-I don't own Naruto. Naruto was created by Kishimoto, please support the official release. Thanks for reading my first attempt at fan fiction-

Italics are thoughts. -Italics inside hyphens are the setting-

-Kumogakure, The Raikage's Office, just over a year after the Kyuubi attacked Konoha-

A was a powerful and intimidating man. The 4th Raikage had been in office for only a couple years, since his father had passed during the 3rd Shinobi war, but he had already secured his power base. Through his will he had made sure that the Hidden Cloud had survived the 3rd Shinobi War in a relatively strong position, despite the fact that it had been on the losing side. Now, surrounded by advisors, he was embarking on an ambitious plan to secure his village's future.

"Konoha wants the world to believe they are still strong despite the Kyuubi attack, however our spies in the village report that, while stronger than expected, Konoha is weak. They may have won the war, but they suffered heavy losses, and then less than a year later their Bijuu decimates their village and kills their Hokage. They are weak."

His advisors stared back at him, curious where he was going with this. He continued:"There also seems to have been a baby boom after the end of the war, and many of the clan heads now have infant children. I've had our spies prepare a list of children of interest that we might consider kidnapping in order to gain their Kekkai Genkai for our village. My brother will now report their findings."

Upon hearing this many of the assembled Clan heads and important administrators were visibly shocked, though others looked pleased. Either way they knew there was nothing they could do. Kumo's council had little power compared to Konoha's, and they were essentially just advisors, with no power to enact anything.

Killer B stood to address the room. "As my brother said, Konoha shinobi been getting a lot of head!" B started in his normal quasi rapping voice before a stern look from his brother made him switch to a normal speech style, something that B hated, but considered it worth it in order to avoid getting chewed out in front of the council again.

"Almost all of Konoha's major clan heads have had children in the last year, however many of those clans use secret techniques or are bonded to animals, which would make it difficult for us to gain their Kekkai Genkai. As such our spies have ruled out the infant children of the Aburame, Akimichi, Inuzuka, Nara, and Yamanaka clans. Scouts have settled on the heir of the Uchiha Clan, Sasuke, born approximately 2.5 months before the Kyuubi attack, and the heiress of the Hyuuga Clan, Hinata, born approximately 2.5 months after the Kyuubi attack" B reported.

"What of the Sarutobi Clan?" enquired the head of the Yotsuki clan, the most powerful of Kumo's clans. "The Sarutobi Clan's main family has not had a child. The 3rd Hokage is the head of the clan, and his children are all teenagers, which is too old to kidnap, but not old enough for them to have children yet. Furthermore, their abilities also seem to be the results of clan secrets, not genetics."

B then paused before continuing in a more subdued tone, seemingly unsure of what he was about to bring up: "There is one other child our spies think may be of interest, though they can't confirm anything, and the child is not a member of a clan.""What makes them think we would be interested then?" A enquired.

"This child is an orphan who was born on the day of the Kyuubi attack. The orphanage the child is in seems to despise the child, but the 3rd Hokage seems to have a special interest in the child, as there are always at least 2 ANBU watching him, and they interfere whenever the orphanage, or anyone else, tries to kill him. My brother has long believed that Konoha lied about the 4th Hokage killing the Kyuubi, and our spies seem to believe this child may be the new Jinchuuriki. Our spies also report that this child has bright blue eyes and blond hair."

The implication was not lost on those in the room. "Our spies are implying that this child is not only the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi but also the child of the 4th Hokage, solely due to circumstantial evidence concerning his appearance, birthday, and status within the village?" asked the head of another clan. "Yes." "What is the child's name" a village elder asked. "Naruto Uzumaki" responded a solemn B. The room grew quiet for a few minutes as everyone digested the news.

After a few minutes of contemplation A decided to assert his authority. "It seems we have 3 questions to answer. 1st, do we agree with the spies that this child is the Jinchuuriki and/or the son of Namikaze? 2nd, should this child be a target? 3rd, What about the Uchiha and Hyuuga heirs?"

"The evidence for Uzumaki is circumstantial, however I have even more circumstantial evidence to add to it" spoke the head of Kumo's ANBU, known by the codename 'X'. "Namikaze Minato was married to a member of the Uzumaki Clan, and our spies noted that in the months before the Kyuubi attack she rarely appeared in public, perhaps in order to hid a pregnancy."

"Furthermore the name Naruto is the name of the main character in Namikaze's Sensei's 1st book." added Dodai, one of the most influential men in the room. "The question is then why wouldn't this child be acknowledged as the 4th's son? Surely that would change the way the people of Konoha view the child, much like our own citizens changed their view of B-sama after he came to be viewed as a hero." added the Yotsuki clan head.

