1 CHAPTER 1

The day of Kyuubi attack

A figure was standing on Hokage monument staring at the burning village. In the middle of the Fire was a giant fox with nine tails. The fox known as Kyuubi no Bake Kitsune was showing why was it known as a force of nature, that is beyond mere mortals. Each one of his movements causing even more destruction in the remains of the village. Shinobis of Konoha were trying to go against this creature of destruction even though it was a futile effort. Justus that were created by the great Shinobis who passed them down to the next generations, some of them were invited before even the age of Shinobis, could do nothing more than irritate the great beast. But after all of these meaningless attacks the fox was targeted by, finally an attack that had an actual effect on the beast, in the shape of a giant, brown, yakuza look a like toad falling one top of the fox. The toad struggled for a few seconds to keep the fox down, the mighty beast disappeared in a yellow flash only to appear with another in the forest far from the village. After looking at the hellish view of burning village and death one last time, the figure changed the direction of his stare back at the forest, where one could see the disappearing figure of the grand beast.

The figure smiled ominously, not caring about the burning village or the carnage near him at all, and muttered with no small amount of excitement in his voice.

"It's starting."

Konohagakure no Sato, 7 years after the Kyuubi attack

7 years have passed since the horrible night of tragedy. The night where the most powerful Bijuu known as Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked Konoha, causing the death of a big part of population and almost completely destroying the village itself. It was only thanks to the actions of the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash that the beast was defeated and didn't completely destroyed the village. The Yondaime knew that killing a Bijuu was almost, if not completely, impossible so he did the only thing that he could do to defeat it. He sealed it into a newborn child.

The Yondaime, being the gentle leader he is, couldn't ask for anyone else sacrifice their children while he had his own so with a heavy heart he did what he had to do. He split the chakra of Kyuubi and sealed it into his newborn triplets. He sealed Yang chakra into his newborn son Menma Uzumaki Namikaze and Yin chakra into his newborn daughter Natsumi Uzumaki Namikaze.

For an incredible feat such as this Yondaime needed a strong seal, stronger any other seal. So he choose the strongest and also the most dangerous seal he knew, Shiki Fuujin. A seal that summon the Shinigami himself in exchange of users soul. So with grim acceptance Yondaime used Shiki Fuujin to ask Shinigami to split Kyuubi's chakra and seal it into his children. But he didn't had a problem with giving his life for his village and the ones he loved. He also knew that his wife Kushina Uzumaki could protect his children and raise them even without him, so it was really surprising for him to hear Shinigami say that payment of a soul wasn't needed for this time. The Yondaime Hokage was more than happy to learn that he could continue living with his family, not knowing Shinigami's real intentions.

The same day Yondaime made an announcement that the village was saved thanks to his two children, Menma and Natsumi, since they were able to contain the chakra of the mighty beast. Minato explained to the whole village about the water and glass metaphor of jinchuuriki and that his children were heroes so they should not be treated as abominations who were the reincarnations of Kyuubi. The village was fast to accept that. They had complete trust in the words of Yondaime Hokage after all, and started calling Menma and Natsumi the "Saviours of Konoha".

Now 7 years after that tragedy, this day was not a day full of sadness and grief but one of joy and celebrations with a festival to celebrate the defeat of strongest Bijuu and the birthday of their Hokage's children. Everyone in the village was celebrating but the biggest celebration was in the Uzumaki-Namikaze house, where little Natsumi and Menma were having their own celebration.

The house of the Uzumaki-Namikaze clan wasn't actually big, unlike Uchiha and Hyuuga who had an entire compound to house all of them, but it was more than enough to house all the guests that showed up for the party. Amongst the guests were the heads of every important clan of village with their heirs and some more important people to the Uzumaki-Namikaze family, such as Kakashi Hatake, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Jiraiya and Tsunade Senju of the Sannin.

The party was a nice affair for the adults, or as children would like to call it "a blast", and the ones who were having the most fun were of course Menma and Natsumi. Menma Uzumaki-Namikaze could only be considered as some kind of mini clone of Minato, with his spiky sun kissed hair and blue eyes, though his personality was more like his mother Kushina Uzumaki. It was pretty hard for boy to not do something mischievous when he could. In contrast to him, his sister Natsumi Uzumaki-Namikaze was a carbon copy of his mother, with her long, straight red hair and violet eyes. Although her personality was more akin to her father. She was smart, calm and collected. As long as nobody annoyed her too much. Alongside the two birthday kids was another little girl, looking like 5 or 6 years old. She had golden hair like Menma but it was straight and long like Natsumi and her face was chubby like Kushina. This girl was Kasumi Uzumaki-Namikaze, the fourth child of Uzumaki-Namikaze clan who was born 2 years after Kyuubi attack, fortunately this time there wasn't a giant chakra beast to make her birthday miserable. The youngest of Uzumaki-Namikaze siblings was nothing short of a bundle of joy, always having fun with her family with a bright smile on her face.

