the boy from it's grasp. I... I just couldn't..."
Shizune smiled. "Don't be sorry, Tsunade-sama. We got the boy out, isn't that what matters?"
Tsunade then smiled and nodded. 'She doesn't know about my hematophobia, my fear of blood. I was frightened when the boy was bit. Thankfully the bite was light and I could heal it, after Shizune cleaned him up. That copied pool of blood, however, was a bit much.'
Shizune looked at the boy. After Naruto was bit, Shizune knocked the wolf back and used a jutsu to enlarge the drops of blood from the ground, then tore off the shirt and dropped it in there. The wolf snarled, yet after seeing the pool of blood, it seemed disinterested and proceeded to get the shirt.
"What was the boy's name, Tsunade-sama?"
Tsunade then looked at the boy and gasped. "He's Yondaime's son, Uzumaki Naruto!"
A/N: So... Tsunade has Naruto with her. What is the money-hungry sannin going to do with Naruto? Tune into the next chapter, as it will hopefully be much longer than this one!