A Legend Reborn

Summary: rather than Naruto, a reborn Minato contains the Kyuubi. This is his story.

Warning: character death ahead.

The Rebirth sealing technique, also known as the Fountain of Youth fuuinjutsu.

Minato invented it as a form of immortality for himself and his loved ones to take advantage of, one without the grotesque properties of Orochimaru's research.

He had given both Jiraiya-sensei and Sandaime-sama the chance to have it performed on them, but the Third refused and Minato's teacher wanted to wait until he was both fully retired and had faked his death - for obvious reasons.

The technique turned the target into a newborn infant, so he'd be defenseless.

It had taken Minato a lot of tries to get right; the animals he experimented on kept dying of old age when they were supposed to still be young.

He suspected that it was due to damage caused by free radicals of oxygen.

He tried to reverse that, but it was not enough. Apparently, there were also other things that caused aging.

The first true breakthrough came when he remembered a legend the Third had told him of years earlier.

The Rikudou Sennin (Sage of the Six Paths), and a technique of his in particular: the Banbutsu Souzou (Creation of all Things).

He tried to recreate its effects to return the animals to a just-born state.

It took him a long time; it was the longest of the steps for the creation of the jutsu, but eventually he managed.

It worked flawlessly... except for one thing.

His test subjects acted like normal newborns, which meant that they had lost all of their memories.

Minato didn't want that.

So he made the seal copy them, and then upload them to the subjects.

The poor animals ended up either in a coma or catatonic, or even dead.

Minato then tried having the seal upload the memories slowly.

Still, it was a very painful process for his "lab rats"; those that even survived.

He was stumped as to why they kept dying, so he decided to focus on the headaches for the time being.

He didn't know why the headaches came, so he decided to check the seals again.

Then he noticed it: he had used the kanji for perfect recall in the arrays.

He quickly formed a hypothesis: those memories weren't with perfect recall to begin with, and the attempt to make them so was the cause of the headaches.

He did not want to test his assumption, but he suspected that his friend Nara Shikaku, whose memory was eidetic, would not have such a problem.

The last major hurdle was the fact that the unexplained deaths of some subjects hadn't stopped.

They looked perfectly healthy, apart from the fact they were dead (or completely catatonic).

He had only heard of such a thing in fiction: magic which could supposedly extract the soul of the victim...

Of course! The soul!

Minato added a part in the seal which made sure the soul remained in the body.

But then another thought hit him: the soul would revert to its young state, and he would simply have an infant with grown-up memories in his hands.

So he made sure to exempt the soul from the reverting process.

From then on, only minor refinements were needed, those mainly owing to the fact that he would be dealing with humans rather than animals.

He even got a willing human test subject, whom he tested the seal on after making sure it was perfect.

Of course, it worked flawlessly.

"(Pant) Minato... Naruto... is Naruto... (pant) all right?" The severely weakened due to the extraction of the Kyuubi Kushina asked.

"Yes, he is alright, Kushina; he's in a safe place now." Minato answered.

"Thank goodness... Minato, you have to stop that man and the Kyuubi (pant)... he's heading for Konoha."

Minato took Kushina to the safehouse.

An infant choking could be heard.

"Minato... what's wrong with Naruto (pant pant)?" Asked Kushina, panicked.

"No..." Uttered Minato. "He has been poisoned."

"Minato, there has to be something (pant) you can do! Get a medic-nin (cough cough)! Quickly!"

Minato shook his head, sobs wracking his body. "The poison is too fast acting. There's nothing anyone can do."

He stayed there for a few short seconds holding Kushina, the both of them crying.

Then Minato got up and said: "I have to go. I must save Konoha. I've already formulated a plan."

Kushina raised her head at that. "Reseal the Kyuubi in me (pant)... I'll take it with me to the grave."

"No. I will use that technique." With that, he disappeared with no trace.

In a very short and brutal fight, Minato managed with ease to make the man he thought was Uchiha Madara retreat and lose control over the Kyuubi.

It was quickly made apparent why Minato was considered the greatest Kage of all time, after only a year of tenure and at the tender age of twenty four.