If someone were to look at this scene they would think this as a picture of a perfect family. In the end nobody noticed that the third birthday child was nowhere near the house, let alone the party.

Meanwhile, on the Hokage Monument

While everyone was having a great time, one small child with sun kissed blond hair and sky blue eyes was sitting on second Hokage's head. He was wearing a black shirt with the symbol of his clan on its back, a red spiral, and black shorts. This boy was the last Uzumaki-Namikaze child, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze.

Naruto was different from his peers and his siblings. He was quiet and a bit antisocial, but one of his stranger aspects was his dreams. Ever since he could remember he always had some strange dreams. Dreams where he would see many different people. Sometimes he would see a black knight that used anything he could get his hands on as deadly weapons or a blonde girl with a shining blade. Sometimes he would even see a pale man with a spear burning everything around him with a calm face or a giant of a man fighting against beasts that would make lesser men wet and shit their pants. But the ones he loved seeing most were of a blonde man in golden armour shooting most beautiful weapons a man can see from golden circles. These dreams were the only thing that helped him in his painful and neglected life. Which was the reason he was sitting on second Hokage's head and not with his siblings, who were celebrating their birthday.

It was same every year. His siblings would have fun and get all the attention while he was just forgotten. Although his dreams kinda helped him dealing with loneliness, it was still not enough when compared to a parents love. Especially on the days where he was supposed to be loved. It made him wish to have a life like the ones from his dreams. Yes some of them were really scary and not all of them were nice but even so he couldn't help but envy the way they looked. Brave, strong, unwavering and without any kind of regret or fear. A will like that was something Naruto really wanted. Especially in days like these days where he actually questioned the worth of his own existence.

'Why? Why does this keep happening every year? Why did they forget about my birthday again? Why don't they ever acknowledge my existence? Do… do they hate me?' those were the thoughts that were going around the head of young blonde. For most people it wouldn't be the most rational thoughts but a child's mind was fragile, adding the lack of attention given to his existence wouldn't have an positive effect on it. Although this reality wouldn't help to the child while his tears were falling from his eyes to the ground, staining the head of second Hokage.

This was the thing that has been happening since the dreams, which meant ever since he could remember. His parents had always treated him different from his siblings. While Menma and Natsumi were always praised for almost anything they did by their parents and by everybody else, his existence wasn't even acknowledged. Even though Menma and Natsumi had already started their ninja training, he hadn't. And every time he tried to ask for it he would be brushed off with same answer from his parents "We must focus on training your siblings to control Kyuubi's chakra so we can't teach you."

When Kasumi was born he thought that he finally would have someone who would treat him as family, but fate was never a kind mistress. It turned out that Kasumi was able to use the Uzumaki Chakra Chains, Kongo Fuusa, something only his mother could do as far as they knew, so his parents decided to teach her how to control them which meant Kasumi started her training early. End result was him being excluded from family time, again.

It would have been better if it was only his parents were ignoring him but it wasn't meant to be, in other words his siblings were even worse. Menma was always being a brat to him, telling him how weak he was and how their parents loved them more. Natsumi was always cold towards him, though it wasn't always like that. At first she was always kind to him a little light of hope in the eternal darkness that he was enduring in his life. A light that was taken from him without any mercy. Lastly his little sister, Kasumi, was goddamn annoying, always bragging about every little thing she learned with their mother or father and acting like a spoiled kid. Though it was probably more of Menma's fault who instructed her to always act like that and without their parents helping Naruto they would never correct her so in the end it was once again miserable for him.

Village wasn't that far behind his parents, all of them ignoring him or not even knowing about him. He wasn't even going to mention the more stupid ones who thought him as some cursed child because he was born during Kyuubi attack.

Naruto was so focused in his thoughts about his family and all the shit he had to deal with that he did not register the sound of someone walking towards him until said someone spoke to him in a jovial tone.

"What are you doing here, brat?" spoke the person, making Naruto jump in surprise, not expecting anyone to be here at this hour or at a time where everyone was busy congratulating his siblings. When he looked at the man the first thing that came to mind was that his clothes were weird. He was wearing black jacket over a white shirt. He was also old, not as old as Hiruzen Sarutobi, who visited his family some days, but still old, probably around his late forties or early fifties. His grey hair was slicked back and spiky like his beard which covered all of his chin and a big part of his cheeks and he also had some wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead. He had red eyes that were a bit pinkish, if he didn't realised that they didn't had commas in them he might think the old man was an Uchiha, and there was interest in them, along with something he couldn't exactly put his finger on. It took some seconds for Naruto to actually register the question in his mind, but when he did he answered with a voice that was both sad and tired.

