Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.


Minato Namikaze sucked at seals.

Plain and simple, he sucked at them.

Even now he could remember his first attempts at using the dyslexic kanji on paper under Jiraya's tutelage.

He could also remember having his eyebrows unintentionally burnt off during those same attempts.

He could even remember his latest attempt at the obscure ninja art, to create a time-space ninjutsu based off the Nidaime Hokage's very own. It didn't work out well for him to say the least.

Flashback

"Aaamm… Ne, Minato-kun… Are you sure you should be doing this, ya know?" asked an uncharacteristically frightened Kushina as she peered into a room of their quaint home, only to see the unnaturally blond haired man bent over a messy – very messy she decided – desk, furiously writing away on a scrap of paper.

"You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Kushina-chan! This is going to be one of the greatest jutsu's of the age, I can tell! I'll call it the Hiraishin no Jutsu! Or perhaps the Rasen Senko Cho Rinbuko Sanshiki!" Minato boasted pridefully as he completed the writing the odd symbols involved in the use of fuinjutsu on the paper. "See! I'll prove it!" He claimed excitedly as he started to channel chakra into the untidy supposed seal.

The results were instantaneous, Minato reflexively tore his hand away from the seal, as light blue sparks of electricity crackled into existence over it.

"Ummm, Minato-kun?" Kushina worriedly asked, already preparing to run for it.

Minato then did a double take as space literally started destabilizing around the room, his oak desk bending and warping in ways that shouldn't even be possible in three dimensions, but paid it no mind.

Well, not much anyway.

"Yep, I think it's time to leave!" Minato cried as he used his shinobi training to grab Kushina's hand and comically sprint out the door as fast as he could.

The moment they arrived outside their home, they turned around to notice a bright light and electricity engulf half of their horribly warped building.

The light only lasted a second, a flash really, and then it was gone.

Along with half their home, leaving smoking unnatural remains of the rest of it. They both gawked at what was left of their house, before Kushina made the first move.

"…Minato…" She said in a sickly sweet tone, as she raised her, now tightly clenched, fist, vein throbbing, "YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO USE SEALS EVER AGAIN, YOU GOT THAT!"

Minato could only nod dumbly.

End Flashback

Of course being the genius he was, he made Yondaime Hokage, even without the use of fuinjutsu, and earned his name 'Konoha no Kiiroi Senko' through use of his famous, personal ninjutsu in the Third Shinobi World War, that allowed him to transport anywhere, within a certain range and reason, almost instantaneously.

But enough about that.

Some may wonder why, if Minato Namikaze was so bad at seals, was he right now attempting to seal the Nine-Tailed Fox, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, into his only son, and newborn baby, Naruto Uzumaki.

"Minato, I'm sorry I used up your time," cried Kushina, as if more concerned about that then the massive claw poking through her and Minato's torsos, before turning weakly to her husband, "I know you can do it."

"Oh, it's ok," rasped out Minato as he prepared to use the seal. Outwardly calm, but inwardly panicking as he felt the last of his strength start to leave him. I mean sure he knew the theory behind hundreds of seals, this being one of them, just, he couldn't use them well. At all.

But, this time. This time he was absolutely sure. This time, Kushina was believing in him. It WOULD work. It HAD to work.

"Hakke no Fuin Shiki!" He called out with hardened resolve as he sealed the remains of his and Kushina's chakra, along with the Kyuubi, into his son.

Surprisingly, the seal seemed to have worked! That was a first. His vision starting to darken as he took in the face of the son he would never know, he had just one last thought:

'Did he have whisker marks before I sealed the Kyuubi within him?'


A/N: Well, that's the prologue to my first story done. Feel free to give any criticism as long as it is actually criticism and not just 'Your story sucks,' for example.
Ja ne