He didn't lose his cool for a second, despite the rage he felt towards the murderer of his child.

It was too bad he didn't manage to kill the man, but there would be time for that in the future.

It would have been easier if the Uchiha hadn't somehow removed the Hiraishin marking.

As soon as the masked Uchiha ran away, Minato approached the Kyuubi.

He got there just in time to use a space-time barrier to send a Bijuudama (Tailed Beast Ball) away from Konoha.

Then, he transported the Kyuubi far away using Hiraishin, after immobilizing it thanks to Gamabunta-sama.

While traveling alone took a minimal amount of chakra, as did carrying a human passenger, taking the Kyuubi with him drained him quite a lot, though he didn't allow that to show in his body language.

He transported Kushina there as well, so that she could help by holding the Kyuubi down, and surrounded the battlefield in a barrier.

During the time she bought him, he prepared the sealing and summoned Gerotora, giving him the key to the seal.

"Eight Trigrams Sealing Style: Eight Symbols Seal... fuuin!"

The Eight Trigrams Sealing Style: an ability originating in Uzushiogakure (Hidden Whirling Tide) which allowed for the joining of two, four or eight identical even-numbered seals.

Minato was the only one who had ever used it on such a high level seal as Mito-sama's Four Symbols Seal.

So Minato sealed the beast within himself.

'What potent Chakra!' Minato fell to his knees due to the pressure of Kyuubi's energy. 'How could I have considered sealing even half of such a thing into Naruto? How could Kushina withstand it?'

Then, by force of will, he got up.

He had to finish his jutsu, before the Kyuubi's Chakra destroyed his pathways, otherwise he wouldn't be able to do it for the same reason he was unable to save Kushina: too much damage would be overwhelming for an infant, even if it weren't fatal for an adult.

It was fortunate that while he was more of a finesse and control kind of fighter, his Chakra reserves were still clearly Kage level, otherwise he would have already been ripped apart.

He got the paper with the sealing array out of his pocket and applied it to his chest after getting his clothes off.

"Fountain of Youth Jutsu!"

For a few seconds, there was darkness.

Then, he could see again; but not nearly as clearly, and everything seemed larger.

It had worked!

The pain and pressure caused by the Kyuubi's chakra was also mostly gone.

Though without Kushina's special Chakra and with the full Kyuubi, he would have to constantly keep the Kyuubi from surfacing in the future.

He looked at Kushina. She lay down unmoving.

Minato started bawling his eyes out.

He tried to control himself, but it was harder than he expected.

It could be his physical age that was at fault.

He stopped just in time to see Sandaime-sama arrive at the scene.

Minato must have let the barrier fall while transitioning to a baby.

No, not Minato; Naruto.

'From now on, I will be known as Uzumaki Naruto; I'll take Naruto's place and make his name legendary!' "Naruto" vowed.

The Third would probably give him that name anyway - even if he were to suspect that he was Minato, he would have no other choice thanks to Iwa.

Naruto let himself be carried away by the Third.

He started planning; he would start walking as soon as he could get away with and still be considered human, and subtly train himself to become a better shinobi.

While his Chakra reserves would without a doubt be several times lower than Kushina's, he was still a Jinchuuriki and a former Kage.

And along with his Chakra control which was second only to Tsunade-sama's and reflexes equal to the Fourth Raikage's full-powered lightning armor mode, he would be one hell of a ninja.

Author's Note: I'm back, and with a new story. I haven't given up on Wood, but I was hit with inspiration.
I have no idea though on how to keep the villains from being too weak for Minato.
Any ideas?
BTW, Minato's Chakra reserves are, as he said, many times lower than Kushina at her worst but only a bit lower than Naruto's early on, and as his body grows and his physical energy catches up with his spiritual energy, he will manage to have slightly more than canon!Naruto did - with the right training it will keep on growing, though the difference with Naruto will still remain relatively small.
It will be far more than he had in his previous life - obviously.
Yes, in my mind Kushina had many times Naruto's Chakra.

Published on January 20, 2012.