"I have nowhere else to be." Naruto did not know why was he answering, but he just felt that this weird looking old man was not going to harm him, unlike some other villagers who got too drunk for their own good.

"Don't you have a family that's waiting for you? It is pretty late for a brat like you to be outside after all." asked man a bit jokingly but also softly, his red eyes focused on the child and nothing else. Of course he already knew the answer, he has been watching the boy for a while after all, but he still wanted the kid to answer him so he could see how much pain the kid had in his heart.

"I do have a family but… they don't exactly care about me, they never had, they forgot about me every year… no one cares about me." said Naruto, his voice full of pain and his eyes were letting out some tears, showing the man that him interfering with his life was seriously needed, it was time to act now!

"I see… no one should have to live like that, let alone a child like you." said man before ruffling the boys hair with his wrinkled hand, making the said kid look at him with a face with more surprise than sadness but before he could ask him anything the old man spoke again.

"Tell me brat…" Naruto's right eye twitched when he finally realised that this old man was calling him brat all this time and he didn't realised it because of his sadness. But before he could make his displeasure at the nickname given to him known, the old man continued speaking. "… would you like to change your life?" asked the man, his voice full of excitement, looking directly at Naruto's blue eyes with such intensity that it reminded Naruto some of the people he saw in his dreams.

"W-what are you talking about?" asked Naruto, his voice full of confusion but for some reason he found himself not afraid of this old man, like he knew that he didn't mean any harm to him.

"I am asking you if you want to change brat. Would you like to be strong, strong enough to never feel like you're feeling now again? Would you like to have people that you can see close to yourself and people who would care for you, Naruto-kun?" while Naruto was shocked that this weird old man knew his name, his questions surprised him even more. His words made him think that this old man was a bit insane but even so he couldn't stop the little hope from blooming in his heart.

"I-I can change like that?" asked Naruto, looking at the weird old man as if he had all the answers in the world, not even caring about man still calling him brat.

"Of course you can, brat, we can always change as long as we have the will to do so but it isn't really easy so I gotta ask you again brat. Do you want to stay like this, being treated as nothing by your own family, being treated as some kind of cursed child by this village, or would you like to become something much more?" asked the old man, knowing that the next words that would come out of the young blondes mouth would be crucial.

Meanwhile Naruto's mind was going high wire. An old man that he never met before was giving him a chance to be more than he ever thought that he would be and never as some kind of second rated product by others again. While a part of his consciousness was telling him that he shouldn't trust someone who came out of nowhere like that and that his family might change over time. Unfortunately for that part, a bigger part wanted nothing more than to accept this man's offer, to be something more than any other thought he could be. So with that young Uzumaki-Namikaze answered.

"I want to change. I want to show my family that I can be strong too, that I am not useless. I want to prove them that I can be more than any of them thought that I could ever be, that I am also important!" spoke Naruto, his voice overflowing with conviction and raising towards to end of his answer, causing the old man to have a full blown grin on his face and let out a boisterous laugh, startling Naruto.

"Very well brat, then I shall help you along that path but it's up to you if you can make use of that help." Spoke the old man before putting a hand on the edge of the mountain. Naruto didn't know what this old man was doing but he was just too happy to have someone that would teach him how to be strong, but one thought stopped him in his tracks.

"Wait… sensei, I don't know your name." just realising that this strange old man, now his sensei, never introduced himself.

"Really, didn't I tell you? Well it doesn't matter, people had called me many different things in my lifetime, most of them weren't really nice since they were given to me by stuck up assholes, kid but my name is Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, though you can just call me Zelretch or sensei, now let's turn you into a warrior like the ones you always dream about!" this shocked Naruto. How did his new sensei knew about his dreams!? He never had told anyone about them in the fears of being labelled as a freak! But before he could ask, a strange small black glowing circle appeared on the edge of the mountain and a bigger one appeared under Naruto and Zelretch. At that moment Naruto forgot to ask about his question. He had never saw any jutsu like this. Before he could say anything they both disappeared in a black flash.

At the same moment a place out of mortal reach

From a portal someone else was watching the interaction between Naruto and Zelretch. This man was dressed similarly to Zelretch but his hair was straight and pure midnight black and his skin was as pale as of a corpse. His eyes were also unnatural, yes that was the only way his eyes could be described. They were a pale shade of gold but his sclera was pure black and his gaze also looked dead, as if everything around him was pointless. Although his thoughts in his head were anything but dead. While his appearance was very different from that day, the feeling of fear and absolute power he gave off was still same. Yes this was the god whose power split Kyuubi's chakra and sealed it into two different children, Shinigami.

