Behold! Proof that I am not just some two-bit humor writer and non-serious-fic-finisher!
So, here I am in the Naruto section, with this brand-spanking new fic! I can't promise quick updates, but...
Yeah, well, I've been twitching on this idea for a while now and it was really starting to bug me...(sigh) I'll do my best!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
...
Many obvious things made Konohagakure-no-Sato of Fire Country exceptional amongst the Five Great Shinobi Villages. Aside from those concerned with the strength of Konoha's ninja – and there was no shortage of those – there was one other thing. This thing was the prejudice the village had against a single member of its own.
Almost twelve years previously, Konohagakure-no-Sato had been at a new, nigh unheard of peak of prosperity and power. The Yondaime Hokage ruled his village wisely, the last war had filled the ranks of shinobi with experienced individuals whose power would make any new war a trifling annoyance for Konoha – or so the village preferred to think – and all signs pointed to a new boom of growth, material and otherwise.
Then the Kyuubi-no-Yoko decimated Konoha.
The attack was continuous, lasting less than a full week long as the Kyuubi ripped the village's foundations out from underneath it. In that time, the demon barely moved more than two or three steps towards the center of the village – understandable, as movement was unnecessary for a monster with long tails that could trigger earthquakes and inland tidal waves AT THE SAME TIME. Konoha's population of experienced, war-hardened ninja dropped by two-thirds before the end.
On the last day, which was incidentally October 12th, Yondaime Hokage ended the battle. With the use of a lost jutsu and a complicated ritual that no one would ever clearly understand afterwards, the Yondaime drained the Kyuubi of its demonic chakra, weakening the monster until he could destroy it himself. The ritual had worked just enough to leave the monster and the ninja even, and in a blindingly bright flash of light, Yondaime and Kyuubi were no more. Picking through what was left afterwards, the Sandaime Hokage – returning graciously from his well-earned retirement to retake the reins of his battered village – made an important discovery.
Screaming its lungs out, right where Yondaime had made his final stand, was a newborn infant. It was laying right smack in the middle of a circle of artifacts used for focusing chakra in rituals – not any more, they had been ripped to pieces by the backwash of demon chakra – and on the infant's stomach was a fresh tattoo. Sandaime wasted no time in making his announcement.
Yondaime had been a brilliant shinobi. He had known perfectly well that there was no point in trying to drain the Kyuubi of its chakra without having somewhere for the chakra to go. A newborn infant, with its own chakra coils undeveloped and unfocused, would be the perfect repository. The whisker-like marks on the baby's cheeks only proved Sandaime's words, and helped him further in his case. The baby was calmed, fed, and cleaned up at the same time as its future was decided: this baby was Yondaime's Legacy. He would be noted as a hero in his own right, for it was his tiny body that had accepted the demonic chakra, assisting Yondaime in his plan to stop the monster and save the village.
It was amazing how stupidly optimistic the human race could be sometimes.
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