Fate

Prologue

To start at the beginning, there was Kami. There was nothing else. People could say that Kami just got tired of looking out into nothingness and so she created the universe to entertain herself. Kami would soon realize though that she had created a universe too vast for even her magnificent self to manage, and so she would create other Gods to manage different aspects of the universe and of life.

Some of the Gods would be terrible and bring death and destruction. Some would be loud and annoying but ultimately harmless. Some would be caring and giving and bringers of life. Others would be knowledge seekers. But then there would be some who would not give a damn about anything. Each as different from one snowflake to the next.

But as time passes even one as mighty as a god can get bored.

And that is where our story truly beings.

Fate was much like all other Gods. She was ridiculously beautiful and managed many dimensions in her sector of the universe.

And she (like so many gods before her) got bored.

Now what makes this story what it is, is because when Fate got bored she pulled the soul of one mortal into play to make things more interesting.

Fate had been watching this soul travel through its organic life many a time and every time she found that its life was horrible and often did not end in success, and when it did end in success, it often did not have a happy ending. In fact she really only recalled one occasion where the soul ended up dying happily of old age surround by its children and grandchildren. When the soul had abandoned its vessel that time many people had mourned for its passing.

But as she watched the soul this time around she knew it would not end well.

And as she looked into different dimensions to find that souls counter parts she found that they would soon find an untimely end as well.

And so to ease her boredom she set her plan in motion.

Life was about to get much more interesting.

Much, much more.

Chapter 1: Divine Intervention

Naruto:

Naruto stood looking out at the smoldering piles of ash and blackened stone that had once been his village. His knees shook with exhaustion as tears ran down his face. How had this happened? How could he have let this happen? All of his training. At of his sweat and blood. It all amounted to nothing. Nothing. That was what he was. Nothing, useless. All he had done was take up space for the past 16 years. Hadn't Sasuke always told him this?

He crumpled to the ground. Life was over in this village all that remained was this nothing that he was. His breaths started to come harsher as he thought of all the bodies that lay there in that pile of ash. Kakashi, Grandma, Sakura, Hinata, Fuzzy Brows, Neji, Ten-Ten, Chouji, Shikamaru, Ino, Kiba, Akumaru, Shino, Guy, Kurenai… so many others that he could not bare to name.

They had not all died in this battle. No, some had died beforehand but all of their bodies had been brought back to be buried here. He knew that they must be rolling in their graves right now blaming him for bringing all of this misfortune unto them and the village.

He looked over his shoulder to stare at the one body on the field that was not horribly deformed.

Sasuke Uchiha.

It was all his fault.

Naruto gasped and choked on his own tears as they travelled into his mouth. How could all of this have happened? It seemed that just yesterday he was graduating from the academy and hanging around with Sasuke and Sakura, annoying Kakashi-sensei…

Sakura would be so mad if she could see him now. If she could see him crying like this. He knew she would beat his head in and then tell him to get up and move on. But that was just it, he couldn't. After fighting for so long to get acknowledged and to gain friends and people to care about he didn't want to start over again.

Life had never been easy for him. Orphanages never wanted him. Homeless people didn't want him around. Villagers wouldn't sell him things. Teachers made fun of him and picked on him. People broke into his apartment and broke his things and set fire to his place.

His name was Monster or Demon when he went outside.

Only the Old Man, Iruka, Ayame and her father Old Man Teuchi had ever cared for him as a child and protected him from the cruel cruel world.

As he had gotten older things improved as he was given his own team and sent on missions out of fire country to create relationships with people who did not know of his dark secret. His classmates had started to accept him and to respect him. He had become a ninja that people watched as a rising force.

But then Sasuke had to take it all away from him.

He had burned the village to the ground and everyone who had resided in it suffered the same fate.

Naruto stood up and marched over to Sasuke's corpse before smashing his fist repeatedly into his dead ex-friends face repeatedly.

"WHY?" he screamed "WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO DESERVE THIS?" He fell over gasping and crying even harder. Why? Why couldn't something ever just be easy for him?

He closed his eyes as his body shuddered and cramped up.

And then he realised why his life was so hard.

It was to make death that much more sweet when it finally came to take him away.

