It was a good day to be Uchiha Obito. The kyubi no kitsune was busy pancaking Konoha, having ripped its way from the breast of sensei's wife (necessary, unfortunate, inevitable). That selfsame sensei, the much vaunted fourth Hokage, was falling before the inexorable power of the mangekyo sharingan. A rasengan had just missed his head by barest centimeters.

Okay, so two out of three isn't bad, Obito reasoned, before a twinge of pain caused him to hesitate, nearly walking right into a hairaishin kunai. Not again!

He'd been plagued, plagued by these random shooting pains through his remaining eye since about ten minutes into the fight! It was throwing him off his game! How was Minato (deluded, betraying fool!) doing it?

Because it certainly wasn't coming from Obito's end. He was nowhere near chakra exhaustion or blindness, and he hadn't started crying blood yet, the telltale signs of mangekyo backlash. No fool he, Obito had extensively tested his kamui prior to the battle, and nothing like this had ever happened!

Admittedly, he'd never used the kamui so often in such a short span of time before, but that shouldn't have made a difference. Madara could use dozens of mangekyo powers in minutes with no ill effects, after all.

Besides, this felt almost like it was coming from the other side of the kamui. But Kakashi (Murderer, monster, oathbreaker) had no idea of the power his eye held, nor any way to use it, not being an Uchiha himself. The only thing capable of accessing the space behind the kamui was Obito's own jutsu, and nothing he'd put in the warp space could cause this!

What was going on?

In a gaily lit shroud of impenetrable darkness, a prescence floated, eyes glowing red in the eddying light. Before the entity's vigilant gaze, faint ripples spread above it through the scintillating spectrum of featureless grey. Hovering to the left for a closer look, it observed more ripples, bracketing it at right angles, originating from a slightly different point. Curiously, the entity swiped a limb of twilight, tipped with blood, through the center of the disturbance, to no observable effect.

When more ripples radiated out in front of it, the being turned around to keep them in sight, testing the new point of origin with another grasping poke. No change. Puzzled, the being backed off, head cocked, to ponder this phenomenon.

Deliberately, abruptly, the presence was struck by inspiration. Leaving crystalline fragments of churning foam in its ponderous wake, the being agilely sped off, weaving its way through the fragments of babbling reason that surrounded it.

Back in Konoha, Obito doubled over in sudden agony as several shards of a strange, silvery crystal forced their way from his eye, shattering on the ground before rapidly melting into puddles of liquid darkness. Minato, sporting ninja that he was, and wary of his opponent preparing yet another exotic technique, backed off and gave Obito a chance to recover.

The next time he had the chance, Obito popped into the kamui dimension for a brief check, but he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. At least, it wasn't any stranger than usual, though he could already feel the sheer unreality of the place wearing at his mind like silky sandpaper. As he swirled his way back to Konoha, two thoughts filled Obito's mind, chasing each other about his bewildered brain: What the heck is happening? And why couldn't it have waited a few days before it happened?!

Meanwhile, the entity returned to its previous position, a purple-grey orb more solid than even the being itself clutched in one crimson-tipped talon and a cracked mirror held delicately in its heavy, golden beak. Looping a few times around the area to bleed off excited energy, the presence carefully positioned its mirror and brought one great, infernal eye up to the reflective surface. Switching its tail with anticipation, the leviathan carefully touched the orb to the mirror, which ran with bands of color before clearing.

Instead of the entity's own armored visage, the mirror now projected a blonde human, hurling a knife straight at the entity, as a vortex of grey overlaid the image.

In Konoha, a hairaishin kunai hit Obito just as he began pulling himself into the kamui. Namikaze Minato vanished in a flash of light.

The mirror shattered. From where the tool had once sat, a wave of concussive force blasted out, knocking the entity back. It let out a world-shaking cry of surprise and dismay, nearly losing its grip on its precious orb.

Carefully transferring the priceless bauble to a surer grip, the presence sorrowfully regarded the space its mirror had recently occupied. Sure, the orb was irreplaceable, but it had been fond of that mirror, and now it would need a new one, and that just wouldn't be quite the same. What the heck was happening out there in the lower planes, that it would affect this world so?

