Naruto: A Different Beginning

By Smithjohn2020

Chapter 1: A Tale of Two Worlds

This was an idea that I had been bottling up for a month. It kept on haunting me until I put it on paper. Anyway, enjoy.

Summary: Kyuubi escaped! It was too late to stop the Shiki Fuujin. What happened next and how was really anybody's guess. One thing was certain though, the sealing DID take place on Naruto, something extraterrestrial. Playful Super!Naruto x Hinata.

This is NOT a crossover. You won't find Naruto going out of space or any typical Superman villains like Lex Luther or the 3 Kryptonian criminals here. This is purely a Naruto fanfic, with a light sprinkle of Superman flavor.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Superman. They are owned by their respective owners. I make no profit writing this.

…o.0.O.0.o…

Inside the private room, Lara placed her son, Kal-El, into the spaceship made for just him, sized with some additional room for the infant's eventual growth while traveling to his destination – planet Earth of the Milky Way Galaxy.

This was the moment she was waiting for, an opportunity that she risked over damaging her relationship with her husband, and perhaps the only chance for any Kryptonian to survive this imminent disaster. Yet, she could not go through with it. She could not bear to give up her child, to send him to an unknown world and not be able to be there to protect him, to watch him grow up, and most importantly, to love him.

Just when her resolve waivered, she felt two strong hands holding her shoulders, comforting her, renewing her resolve to do what she felt she must. She asked him for reassurance, just like she had always done.

"Do you think he'll be alright?"

Her son would live – must live. Even if she was to sacrifice the overwhelming odds of her husband succeeding in saving planet, the overwhelming odds of them seeing another day alive with their son by their side, for as long as fate would allow them to be together, she could not bear the thought of the slim chance that should he fail, her son would live no longer.

No, but I need for us both to believe that he will be.

Jor-El, the first scientist to discover the eventual planet death for Krypton nearly ten years ago, had since then been heading Project Salvation – a last ditch effort to save their home planet from her impending doom. His wife, Lara, had been his support, his confidant, and his second-in-command.

Looking directly into his wife's eyes, Jor-El gave her a gentle hug as he reassured her the best way he could.

"We have equipped the spaceship with everything he'll need for the trip. In fact, I can see no safer place for him right now than to send him on his journey to Earth."

Probability and statistics disagreed with Jor-El's statement. The odds favored Krypton over Earth as the safer of the two for their son, but those numbers were not absolutely affirmative on the survival of Krypton. Jor-El had many times staked his life on the science and mathematics, on the inevitability of logic overpowering emotions. Though he had argued with his wife last night against sending him off, though he had always trusted his logic, tonight, he could not.

He could not restate the unequivocal conclusion of probability and statistics, only to stomach the sight of his wife crumbling before him. He could not shake the overwhelming "gut feeling" within himself that there was a slim possibility of failure in Project Salvation, no matter how minuscule and unremarkable his prediction had told him it was. If they were not to send Kal-El off now, they would not get another chance to do so later should their plans to save Krypton fail. He could not and would not extinguish his need for optimism – his own need to believe – in the capacity to love that was found among Earth's most advance life form, the Homo Sapiens. The eventual happiness of his son depended solely on earthlings' mysterious desire to love.

Pressing the necessary buttons to activate the spaceship pre-programmed to travel to Earth, they watched as it traveled up the escape shoot that led out into space.

…o.0.O.0.o…

(Konohagakure)

Moving as fast as his aged legs could carry him, the retired Hokage leapt from rooftop to rooftop toward the erupting pandemonium. In his arms was a newborn, the only heir to the Namikaze clan, one Namikaze Naruto.

Please, let me make it in time. I can't let him go through with this.

The words bloody chaos would not do justice to describe the encroaching scene before Sarutobi Hizuren. Blood and chaos were everywhere. Konoha nins had battled fiercely and valiantly, but their efforts were of no avail. Yet, no matter how bleak the outcome was, they did not flee. They stood by their Commander-In-Chief, willingly offering themselves. They were ordered to retreat to the Battle Stadium, and eventually complied under the threat of committing insubordination if they had not.

The fallen heroic ninjas, their maimed bodies and unrecognizable body parts were scattered everywhere. In the center of the bloody battlefield stood the retired Hokage's successor, the youngest and the bravest Hokage Konoha had ever known. Underneath him, his ever-present companion, the boss summon, Gamabunta. The Yondaime Namikaze Minato stared at his towering foe with indomitable determination written on the features of his face.

