Hello, everyone! I finally decided to start this story - I had the idea for months and couldn't contain it anymore. =)

Title: The Demon and the Ghost
Author: NHunter aka N.H. aka 夜狩猟家 aka 灰色天使
Genre: General, Adventure, Romance later
Rating: M = NC-17
Characters: almost everyone from manga and some OC's
Warnings: AU, OOC, incest with lemons in the future
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Naruto or its characters

"speaking"
'thinking'
"speaking of higher beings / Naruto while using yoki / jutsus / Iruka's 'demon head' speaking"
'thinking of higher beings'

Special thanks to Mister Fummeln for beta-reading this chapter

The Demon and the Ghost
prologue: Shattered lives

"Congratulations, Kushina-sama, you have a wonderful boy." A nurse said, holding newborn boy in her hands. ...Sometimes, being 'honorable lady Kushina' wasn't that bad after all, the new mother thought. This way she could have had two nurses to help her with giving birth, even if the hospital was full with wounded shinobi who fought Kyuubi... Speaking of the Kyuubi... The hospital building shook as a wave of destruction passed just a couple dozens of meters from it. Then it all was quiet for several seconds, before in flash of golden light Yondaime Hokage appeared in the room.

"I'm very sorry, Kushina-chan, but looks like I don't have any other option... I need to seal the demon away to save the village..." The man spoke in a shaky voice.

"But he is YOUR son!" Kushina yelled back. "You're the Hokage!.." She was interrupted.

"That's why. If Hokage can't make such a sacrifice... then how can he ask someone else to make it? And he will still have you." The Yondaime said with some tears appearing in his eyes. There was a short pause, which one of the nurses decided to use to speak up.

"Kushina-sama, your second child may be born any minute..."

"Kushina-chan, can I have Naruto?" The Hokage asked.

"NO!" If there was anything in the world, the Yellow Flash of the Leaf was afraid of, it was his wife. But, hell, when entire village was at the stake, he had to get past this fear too...

"Just make sure, that our son will be a happy boy." With these words he flash-stepped to the nurse and took the boy in question from her hands. A moment later, he was gone in a flash of golden light.

"Curse you, Minato! If you do something to my boy, I will personally revive you, so that I can kill you myself!" Yelled an angry Kushina.

"You need to stay calm, honorable lady Kushi-..." The nurse couldn't finish as a beam of red yoki passed though the building, evaporating everything in its way and leaving poisonous red mist of yoki in its wake. The other nurse was a bit more lucky as the demon's attack just took her left arm. The building - or whatever was left from it - shook once again. This time several beams couldn't stand the stress and collapsed. Unfortunately, one of these beams fell onto Kushina, killing her instantly. The nurse was shocked; the honorable lady Kushina was dead, died in front of her eyes and she couldn't do anything to save her... Then the woman remembered, the Honorable Lady had second child, surprisingly, a girl who had yet to be born. Ignoring white-hot pain from her burned away arm, the nurse went to Kushina's body, hoping to at least save the daughter of honorable lady Kushina...

~/ *** \~

Tsunade looked at the battlefield. Everywhere she could see nothing but destruction. Thankfully, Minato was able to seal the Kyuubi into his newborn son before the demon could enter Konoha and erase it from the face of the Earth. The female Sannin went to where toad boss Gamabunta left just several seconds ago, when the fight was over. On the ground there was dead body of Yondaime Hokage, still holding little Naruto to his chest protectively. Tsunade kneeled and took the baby from Minato's arms. The child was sleeping, most likely, completely exhausted by the sealing he went through... While Tsunade herself wasn't fuuinjutsu master, she still knew some basic things about this art. The seal on Naruto's stomach was far too complex for her to even understand what it does, but at least she could tell that it was placed correctly. The Kyuubi was sealed.

"How is he?" Asked an aged man in dark-gray battle robes.

"If the fools in the council won't do anything to him, he should be fine. Minato truly was a genius,
Sensei."

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage in the past, sighed.

"I think, you should bring our little hero to the hospital. It's not safe for him to remain here." Tsunade nodded and sped towards where Konoha hospital was... Sarutobi turned to look at where the beast was just before his successor sealed it. Between enormous pawprints he saw a dried corpse. He came closer to examine it, as it didn't look like any of the shinobi who died in the battle. It was hard to tell, but the corpse was feminine and belonged to rather young woman, maybe even a teen. Whoever she was, she died years ago and was kept as this due to Kyuubi's yoki.

'So those weren't legends after all...' Old man thought. 'theRikudou Sennin existed and he did defeat the Juubi, splitting its yoki in nine parts, thus creating the Bijuu. Looks like soulless youki had to anchor itself to a living body and a soul to exist in this world, though...' Then another thought visited Sarutobi's head. 'But Konoha is at a brink of destruction... We have to think about the survival of the village now, not about the origin of the Bijuu...' Sighing again, the old man started walking back into the village...

~/ *** \~

Leaving little Naruto in the part of hospital that survived the attack of Kyuubi, with a nurse she could trust, Tsunade walked to the ruins. Red poisonous mist of Kyuubi's youki still hadn't dissipated so it was dangerous to stay outside... The wing of hospital where the maternity department was was completely demolished and all she could hear from the ruins was a lonely cry of a newborn baby. Speeding to the source of the sound, the Sannin found a baby girl lying on the stone debris between two fallen beams, surrounded by dust and ashes, like they were attracted to her. Picking this little girl up, Tsunade was surprised to find out, that the child was in fine health. Though her hair was that of an unusual white color and had red tint to it. The girl stopped crying and opened her eyes, looking at Tsunade, who noted that the color of girl's iris too were unusual – it was blue closer to pupils and turning purple further from it.

"You are such lucky girl, you know?" The Sannin asked. "Who was your mother?" Of course, she got no answer... She sighed "Another orphan... How shall we name you?.." A pause. "Oh, I know. Your name shall be Sachiko." And with this Tsunade hastily walked towards still standing part of the hospital...

~/ *** \~

Minato Namikaze was in the world of darkness. It surrounded him completely, leaving no way out... So, this was the stomach of Shinigami-sama. But something wasn't right. The jutsu he used should have brought not only him there, but the one he used it on too. But where in the hell was Kyuubi's soul? Deciding that he had nothing better to do, Minato decided to explore the darkness...

He had no idea, for how long he was walking... Maybe just several minutes, maybe months, but his eyes finally caught something that wasn't darkness. Running after it, Minato soon found petite brunette in ceremonial clothes hiding in the corner. Was she the Kyuubi?

"W-Who are you? W-Where am I?" She asked fearfully, still trying to hide from him. Was she the Kyuubi? Sighing, he decided to answer.

"My name is Minato Namikaze and we are in the stomach of the God of death." The girl paled and seemed to become even smaller than she was before. No this wasn't the Kyuubi? But then, what was she doing there? Minato had no answers to these questions.

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As this is actually my SIXTH project that is epic story, updates with be irregular and rather rare. Still, first chapter will be ASAP.