His eyes tunnelled and his vision faded along with the strength that had taken him so long to attain.

He could have laughed.

Chakra exhaustion.

What a way to go.

Nami:

She stared at herself in her dirty mirror. Glaring at the ugly scars that littered her face that pulled it into an eternal grimace. The scar that perfectly fused her left eye shut with a dark angry line. Her long filthy blond hair did little to hide her face. It hung scraggily and limp clumping together with sweat for she hadn't showered in months.

She grabbed one of her old kunai and started to hack and slice at her hair with the dull blade. Hair fell to the ground in piles around her hitting a dirty floor as her blackened fingers continued to grasp her crude hair cutting device. She bared her teeth at the person looking back at her in the mirror.

How dare she exist! How dare she breathe the oxygen in the air that others could use!

She screamed her frustration and the mirror and hit it with a clenched first watching the spider web like cracks form.

She grabbed her kunai and thrust it into her wrist watching the red bubble to the surface and then fall onto the floor. She struck again and again as the marks she left behind healed with a red energy source that she had come to hate.

"DIE! DIE! DIE!" she screamed continuing to drive the kunai into her wrist hoping for a miracle.

Her life had been nothing but one tragedy after another.

No one had ever seen her as a human.

She was nothing. Dirt. Unless of course they remembered the demon she harbored. Then she was a monster. A horrible, horrible monster that needed to be dealt with. To be punished. And if she wasn't being punished her body was being used to satisfy a man's needs.

She couldn't remember the first time it had happened. This is how life had always been for her and when she decided to become a ninja to defend herself people saw this only as an excuse to use more force on her.

On her first mission out of the village alone she had been ambushed. She remembered fighting very briefly before getting knocked unconscious. When she had awoken she had been in a cell. They had interrogated her for weeks trying every tactic they knew. She had told them nothing.

When they realised she would never break and that no one was interested in coming to find her, to save her, they threw her in a cell to rot. It hadn't taken the men to long though to realise that this was a waste of her body though.

For 2 years she had suffered at the hands of her keepers. Nothing she could do could stop them. The worst part was that she couldn't die. Anyone else would have died, but she just healed right up no matter how rough they were on her.

When a warden accidently kicked a fist sized rock into her cell she had found her solution.

She bashed her own face in. Repeatedly.

Nami had been a pretty girl. Gorgeous. Whoever her parents had been they had blessed her with their finest genes. Long legs, big blue eyes, curvy figure, perfectly sized breasts, long sensual fingers, soft even tan skin…

Nami wished she had been born ugly.

If she had been born ugly men would have never felt the urge to touch her.

But now, with this rock she finally had her solution.

By the time someone found her she had been redesigning her face for hours. She knew it would never be the same again. The Kyuubi couldn't heal everything. And maybe, just maybe, it would let her live with the scars forever so that no one would ever touch her again.

It only took a week for her captors to realise that she was not going to heal right and only an hour after that for them to throw her out naked into the snow.

She had walked back to Konoha after that.

She had showed up on her villages doorstep stark naked and had been taken straight to the hospital. She resigned as a ninja that same day.

Ever since then she had stayed in her apartment living on the allowance she was given by the village as a retired ninja and going outside only when it was absolutely necessary.

She couldn't stand people looking at her. She couldn't stand people touching her. She couldn't be anywhere near a male without having a panic attack.

She was useless.

She continued to slash at her own wrist. "Let me die…" she moaned "haven't I suffered enough… please, please Kyuubi please…."

She didn't cry. She didn't feel pain.

She only felt sweet bliss when Kyuubi granted her last wish.

It would be one month before someone would find the 17 year old dead in her bathroom, and that was only because someone had complained about the smell.

Kaze:

Kaze leapt through the trees, his team following closely behind him. Danzou had sent him on another mission despite Kaze already being thoroughly exhausted from his last one. Kaze would not say no though. No he would just bow, grab his things and do what he was ordered to do because that was how he had been trained.

Danzou would say jump and Kaze would do so. If Danzou asked him to kill himself Kaze would do so instantly. This was his life as an elite root member. He trained new recruits and he took on the toughest of missions.