Namikaze Minato and Uchiha Obito staggered backwards, both quite perplexed. Neither of them had done anything that hadn't been done many times throughout their duel. Minato had teleported, as had Obito. Nothing out of the ordinary for them.

And yet, now the world roiled and bubbled, like the surface of water brought to a vigorous boil, as an unearthly cry echoed through the woods, chilling the bones of both men. Still, ninja battles wait for no one, and both men picked themselves up and renewed hostilities, all the while trying to figure out exactly how their opponent had pulled that off, and why?

Out in Konoha proper, the nine-tailed demon fox paused for a moment as a sound cut through his genjutsu-induced haze, raising his hackles and prickling that persistent itch at the base of his tails. That howl seemed awfully familiar.

The great fox could swear he had heard it somewhere before... Not a biju, like himself, but something still worthy of respect. A spirit? No, a kami? Maybe... Definitely important, but he just couldn't quite remember! It was on the tip of his tongue. Where had he heard that before?

Then the small human that smelled of monkeys slammed the fox's head into the ground with a huge stick, and the fox lost himself in dreams of destruction yet again.

Separated by a quick teleport after yet another brief clash, Minato and Tobi were halted from yet another exchange of blows by a second world-shaking disturbance. And this time, clearly neither was doing anything to cause it. Neither Tobi's reality-warping eye nor Minato's seals were anywhere near it. So who?

The two ninja watched, conflict momentarily forgotten, as the warp lengthened, and extended, before a single, scarlet claw forced its way through the rift. Then another, and another, and another, and they began to pull.

With another grating howl, the warp was forced wide, allowing the entity to float slowly through. Star and firelight glinted off its golden armor, while its crimson-tipped limbs floated behind the being's bulk. Towering over even the great Hashirama trees, the being hovered easily over the rough terrain, seemingly ignorant of the effects of gravity.

As the ninja watched in paralyzed shock, the being slowly, carefully lowered its great head to examine each of them with a single eye, the glowing irises as tall as the men they observed. After a few moments of intense, unblinking scrutiny, the entity was seemingly satisfied. For now, at least. It raised its head...

And met a bijudama coming the other way.

It was a terrible day to be Uchiha Obito. Far from the triumphant vengeance he had anticipated, he now stood beside his former sensei, conflict subsumed by the numbing shock that blanketed his mind. And things had been going so well, too!

As a thick beam of brilliant, purple energy from the throat of the creature clashed with a burst of black energy from the fox demon's gaping maw, Obito wracked his brains for what, what had gone wrong? And what was that thing that had clawed its way from beyond the kamui? The Uchiha had always assumed that the place the kamui brought him to was a private space only accessible through his unique eyes. But if monsters like that called the dimension home, then - Did the fox's claws just pass through that thing with no effect?!

Right then, as he carefully sidled off, Obito vowed that he was never, ever going to use the kamui again! For all he knew, the being he had called was one of the weak ones! Even powerful space-time ninjutsu wasn't worth the risks...

Even if his mind and senses weren't totally occupied by the clash of titans before him, Namikaze Minato had bigger problems than one ninja, no matter how powerful. Now, a biju was fighting a creature of apparently equal power, and devastating Konoha in the process. Not with purpose, but as collateral damage. Minato was only mostly sure he could stop the fox, if he sacrificed his life in the process. But if he did, who would stop the rift creature? Jiraiya-sensei was out of town, and no one else in Konoha's service had the necessary sealing skills! He didn't even know what that thing was! But maybe he knew someone who did...

Minato ran his thumb along the side of his face, picking up a little blood from where he'd torn his lip after the strange, white-masked ninja had punched him in the face. The Hokage froze for a few seconds, concentrating on the world around him, and absorbed just enough natural chakra for his purposes. Minato was by no means anywhere near mastering senjutsu, but he knew the theory and just enough of the basics to summon his teachers when he had time to train. After all, one needs to use sage chakra if one wants to summon the great toad sages.