Charging chakra into his legs, he jumped high into the air, high above the monstrosity responsible for the utter devastation of his village, throwing his special three-pronged kunais and scattering them around the colossal entity. In midair, Minato flashed through a series of hand seals for his signature jutsu. After forming his other signature jutsu, a third-stage Rasengan, in his right hand, Minato disappeared, leaving a harsh yellow lightning in his wake.

Minato …

To the newly arrived spectator, the Yellow Flash was traveling so fast that he was barely visible. The only evidences of his presence were the yellow trail of light and the scattered mini chakra explosions where the Rasengan hit. Any normal enemy, or even a whole army of enemies, would be no match for the Yellow Flash of Konoha. But unfortunately what attacked Konoha that night was no normal opponent.

How can a day, which began so beautifully, turn out so ugly?

In Minato's opinion, this night could not have been a worse one for Konoha to be attacked. In the morning, he heard the good news that his long-past-due pregnant wife, Kushina, went into labor. The father-to-be took the day off to wait in the hospital for his son's birth.

But when the afternoon came around, his festive spirits dampened as his wife was still in labor and he was called back to the Hokage towers to hear the elders from the Village Astronomy Coalition reporting the large meteoroids approaching Earth would likely tore through the atmosphere and hit Konoha at night.

Minato had spent the rest of the day designing a seal to cast a chakra dome-barrier over the Battle Stadium and informing the clan heads and the villagers of the impending doom and his solution to save the village. The normally energetic Yondaime could only laugh at fate's twisted sense of humor as his now exhausted self, who began the day feeling he was the luckiest bastard alive, fought before the most powerful and destructive of all tailed beasts and a force of nature in its own rights, the Kyuubi no Kitsune.

Ha! Damn you fate! You and your sick play at humor.

Once the Rasengan dissipated, the Yellow Flash stopped his attack. He really wished he had been able to complete the final stage of this technique. Who knew how this battle would turn out if he was able to hit the Kyuubi with an element-infused version? Looking at the Nine-tailed Fox, he became disheartened when he saw the Rasengan-inflicted wounds healed up before his eyes, leaving no indication of the damage he had inflicted.

At that moment, Gamabunta chimed in with his own attacks. He swung his weapon, intending to hack off one of the Kyuubi's nine tails. The Demon Fox moved its tails the last minute, and Gamabunta's weapon entered into the ground with a thundering earthquake as it continued to slice deeply, until its hilt met the ground. The opportune Fox whipped its tails against the overextended Toad Boss, and three of its nine tails made good on their attacks. Gamabunta jumped back to avoid the Kyuubi's attempts to further deepen his injuries.

Seeing the arrival of his predecessor, Sarutobi Hizuren, holding his newborn son in his arms, Minato dispatched a clone to keep the demon occupied while he began preparing the chakra-inflused ink. The decision he had to make – one of offering his son as a sacrificial lamb – would no doubt haunt him for the rest of his existence. He wished that he could seal the Kyuubi away into his own body, but sealing a bijuu into an adult was not possible, as the adult body would not be able to adapt its chakra coils to successfully contain the Demon.

With the speed and precision of a seal master, Minato finished drawing two seals around his son's naval. He then placed his hand on the two seals and infused them with chakra so they would be ready for the final process.

"Hakke no Fuuin Shiki and Shishou Fuuin." Eight Divination Signs Seal and Four Image Seal.

The double seals were necessary since the human medium through which the Shinigami-aided bijuu-sealing technique would not be enough to contain the whole summation of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. The sealing process would separate the demon's essence into two opposites – Kyuubi's Yin and Yang. Shinigami would seal away the Yin with the soul of the spirit medium and seal away Kyuubi's Yang into Naruto.

Minato planned to offer his body, his soul, as the technique's human medium.

The seals drawn on Naruto's belly would contain the Kyuubi's Yang, slowly filter the bijuu chakra and integrate it into the host's own chakra coil, and allow the bijuu host to use the its chakra when his life came under distress, physically, as in threatened, or emotionally, especially when angered.

Once Minato finished infusing with chakra the seals he drew, he examined his son for the first time, and for what he mentally prepared to be the last, and smiled. His eyes drank in his son's appearance as his mind flooded him with mental images of what he believe his son would look like as a Genin, Chuunin, and Jounin. When his imaginary journey came to his son's wedding and coronation as the Hokage, a sad smile slowly formed on his face as a tear drop rolled down his right cheek. Those would be the precious memories he would miss. What he had imagined just then would have to serve as the precious memories he would end up parting with.