He gazed over his shoulder emotionlessly to make sure he wasn't leaving his team behind. One member was fairly new; he could tell from the way that he fidgeted when he thought that no one was looking.

Kaze barely remembered being new.

He remember crying a lot and yelling and screaming. He remembered being beaten senseless and starved till he blacked out. But Danzou only ever did that for his own good he now realized. Kaze was a much stronger human now that Danzou had pushed him, a Jinjuriki, to his absolute limits.

Kaze remembered that he had eventually stopped yelling. That he had stopped arguing. That he had started doing everything exactly how he was told and that he stopped asking questions. He didn't remember though when he had stopped speaking. He hadn't heard himself in so long but he found that he did not miss his voice, not that he really remembered how he sounded. No, it was more that he found solace in the silence that surrounded him.

No one ever bothered him and his silence.

Even Danzou did not ask him to speak and Kaze worshipped the man for that.

Danzou was Kaze's everything.

He would do anything for him.

That's why he never protested when Danzou sent him on missions without letting him rest in-between.

That's why when a ninja came up behind Kaze and severed his head from his body Kaze couldn't hate Danzou. Couldn't dislike him.

And so Kazes life ended much the same way that he had existed.

In silence.

The Void:

Three figures stood surrounded by blackness. There didn't seem to be anything tangible in this place except for the three very different people standing there staring at each other.

They all had different appearances to the mutilated form of the girl with short uneven hair, to the clean boy dressed entirely in black excluding the bone white mask he wore. The final boy seemed to be a mix between the two in that he was not horribly disfigured but he was absolutely filthy covered in soot and the blood of his enemies.

But despite the obvious differences there were some similarities between the three.

They all had blond hair and blue eyes. They all had the same shade of skin as well, the golden tan that no amount of living in darkness could remove. They also had the same feel of chakra, a wild swirling blue with a flaming red bleeding through just enough to taint some places purple.

But as they looked even closer there were differences. For instance, the sooty boy was shorter than the other two, only a couple centimetres shorter than the girl but a whole generous half foot shorter than the clean boy.

The clean boy and the girl also seemed to have more purple and red in their chakra than the sooty boy.

"Hey, who are you guys?" The dirty boy asked, "My name is Naruto" He smiled as charmingly as he could.

The clean boy simply stared not offering any information of his own while the girl tried to take a couple steps back gasping for breath while looking terrified.

Just then a loud crack resonated throughout the area changing the colour of black briefly to a snow white before it faded gently to grey than black again.

"I see you are all here…" A voice whispered "You need not know who I am or the reason why I am doing this… I am sending you back to the beginning. Things will be different this time around, I will not let your parents die and you will have one another to survive. Look after each other and keep your world safe, do what you were destined to do"

A three teens looked around for the source of the voice before the ground fell out from beneath their feet dropping them into the blackness. Briefly they all caught sight of a figure looking down on them.

She had white hair and grey wise eyes and her face was so unbearingly beautiful that their human minds simply couldn't comprehend what they were seeing.

Her lips moved slightly and they knew that this divine creature was the reason they were now falling without direction. "I wish you good luck…"

They fell for what felt like forever. It could have been seconds, hours, days even years before light finally seem to reach them. They were falling…. Hurtling towards Konoha at an unimaginable speed. The girl stared to scream while the boy introduced as Naruto let out a yell of fear as they slipped right through a roof and seemed to crash right into a red headed woman.

After that, all they knew was blackness.

Kushina:

Kushina walked down the hallway of the Konoha Academy whistling to herself before she suddenly felt faint. She felt the blood rushing from her face as she swayed in the middle of the hallway. She gripped the wall tightly hoping not to fall or lose her lunch. She gasped as she felt her stomach heave. Her whole body slumped against the wall as she slid down it hoping that being closer to the ground would rid her of the sudden case of vertigo.

She didn't know what was wrong with her. She hadn't been working hard lately and in fact had been on her very best behavior as of late.

She sighed relieved when it passed. "What was that all about?" she wondered out loud. "I'd better go see Mikoto just to be sure…" she hummed before picking herself off the ground and walking out of the Academy heading straight to the Konoha General Hospital.