"Minato-boy? What are you doing summoning us?" Fukasaku, the male sage, croaked at the blonde ninja, "Shouldn't you be defending Konoha against the fox? You don't have time to be jabbering with us!"

"We're flattered you think so highly of us, really we are," Shima, his wife, added, "But without a human sage to team up with, the two of us won't be much good against a biju. Prehaps if young Jiraiya was here... But, you are not ready! You'd turn to stone, boy."

Minato responded by firmly palming the head of each of the honored sages, and forcibly turning them to face the battle taking place in the smoking crater that was once Konoha. Fukasaku's protests over the disrespect died as he choked on his pipe, while Shima made a strangled noise deep in her throat.

"What? When... How?" Shima sputtered, eyes wide, "What did you do, Minato?"

"A man in a white mask attacked the village. He ripped the nine-tails out of Kushina. We fought," Minato explained shortly, "And then that showed up! The demon fox blasted it in the back, and they started fighting. Do you know what it is? How I can beat it, or at least drive it off?"

"If I wasn't staring at it right now, I wouldn't believe my eyes," Fukasaku worried at his cloak with both hands, voice faint with awe and fear. His pipe lay forgotten by his feet. " You, Minato-boy, have either the best or the worst luck I have ever heard of. How you managed to attract the attention of the Dragon of Symmetry... I didn't think it existed."

"That thing is a dragon?" Though now that they mentioned it, Minato could see the resemblance. The serpentine body, the flight, the gouts of energy erupting from its mouth, and the wing-like tendrils extending from its body looked sort of like what dragons were described as, in the really old stories. It wasn't exact, but oral histories are unreliable at the best of times. "So how can I beat it? A weakness in the old legends? Or can it be sealed like a biju?"

"Seal it? The audacity... It technically could work, I suppose, but I can't imagine what vessel or seal could possibly hope contain it," Shima analyzed, "And if the legends, passed down from the time of the sage of the six paths are true... It is the Dragon of Symmetry, of balance. Were it to be imprisoned, something terrible would happen to the world. This dragon is no mere biju, mighty yet still a part of this world. It is... something more. And something less. It's very existence is a contradiction!"

"So then what can I do?" Minato pleaded, "Please, give me something, anything! I can't let Konoha be destroyed!"

"If the legends can be trusted, the dragons of creation are not unreasoning creatures," Fukasaku offered uncertainly, "While the Dragon of Symmetry is said to be the quickest to anger, and the longest to hold a grudge, it can be negotiated with. Assuming you have not done anything to earn its enmity, you might be able to talk it into leaving peacefully once the fox is dealt with. Faint hope, I know, but it is all I can offer you."

Namikaze Minato was dying. He knew he should be concerned about that, fighting for every second of life with his son, with Naruto, who he had doomed to life as the demon fox's living prison. But setting up a sealing ritual capable of containing the most physically powerful of the biju on a battlefield of gods, watching his beloved wife sacrifice the last of her life to give him the chance he needed, and shielding Naruto from the fox's desperate final strike with his own body had left Minato feeling... empty.

Maybe it was the internal injuries talking, or the fact that his entire body below the waist was no longer attached to the rest of him, or the unearthly dragon hovering before him that Minato somehow had to convince to not annihilate Konoha and Naruto before he died of his crippling wounds and chakra exhaustion and summoning the shinigami. Any one of these would have killed Minato. All of them together...

Yet, the duty of the Hokage was to defend the village and it's people, all it's people, with everything he had to give. And Namikaze Minato, the fourth Hokage, still had a few words left.

"Hey, Lord Dragon?" Minato respectfully projected as best he could. Fortunately, his lungs seemed to be intact. Now all he had to do was ignore the excruciating pain and how he'd much rather spend his final minutes saying goodbye to Naruto. "If you could not destroy the village and just go back to wherever you came from, that would be fantastic."

Much to the crippled Hokage's surprise, he actually got a response. One of the great, red-clawed tendrils snaked its way down and touched him on the forehead, and suddenly Minato felt great! In fact, he felt better than he had since before the third great ninja war, well rested and healthy and whole. Then, he sat up on fresh legs and saw his dismembered body lying next to him. Oh.