Suddenly he became the recipient of a disabling blow in the back from his predecessor's clone, Minato turned his shocked and regretful face to look at the saddened face of the Sandaime's clone …

Sarutobi, no, don't!

… before blacking out.

"Sorry Minato, you have a newborn and a wife to look after and many more years of living to do. Plus, this village needs you as her Yondaime. I have lived a good life. My time has come."

Hizuren made the infamous cross hand seal and made another Kage Bunshin. The one that knocked down Minato carried him and shunshinned to the Battle Stadium. The other held the Namikaze newborn before his true self, who, at the moment, was trying as fast as his arthritis hands could move to call upon the Shinigami.

I'm sorry, Naruto.

Snake – Boar – Ram – Rabbit – Dog – Rat – Bird …

Before the last two hand seals could be completed, the Sandaime and his bunshin jumped away from each other as they avoided a crushing strike of one of the Demon Fox's tails.

Apparently Minato's clone dissipated when my clone knocked him out.

Just when the Kyuubi thought it could take another free shot at Sarutobi – this shot would have been dead on – Gamabunta finally pulled his weapon out of the ground and swung at the nine-tailed bijuu.

The Demon Fox altered its attack slightly to dodge Gamabunta and ended up missing its target, but the purpose of the strike was accomplished.

Snake – Boar – Ram – Rabbit – Dog …

Repeating the hand sequence for the same bijuu-sealing technique, the Sandaime found himself disrupted again by the Kyuubi, who seemed to have caught on to the importance of stopping the Shiki Fuujin from its completion.

I guess the myths about your intelligence were correct.

Looking over to the Boss Toad, Hizuren was trying to catch his breath as he pleaded for assistance.

"Gamabunta, would you stay and help me, or do you have to go since your summoner has left?"

"I will stay and protect Konoha for Minato and Jiraiya, but my chakra is running low … so whatever you are planning, do it quickly if you want my help."

Though slightly out of breath, the Professor was still a formidable warrior and one of the most powerful shinobis alive, advancing age notwithstanding. Running out of options as he dodged the ferocious attacks of an adamant bijuu, Sarutobi temporarily abandoned the thought of finishing the required long sequence of hand seals in favor of returning a few attacks of his own. He jumped on Minato's summon, ran to the top of its head, and shouted defiantly at the Demon Fox.

"Fine, two can play this game. I'm not going to be a sitting duck anymore. Demon, meet the 'god of the shinobi.'"

As he finished his last verbiage to the nine-tailed bjiuu, Sarutobi completed a much shorter sequence of hand seals for his Earth attack.

"Doton: Yomi Numa." Earth Element: Swamp of the Underworld.

The ground upon which the Kyuubi stood transformed into a river of mud. Of course, the jutsu was not enough to completely sink the Nine-tailed Demon, but it did cause the gargantuan Fox slight difficulty moving.

Not wanting to give the Fox any room for a breather, the former Hokage finished another set of hand seals.

"Suiton: Gufuu Suika." Water Element: Typhoon Water Vortex.

The Gufuu Suika was not Sarutobi's strongest attack as it did not play off his elemental affinities, namely earth and fire. However, fire attacks were not the choicest attacks against a nine-story bijuu shrouded with red flaming chakra. He was unsure about how effective any earth jutsus would be against the Kyuubi, so he refrained from using them for now. Water element attacks, especially if they were strengthened with the destructive powers of wind, were the only attacks he was confident enough about their effectiveness against this beast of the legends.

I wish my sensei, the Shodaime, was here. We could use the bijuu-suppressing powers of his Mokuton right now.

Nothing happened …

Well, not exactly nothing …

Sarutobi's jutsu combination attacks DID connect with the nine-tailed mythological beast, tearing a hole in its belly, but the mythology surrounding this fearsome legendary monster was not all unfounded. Its booming voice mocked the retired Kage's weak attempt of an attack.

"Hahaha, hehehe! Stop. You are killing me. Are you trying to tickle me to death?"

As he heard this, Sarutobi noticed that the hole that Gufuu Suika had torn was healing ... slowly disappearing ... barely noticeable ... and then completely gone.

Shimatta! No wonder Minato looked like hell when I got here, and Kyuubi was not even wounded.

Biting his thumb and making the necessary hand seals, he summoned Enma the Monkey King.