She gazed around as she walked down the street. It was a nice day as far as she could tell, nothing foul in the air. She smiled happily, yes life was good and when Mikoto looked her over she would tell her that she had been overreacting, nothing was wrong with her.

"Yo, Mikoto in?" Kushina yelled as she burst into the hospital grinning widely. The receptionist gave her a dirty look but didn't say anything. Previous experiences had taught her that arguing with the fiery red head would get her nowhere and only make Kushina louder.

"If you want her to buy your lunch again she can't, she's busy. Some people actually have work." The receptionist said angrily.

"Why do you always assume that's why I'm in here, Sayuri~" Kushina pouted.

"That's why you're always here unless you're being carried in by a stretcher or Minato is dragging you in here to get checked out" Sayuri replied.

Kushina continued to pout but still made her way over to the front desk "Well you're wrong today because I…" she stopped as her face started to turn red "I think I'm sick… something's not right with me…."

Sayuri quickly looked Kushina over with her eyes, her professional side taking over "Sick?" she asked. Kushina looked fine, she was her normal colour, she wasn't shaking or anything, Sayuri couldn't even find any bruises "You look fine to me…" she said but brought Kushina's file up on her screen anyways.

"I collapsed at the school… I just felt so ill all of a sudden and couldn't stand anymore… I don't know… I just don't want it happening during a mission is all I guess…" Kushina whispered for once extremely quiet.

Sayuri nodded as she recorded the information into the computer "Your address is still the same? Minato is still your next of Kin? Has anything like this happened in the past? When was your last meal?" Sayuri asked while Kushina nodded to the first two questions and shook her head for the third.

"I ate just this morning, it was actually healthy too!" seeing Sayuri's sceptical look Kushina quickly started defend herself "Minato made breakfast before he left to go see the Hokage, told me I'd better eat it or else he would hide my Ichiraku coupons!" Kushina exclaimed scowling at Sayuri who looked like she was about to laugh. "It's not funny!" Kushina yelled.

Sayuri couldn't help it and started to laugh. "I wonder what he sees in you sometimes, but if you're this funny all of the time, I can understand why he would love you!" Kushina blushed though she was still scowling.

"Don't make fun of me! This is serious!" Kushina barked still blushing while Sayuri asked her last question.

"Is there any possibility that you may be pregnant?" she got out between giggles.

"No." Kushina answered crossing her arms and looking away.

Sayuri smiled, "I'll get Mikoto down here right away. Don't go anywhere" she ordered as she picked up her phone and started talking to the person on the other end.

Kushina sighed before looking around the hospital. She didn't really like going to hospitals but not because she was scared of them or anything. Hospitals were for sick people, and Kushina hated being sick. If she was in the hospital that meant that she was sick.

"Kushina, what's wrong with you?" Kushina turned around smiling when she heard the familiar voice.

"Mikoto!" She yelled happily bouncing over to her best friend.

"You look fine to me" Mikoto scowled her onyx eyes giving Kushina the infamous Uchiha glare.

Kushina blushed before looking around before saying four words "I think I'm sick" she whispered.

Mikoto sighed before tossing her long black hair over her shoulder before gesturing for Kushina to follow her "Well, we'll just have to see then won't we" she called over her shoulder.

Kushina smiled before following Mikoto deeper into the hospital.

Mikoto ran glowing green hands over Kushina before stopping at her stomach. Mikoto grabbed the chart she had gotten from the receptionist before placing her hands back on Kushina's stomach.

Kushina paled "It's not the fox is it?" she asked in such a quiet voice that Mikoto wasn't sure she had even heard her.

"No… Kushina…" Mikoto cleared her throat "When was your last menstrual cycle?"

Kushina frowned "About two months ago why?" Mikoto looked at her as if she was an idiot "…oh… OH!" Kushina yelled placing her hands on her stomach looking absolutely shocked. "I'm… I'm…" Mikoto nodded slowly. "Oh…." Kushina said looking at her stomach as if it was something alien.

"I suggest you tell Minato… he is the father right?" Mikoto asked knowing the answer was yes.

Kushina nodded "I'm going to be a mom…" Kushina said still staring at her stomach which her hands had come up to hold gently. "How long do you think?" Kushina asked looking Mikoto in the eyes.