And now the dragon was in a silent staredown with the shinigami himself. Well, if Minato hadn't been already dead, and his soul already sold to the death god, he might be worried about that. Except that that particular contract was apparently not as airtight as the ninja had believed.

With a distinctly petulant swish of its robe, the shinigami, the god of death himself, actually backed down from the dragon's glowing gaze. With no words exchanged, not even much in the way of movement, the dragon had convinced the shinigami to back down! Minato had evidently interested a much bigger fish than even Fukasaku had believed. He wasn't anything like certain of the hierarchy of the gods, but he figured the patron of death had to be pretty powerful and prestigious. Yet the dragon had just casually browbeaten the shinigami into submission like it was nothing.

And now it was turning back to him. Well, his spirit, anyway. The dragon's golden beak opened along a vertical seam, revealing the mouth behind. Minato was uncomfortably reminded that the dragon's mouth was large enough to fit him several times over, and then it spoke. Huh, so the sages were right about that part at least.

"Namikaze Minato," The dragon actually dipped its head slightly as it spoke his name, the depth of the bow suggesting that it was addressing a respected inferior. Though the dragon's voice had sent chills down a living Minato's spine, the spirit Minato heard a very different tone. Though its voice filled the air with the weight of its immense presence, it also spread fingers of warmth through the dead man, filling him with things he'd thought he'd left behind the day his mother had joined his father on the memorial stone. How a dragon the size of the Hokage monument that had terrified him moments earlier managed to convey home and safe and kin just by saying his name was mystifying to the former Hokage. Then, his keen observational skills honed in on where the great dragon hovered above the burning ground.

Specifically, he saw how the flames passed through the dragon's body without burning it, or interacting in any way. Could it possibly be that this dragon... was a ghost? The spirit remnant of some greater kami, as he was what remained of Minato? Well, that explained how it had phased through most of the fox demon's attacks...

"Lord dragon," Minato reciprocated, bowing deeply in respect, "It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance." He lost nothing by being polite, after all.

"Well met, Namikaze Minato," the dragon rumbled, "I am Giratina, lady of symmetry. You do not know me, nor my brothers. The old tales have been lost."

"There are more of you?" Minato asked. He was pretty surprised that the dragon was apparently female, but long experience with Tsunade and Kushina suggested that he should just accept it and move on. After all, Fukasaku had said that Giratina was quick to anger and never forgot a grudge. Still, if there were other dragon gods out there he felt like he ought to know.

"There are none like me," the ancient dragon assured him smugly, "But my brothers are responsible for stabilizing space and time. With the powers you and the masked man displayed, it is thanks to them that your battle did not end three weeks ago, in Kumo."

Ouch. Minato made a note to start praying more, though he wasn't sure what he could do. After all, the dead can't go to a shrine and ask a priest about gods no one's ever heard of...

"Why did you save me from the shinigami?" Questioned the former Hokage, "I sold him my soul for services rendered. I was perfectly content to go to my fate." Once he'd kept Giratina from finishing off the village, which now seemed like it wasn't going to happen.

"I am the sovereign of all ghosts. That dusty old sliver of Darkrai's power cannot supersede my claim," the dragon declared, "I... appropriated your contract from it. Your battle with the masked man sent disturbances through my home in the distortion world. It is clear to me that isolating myself from the affairs of the lower realms was a mistake. One I now seek to rectify. But the world has changed much since my last visit. You will advise me in these matters."

"Uh, okay," What was Minato going to do, argue with the ghost kami that owned his soul? "Wait, what about Kushina? And the other people who died during the attack? Shouldn't their ghosts be around here too?"

"They have already moved on," the dragon stated, "Your unfinished business and my power anchored you to this world in your current form. The others departed hours ago. If she is willing, though, I may be able to reunite you with your wife at a later time."

"So you don't plan on finishing off what's left of Konoha?" Minato confirmed. Having spoken with Giratina, he was pretty sure she didn't intend to go on a rampage, but it was best to be certain.