…o.0.O.0.o…

(Outer Space)

The spaceship traversed through the sparsely-filled vacuum that was the universe towards its destination, the jewel of space, Earth. The unusually dense spaceship generated enough gravitational pull to attract tiny random particles to itself in its journey. As the tiny particles attached themselves to the spaceship, compressing to form a rock-like exterior encasing it, the spaceship grew in size and density, generating an even stronger gravitational field that attracts an even greater amount of space particles, perpetuating its continual increase in mass and density.

This phenomenon was not by chance. Jor-El knew that the Earth's atmosphere was substantially denser than Krypton's, allowing it to better shield Earth from meteoroids. Most of those that were close enough to become meteors lacked in mass and density and skid off the atmosphere, back into space. Of the few that were dense enough to enter the Earth's atmosphere, most disintegrated into nothing under the heat of the friction against the atmosphere's concentrated air molecules. Only those with a suitable mass which entered the atmosphere at the correct angle could become meteorites and make it all the way to impact noticeably on Earth's surface.

To remedy this so that his son's spaceship would not ricochet off the Earth's atmosphere or become destroyed by it, Jor-El made it extremely dense, using the metal from Krypton's core, so it would perpetuate its own mass gain and form its own shield for entry.

Traveling at ten times the speed of light, the program-navigated spaceship zipped through space. Jor-El's calculations were ungodly accurate. The trajectory of the drifting galaxies, the orbits of the planets, stars, moons, and other celestial bodies … everything was just as Jor-El had calculated it to be.

The spaceship, now significantly encased in the compressed dust particles it had collected during its travel, had just entered the Milky Way Galaxy. Soon, it ripped through the Orion Clouds on the outskirt of Earth's solar system, pulling four meteoroids in tow, all of which were accompanying the rock-mass-encased spaceship.

In a mere few minutes, the spaceship, along with the four meteoroids, would enter the Earth's atmosphere.

…o.0.O.0.o…

(Konohagakure)

In the stadium gathered the anxious villagers, unsure of what to expect next.

They too were caught in the same whirlwind of emotions as their Hokage was. At first they had planned an elaborate celebration to welcome the birth of the son of their beloved leader and his wife. Everyone had been happy for the young couple when they got married last year, the year of Minato's inauguration as the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha. The double celebrations brought quite a boost to Konoha's economy as they brought in attendance of many foreign and wealthy dignitaries.

Then, they heard their Kage's grim announcement of the imminent doom that was the impeding meteor collisions. Their mood for festivity disappeared as they prepared for what could be the end of their existence as they had known it or that of their beloved village. Many good-byes were said, apologies exchanged, broken relationships mended, frail ones strengthened. Families, whose members were not close, bonded. Families, whose were, got closer.

When the village council planned the evacuation, the Inuzuka Clan Head Tsume announced she was going to adopt some children from the orphanage, saying something about taking care of the strayed. The rest of the clan heads looked at each other and thought it was a good idea to give the children a feel of home and family, even if it would turn out to be their last and only happiness.

What surprised the more reluctant clans was not that the newly adopted children would be happy, but the overall happiness in having these new additions brought to their own clan, to their children, and to themselves. In the end, even the more stoic clans, the Uchihas, Hyuugas, and Aburames, concluded that should Konoha survive this day, they each would join the Inuzuka in taking turns adopting any children needing a family so no longer would Konoha have the need for an orphanage.

After making all the preparations, or as much as they could think of doing, ninja and civilians alike took to the only two things they knew that could the message of doom more palatable.

Sake and sex.

Lots of booze and love-making or lust-making fun.

All in the privacy of their homes, of course.

Those who had mates consummated their relationship again without worrying about any consequences of their ecstasy. Those who had crushes got together with them and explored together the ultimate expression of love without experiencing rejection. Those who were lonely chose to be no longer and gave themselves to whomever that happened to be nearby.

Even Tsunade gave in to Jiraiya's persistence. When it really counted, Jiraiya wanted no one but Tsunade next to him. Though, she would never admit to it, but since Dan died, there was only one person she would ever consider romantically involvement with again, and that person was Jiraiya. That day she stopped denying Jiraiya or herself and experienced ecstasy with a man again.

If Konoha was not to survive this day of reckoning, then the consequences would not have mattered. If Konoha did survive, then the consequences be damned. Konoha would need to be repopulated anyway. Those who had crushes or were lonely should be best paired off and married, regardless.

Either outcome, no harm done.

The villagers were somewhat relieved by the survival plan their Yondaime had come up for them, namely the make-shift bomb shelter that was the Battle Stadium.