Mikoto smiled brightly at Kushina "I think you can expect him or her to be coming in about 7 months"

Kushina grinned back at Mikoto before looking back down to her stomach. "A mom… I'm going to be a mom." She said before jumping up and stretching "I need to have ramen to celebrate!" She yelled excitedly.

Mikoto laughed knowing she was not acting very Uchiha like, but that never seemed to matter when she was around Kushina. "You know, ramen isn't the healthiest of foods. Your baby needs something a little better" she smiled knowing Kushina wouldn't listen.

"Ramen is the food of the gods! It has everything a growing baby needs!" She declared before she stopped moving for a second "Wait I have to tell Minato! Thanks Mikoto, we'll celebrate later!" She yelled hopping out the window to take off running down the street.

Mikoto sighed before looking at the file in front of her. She smiled as she pulled out her pen and wrote neatly:

Kushina is pregnant. Time of conception is estimated to have been about two months ago. Father is Minato Namikaze. Kushina is in perfect health.

Minato:

Minato was walking out of the Hokage tower mechanically going over his day mentally. First he had woken up and made himself and Kushina breakfast then he had come here. To the Hokage tower where Jiraiya had been waiting for him at the entrance. The old pervert had seemed to be in an extremely good mood but had refused to tell Minato the reason for it.

Minato had just assumed that he had seen Tsunade naked and she hadn't noticed.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

The two of them had walked into Sarutobi's office where surprisingly the desk had been free of paperwork. Instead there was a bottle of sake sitting on the desk with three waiting dishes.

Jiraiya and Minato had sat down in front of the desk where Sarutobi had proceeded to pour the sake and raise his glass to his mouth. Minato and Jiraiya had copied him by raising their glasses as well and then Sarutobi told them in the form of a toast.

"Congratulations on the new position Minato, or should I say Yondaime Hokage?"

Minato wasn't quite sure what had happened after that. He could have dropped his sake, he could have jumped around happily, heck he could have kissed Jiraiya. He couldn't remember. Everything was a blur.

And now he was walking home to share the news with Kushina. He would go over to the Hokage Tower tomorrow and talk to Sarutobi about the Hokage business, but right now he just wanted something stable and that something stable was Kushina.

Besides, Kushina always made him happy. He couldn't wait till their wedding next month.

He walked into the little apartment that he and Kushina shared and walked into the kitchen to see if Kushina was home.

She was.

She was sitting at the dining room table drinking tea and reading a book.

He smiled. Instantly he felt very calm.

"Hey Kushina" He grinned as he walked over to her to wrap him arms around her.

"Hey Minato" She returned his greeting, but for some reason she sounded nervous.

"I have something to tell you" He said, sitting down beside her and taking her hands.

"Good, because I have something to tell you too. Go first though" She said, not looking him in the eyes.

"I'm going to be the Yondaime Hokage" He said, watching her head snap up to look him in the eyes.

"Are you serious?" She asked, standing up excitedly.

"Yep" he grinned.

"I can't believe it! No, I can! Really?" she almost jumped up and down as she started to run around the kitchen grabbing a sake cup and some sake. "Here, here!" She said setting it down in front of him.

"What about you?" He asked, looking at the single cup.

"Oh, I can't drink anymore. I'm Pregnant" she said still urging him to drink.

Minato felt his body freeze. "Pregnant?" He whispered. She nodded grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Pregnant…" He looked at her stomach "There's a kid in there" He stated and placed his hands on her stomach. "I think this is the happiest day of my life" He laughed.

Hokage and future dad all in one day.

Kushina laughed loudly "Yes, we're going to be parents" she placed her hands gently on her stomach on top of his.

The two of them smiled like love struck fools for the rest of the evening.

~~~~~line break~~~~~

Next Chapter:

As Easy As 1, 2, 3!

So let me know what you think of this one, I have the first 4 chapters written but I will be submitting them sparingly because I am a sporadic updater and I would like some semblance of a schedule to this.

Thanks for picking my fic to read! Appreciate it!

Oh yeah, if you see any mistakes please let me know. I am also looking for a beta so if you are interested please PM me.