"I have done this village a great wrong in my anger," she solemnly confirmed, "It is beyond my power to restore the fallen to life or to rebuild what I have destroyed, but I would make amends where I can."

"Well, then let's stick around for a few days," the former Hokage suggested, "Maybe we'll find something we can do to help. Assuming you can keep from being noticed. If you stick around you'll probably get attacked by the survivors..."

It turned out that Giratina could render herself invisible to living eyes. And float through walls. And masquerade as a purple-haired human with red eyes. And Minato could do the ghostly infiltrator thing too, though he couldn't make himself visible. Kami and man had walked all over the village, observing the aftermath of the disaster.

As Minato expected, old Sarutobi Hiruzen, the third Hokage, took up the office once again. The old man did a very good job, for the most part. But his treatment of Naruto...

Hiruzen kept Naruto's parentage secret, for which Minato was thankful. If hidden stone had known that Minato had a son... Naruto wouldn't have lived out the year, if the Tsuchikage had to sacrifice half his village to make it happen, and Konoha was in no condition to fend off an invasion.

But, the old Hokage also told everyone that Naruto was the living prison of the nine-tailed fox. Didn't Sarutobi know how jinchuriki were treated at the best of times? Much less when their prisoner had just killed a good fifth of the village. At least he'd realized his mistake a few days later, and decreed that none of the village children should be told. Naruto might be able to make a few friends his age.

And putting him in the orphanage? Well, whichever clan managed to adopt poor Naruto would doubtlessly use their possession of the jinchuriki as a hefty political card, so Minato couldn't really blame Hiruzen for that, either. The man was old, and tired, and grieving his wife and countless subordinates. The greatest curse of the Hokage was always that it was your responsibility to save everyone, yet you never truly could.

He couldn't even blame Kakashi, his surviving student, for failing to take Naruto in. Oh, he had at first, but a few hours of observation shed additional light on the situation. Kakashi was broken. You wouldn't see it unless you knew him very well, but losing his teammates and sensei, his entire social circle, to war and the demon had shattered the child soldier like brittle glass. The man could barely care for himself, let alone an infant.

But Minato was dead. No matter how much he might like to, he would never again touch the living world. There was nothing he could do.

Giratina, though, was under no such limitations. Of course, the dragon couldn't stick around all the time. Her very presence could have... unpredictable effects on the living after long periods of exposure, and anyway, she couldn't spend that long outside the distortion world. And she had already spent a potentially unhealthy amount of time around baby Naruto, ensuring that he stayed safe until things settled down. Naruto's Uzumaki constitution and demon-powered immune system would probably protect him from the dragon's ghostly aura, though.

Still, Giratina had a debt to pay. To Konoha and to Minato. And though she was not being coerced, this time, Giratina hated feeling beholden to anyone. If she was inclined to serve, well, it was unlikely that she would be a ghost type. Or consigned to exile in the distortion world.

Plus, that kid was pretty cute. For a human. And a nice kid like that most certainly did not deserve to be treated like he was, even if it was actually better than how most other villages treated their living prisons.

Giratina, the renegade kami, knew all about being a pariah. And though she had chosen her path, she would not wish even a pale reflection of her burden on anyone else.

Even Giratina could not see what the future would bring (that was Dialga's job, after all), but Uzumaki Naruto was clearly set up for a life of hardship and adversity from the day he was born. Surely there was something she could do to help with the trials ahead...

A few weeks later after Giratina and her new vassal returned to the distortion world, a massive, ornate scroll appeared on the Hokage's desk. After reading it, and the attached letter, Sarutobi Hiruzen promptly sealed it away in the Scroll of Kinjutsu, filled with techniques deemed too dangerous or immoral for use. He then made a beeline for the nearest bar, and proceeded to spend the rest of the day, and the next day, and the day after that, very very drunk. Upon reading the letter, having heard about the demon's attack and finally made it back home, Jiraiya joined him. As the message instructed, they would take the contents of that letter to their graves.