"That is likely due to the fact that if Iwa knew that Namikaze-san had a child that old bastard Onoiki would stop at nothing to kill him" said A, after a pause he continued: "I normally don't do this, but I want to gauge your opinions. How many of you believe that this child is most likely the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi and/or the child of Minato Namikaze?" Almost everyone in the room raised their hands. "Thank you, I'll make my own decisions from here on out. Everyone except X and B are dismissed." "Hai, Raikage-Sama" responded the other members of the council as they left the room.

A few minutes later A addressed his brother and the ANBU head "From here on we will assume that the child is in fact both a Jinchuuriki and the son of Namikaze" he stated. "I'd like us to consider all three of the children now."

"Raikage-sama, I do not believe we should pursue the Uchiha, Fugaku, the boy's father, is strong, and we had a flee-on-sight order for him during the war, much like the 'Yellow Flash', I do not think we should anger him by kidnapping his son. Furthermore I do not believe we should push our luck and try for multiple children, even if they are in a weakened state it will be difficult for us to infiltrate Konoha, we should focus on either the Namikaze or the Hyuuga." stated 'X' very matter-of-factly. Seeing his Kage nod in understanding, the ANBU head continued:

"Of the two I think the Namikaze would be easiest to kidnap, his caretakers hate him, and he is not protected by a clan compound. We would only have to deal with his ANBU guards." "I agree with you X" stated A. "On the other hand the child does not posses a Kekkai Genkai that we could adopt into our village."

"True, Raikage-sama, however we would gain a 3rd Tailed Beast, giving us more than any other village, furthermore if he is indeed half Uzumaki he may have a 'pseudo-Kekkai Genkai'. After all the Uzumaki clan was known for having both naturally high chakra reserves and a natural talent for Sealing Jutsu. Sealing Jutsu may not be one of the '3 Shinobi Battle tactics' but it is an extremely powerful area of shinobi arts, and one that our village is relatively weak in. Furthermore to the best of our knowledge our village is the only one to figure out a process for giving our Jinchuuriki control of their tailed beasts, thanks to B-sama's efforts. The process he developed seems to work based on the success that our young Kunoichi is enjoying currently in her training to control the 2-tails."

A digested X's words before turning to his adoptive brother "B, I'm assuming you feel the same way?" "You know it Bro, we need to save that fool from the hatred of all those other fools!" exclaimed B, his style of speaking starting to revert back to normal now that the council was dismissed.

A nodded, "I agree too, I had the utmost respect for Minato Namikaze, we fought on multiple occasions during the war, and in addition to being the only man who could match my speed he was a man of honor and integrity. I considered him my rival and was sad to learn of his passing." A was silent for a moment, collecting his thoughts, before he slammed a fist down on the table.

"We will not allow Konoha distort his legacy, we will bring the Namikaze child here." Stated the Raikage in a powerful, determined tone. "The three of us will plan the mission, but ultimately it will be ANBU who complete it. X, I want your 3 best infiltrators to stop going on missions and to begin to prepare for this mission. Failure will likely result in a renewed war with Konoha and its allies."

X simply nodded, as A continued: "On the other hand we seem to be losing allies. Iwa is devastated, and I don't trust them anyways, meanwhile Kiri seems to be slowly heading towards civil war. We're better off than both Konoha and Suna individually, but won't be able to stand against them and their minor allies ourselves, so failure is not an option."

"Hai, Raikage-sama" responded a grim sounding X. "Hold on little man, while we come up with a killer plan! Fool! Ya Fool!" rapped B. "Shut up B!" yelled an obviously annoyed A at his adopted little brother. The three then stayed up late into the night, planning a kidnapping, or as they viewed it, a rescue operation.

-End of Prelude-

Welcome to my first attempt at Fanfiction. As I'm writing this the story stands at a little over 70,000 words, with over 80 favorites and 100 followers. I know that's nothing to brag about, especially compared to some of the real fantastic works on this site, but it's farther than I ever thought this story would get, so I'm thankful. My writing and storytelling has improved over the course of the story (at least in my opinion), and I'm really pleased with what I see as noticeable improvement in the later chapters. Now I'm slowly going back and fixing things. Formatting problems, Grammar issues that I missed (I'm sure I'll still be missing some after this edit). I'm sure I still have some work to do in breaking out of my normal, super technical/academic/scholarly writing style that doesn't really lend itself to effective storytelling, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

A few hours ago I published the Third Interlude, and Chapter 13 is almost done, and will be out in a couple of weeks. I'll also be getting started on Chapter 14 before too long, and as I mentioned I'm in the process of (slowly) going back and fixing things in these early chapters. For those of you who have been with me since day 1, thank you. For those of you who are new, welcome, and I hope you enjoy the story.

Thanks for reading,

-Col. Bogey