The expansive Chakra Dome required a lot of chakra to maintain. Even with all the Jounins in the village working together, it could only be maintained for twenty minutes, barely enough time to outlast the meteor blasts, the debris, and powerful aftershocks that would follow it.

However, they were completely unprepared for the unexpected attack of the Kyuubi.

Against the overwhelming odds, the Chakra Dome was Minato's only ace against the meteorites and the Kyuubi. That and calling on the Shinigami to seal away the bijuu. He only wished that his predecessor would not have to resort to using the forbidden sealing jutsu and could hold against the Kyuubi until the meteorites hit Konoha, then shinshun himself into the stadium right before the dome was activated. Hopefully the meteorite blast would result in killing the Nine-Tails, and the Chakra Dome would outlast the ensuing waves of aftershock.

That was the original plan anyway.

However, Minato was realistic and knew that no man or army could delay the bjiuu. It would have been easier to seal away the Kyuubi when an opportunity presented itself than to continue delaying it until the meteorites struck.

Do what you need to, Old Man.

Using his son as a jinchuuriki candidate had been a hard decision for Minato to make, but he felt, in the end, it was the right decision. For one, and the only logistical reason, Naruto was the only newborn this night. Secondly, even if his son was not the only newborn available, the Yondaime could not bear asking it of another family, if he was not willing to make the sacrifice of his child himself. Finally, and perhaps the most important one to Minato's immediate well being, his wife, Kushina, had not yet awaken from her delivery exhaustion. She was currently recovering in the stadium's make-shift tent of a clinic.

Oh Kami, I'm so dead when Shina-chan finds out about that I went ahead with my plan.

Kushina had been a brave and powerful kunoichi, one capable of decimating a whole brigade of enemy ninjas all by herself. Now, her fate hung on the balance of fate. Up to the last breath of her consciousness, she openly denied her husband access to her child, her firstborn, to be used as a sacrificial lamb, but silently she debated within herself the merits of her husband's argument.

True, Kyuubi was a force of nature, unstoppable by mere mortal means, and could only be combated by calling on the gods themselves. And yes, her child was the only one born of that fateful night. But the most resounding No was that THIS WAS HER CHILD. None of anything else mattered. Not the Kyuubi. Not the village she was not born into, but had considered it her home. Not her husband whom she dearly loved. Not the moral blurriness of sacrificing one for the greater good of many.

But in the end, she fell unconscious, perhaps she knew subconsciously what needed to be done and was giving Minato a way to carry it out without her knowledge of it, without the sufficating presence of guilt in her heart.

Even with her unconscious, Minato could still hear her arguments. He would not doubt Tsunade were she to tell him that Kushina was still arguing even in her comatose state. He knew his wife deeply wanted to do what was right. Were he not to sacrifice Naruto to seal away the Nine-Tails, no one in Konoha, not even their son, her baby, would survive its impending threat.

A sudden spike of a familiar chakra signature disrupted his thoughts. Turning his head toward where Sarutobi's chakra was, Minato's eyes caught his sensei Jiraiya doing the same. Both Minato and Jiraiya shared the same thoughts. Looking at each other, their lips moved in synch.

"I should have been the one out there."

It was too late to switch places now. Their fates had been sealed. What was going to happen would happen.

Looking into the sky and seeing the telltale sign of the incoming meteorites, Minato and Jiraiya quickly directed all the Jounins assigned to the Dome Barrier Project to get into position. They could only hope that if the Old Man was going to get here, he would do so soon. Once the chakra dome was activated, everyone would be putting their all into maintaining it. Nothing and no one would be able to enter the stadium when the jutsu was activated. Furthermore, they would be too exhausted to de-activate and re-activate it for him to enter. To do so would endanger the safety of the entire village, something Minato as the Fourth Hokage would not do.

Please be okay, Old Man.

…o.0.O.0.o…

Dodging another chakra blast from his Goliath-like foe, the Sarutobi clone finished his hand seals for an earth jutsu. Gamabunta and Enma had run out of chakra and returned to their summon world.

"Doton: Chakra Mokusatsu." Earth Element: Chakra Smothering.

A wall of cycling mud erupted from the ground around which the Kyuubi's four paws stood, grabbing on to the legs of the Nine-Tails. Slowly the cylindrical wall of flowing mud spun around the contour of its limbs and rose higher and higher.

One story … two stories … three stories …

Wherever the mud wall rose to, the gargantuan fox could feel its chakra depleting. Alas, the technique did not envelop the Demon Fox fast enough. As soon as the bijuu caught on to how the technique was supposed to work, it sent a blast of its fiery chakra down its limbs, effectively stopping its ascension and slowly pushing down the mud walls..

Had the Professor been in his prime and had it not been his clone performing the jutsu, the technique might have had a fighting chance against the Nine-Tails. The mud wall would have definitely risen higher, faster, and smothered the chakra out of his opponent more effectively.

However, there was a reason why the Professor resorted to using his clone for the technique, knowing full well that it did not have the necessary chakra supply for such a chakra-demanding technique.

Snake – Boar – Ram – Rabbit – Dog – Rat – Bird – Horse – Snake.

Completely unaware of the fire-trails blazing across the sky and completely unaware that he had succeeded in delaying the monstrosity of a bjiuu until the incoming cosmic strikes, the exhausted Sandaime finished the long series of hand seals and whispered as he donned on a victorious smirk.

"Shiki Fuujin, complete."

Behind him, the features of the Death God appeared, holding a spectral form of Sarutobi in custody.

Greeted by the Shinigami's ghastly visage, the strongest of all tailed beasts cowered, showed its first sign of fear since its last rebirth. It tried to step back, pulled on its legs without success. It could not get away from its puny human of an opponent and the microscopic newborn directly in front of the caster of the forbidden sacrificial jutsu.

Hizuren's last Earth Element jutsu had accomplished its most important purpose – it held the bijuu in place for the sealing technique. Kyuubi was rendered relatively immobile for the next few minutes, which was more than enough for the job.

Kyuubi's fate seemed a foregone conclusion.

Speaking in a tongue not comprehensible to humans, the Shinigami directed his greetings to the scared bijuu.

"Hehehe! We meet again, Kyuubi. Is that fear I see in your eyes? Let me return you to my belly again."

As he said this, he reached his arms through Hizuren's spectral body, extending them from the chest of the jutsu-castor's real body, attempting to grab the soul of the Nine-tailed Kitsune.

Watching the Death God reached out of his chest to grab the Kyuubi's soul, completely confident of his imminent victory over the bijuu, Sarutobi's smirk turned into disbelief at the bad timing of things.

BOOM! The meteorites hit.

…o.0.O.0.o…

Those who were under the protective shield of the Chakra Dome could only wonder what was happening outside the Battle Stadium. They had seen the incoming meteors ripping through the sky, leaving trails of flames in their wake. They felt the Stadium shook with the initial crashes of the meteorites

With the Chakra Dome already activated and the obvious absence of the retired Sandaime, Minato and Jiraiya struggled to keep their focus on the task at hand, keeping at bay guilt and grief. They continued to pour chakra into the barrier jutsu, riding out the waves of aftershock from the meteorite strikes.

…o.0.O.0.o…

All of Hizuren's efforts wasted.

It was too late to stop the Shiki Fuujin. Shinigami was called forth, and Shinigami would not be denied.

What happened next and how was really anybody's guess. What people later discovered happened was that the meteorite with the spaceship encased within was the one that hit not too far away from the Sandaime and the Kyuubi during the sealing. The shockwave freed the Kyuubi from Hizuren's binding jutsu; it leapt away to safety and had not returned to bother Konoha or any other hidden village.

Sarutobi Hizuren, a legend among the Shinobi giants, was no more. His sacrifice was later deemed unnecessarily tragic. In the end, it did not matter – the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox had escaped.

One thing was certain though, one irrefutable fact. The sealing did take place on the Namikaze child. Instead of the Kyuubi being sealed, it was the life of another child that was sealed into Naruto, one to whom the spaceship belonged – Kal-El.

The four other meteorites also struck. They individually scattered into Iwa, Kumo, Suna, and Oto.

The spaceship however was no where to be found. What was left was an imprint of one on the meteorite that encased it. The Yondaime suspected someone linked to the Kyuubi attack was responsible for its disappearance.

What lay in the horizon was anyone's guess.

…o.0.O.0.o…

A/N: My thanks to weixuan18 for looking over the first version, Mari Falcon and SkyMaiden for their support and encouragement, and Amael the Chosen for beta'ing the final version of this chapter for me.

I want to turn this into another epic of mine, but I'm not sure until I get some feedback from you. If there's enough demand, I'll continue to post updates. I will always finish my stories though, it's just how soon I'll post that's the issue in question.

If you haven't had a chance to check out my other story, my first actually, please do so. It's entitled, Naruto: Swordsman of 9 Lonesome Stances. I also have a C2 up as well, Naruto stories that are worth reading. Both can be found on my profile page.

This chapter is named after Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.