'It seems that everything is going well so far.' Shinigami knew what kind of neglect young Naruto was dealing with, he was the one who caused it in the end. To understand his reasons one should understand the origins of gods. There were three gods, Kami who governed over everything that is considered good, Yami who governed over everything that is considered evil and Shinigami who governed over death. Unlike Shinigami who never interact with the other two, Kami and Yami were each other's, what people would call, "arch nemesis"es. They did represent each other's opposition after all, it would be weird if they didn't always fight. It was always same thing between the two Yami would try to influence and help some of the twisted and corrupted people to bring the end of one of the worlds, or at least cause havoc around it, and Kami helping humans to defend against those threats and bring peace to their worlds. It was pretty pointless in Shinigami's opinion since Yami could never actually end a world and Kami could never create a real peace to stop influences of Yami as long as humans inhabited the said worlds, so in the end they were always in a never ending loop. It didn't matter to Shinigami since he would always get more souls because of their stupid fights but this time, it was different. This time Kami blessed Uzumaki-Namikaze family with total four children and demanded him to let Minato and Kushina live, with the threat of helping Shinobis to find his masks at the Uzumaki temple, which he has been hiding by misdirecting humans. That wouldn't be good, not at all. While her intentions about bringing happiness to Uzumaki-Namikaze family was genuine, it was also too naive. She couldn't see that creating a soldier or 'hero', as she wanted to call them, who could face against the minions of Yami, who were always some kind of lunatic maniac or someone who lost themselves to pain of tragedies, without pain was simply a dream, a foolish dream. For someone to understand and gain real power, that could be useful to deal with the minions of Yami, they needed to understand pain first. There was simply no way to gain anything without suffering for it, or as humans say 'No pain, no gain'. And while he didn't normally care about fights between Kami and Yami, since as long as they fight he still would get souls, this world might go real south if Yami actually managed to end it that would meant that Shinigami wouldn't get souls at a steady pace, which was the way he liked, and that was a real problem for him. A large influx of souls might be good for one moment but then he wouldn't get any souls from that world, which would make him weaker. Just as Kami gets her power through goodness of humans and Yami gets through wickedness, Shinigami gets his power through death, no more death would make him weaker and the other two would definitely try to use this to their advantage, trying to get him out of equation. That would make them believe that there wasn't anything else that could get in their way to reach their "Ultimate Goal", Yami destroying other worlds and Kami doing most stupid thing in the name of spreading love and happiness, which wasn't exactly wrong. Truly they were the most stupid incarnation of good and evil that could exist, always seeing things black and white like stupid children. Adding the fact those two actually had the nerve to hate him for doing his job. Yami thinking that he was a asshole because death make sure that people couldn't suffer more, and Kami believing that he was only hurting the families and friends of the deceased, two most powerful beings after him were as naive as babies, it was just amazing(note my drowning sarcasm here please). So to make sure that those two wouldn't fuck everything up, he decided to do something he normally would never do. He decided to take a champion, an agent of sorts for him. Or as that Alaya from other world called them, his own Counter Guardian. He decided to get his own 'Hero'.

But having a champion, that could actually deal with the minions of the other two gods weren't exactly easy, since they tend to be stupidly powerful and annoying, so he had made a deal with that damn vampire Zelretch. His plan was pretty simple. When Minato summoned him, he wouldn't take Minato's soul but his and his wife's feelings towards their son. Also the other son and their first daughter each having one half of Kyuubi in them made them potentially great ninjas so the Toad Sannin would mostly focus on them for the prophecy he got from Gamamaru and just giving a little image of her little brother mixed with her grand uncle and the man she loved whenever Slug Sannin looked at Naruto would make them leave him alone, just making some other family friends mostly focus on the other siblings would be easy since they were a lot more energetic compared to their brother, which would make him became a bit more than a shadow even with his more than superior intelligence. He didn't even had to do anything about villagers since mortals were already short sighted morons who couldn't understand the reality, even if it stripped before them and gave them a lap dance, so they would blame the kid whether he did something or not, that was what mortals did whenever they had an excuse, blaming innocents. Last thing he had to do was to tell Zelretch about his little and innocent idea to make Naruto a super soldier, the Throne of Heroes. With his magic, Zelretch could easily connect boys dreams with the throne and gave him ideas what to do, how to get stronger and also serve as motivation. A kid getting ideas from ancient heroes would be definitely interesting for Zelretch which meant that he would spend time with kid and turn him into a real warrior. Also Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze always became a strong and great individual that could deal with anyone in almost every other worlds and this one was already superior in intelligence and a genius compared to most of his counterparts, his stubborn determination wasn't that far behind them either. Unfortunately most of the other Naruto's counterparts were influenced by Kami, who turned the kid into a naive moron, who was all about peace, friendship and forgiving others. A minority of them were influenced by Yami, who turned the kid into a bloody psychopath. But if he, Shinigami, influenced him, then things would be a lot different. A warrior that wasn't about childish dreams or meaningless destruction but rather about balance. Yes his and Zelretch's influence would make that possible, even if Zelretch's would turn him a bit of an odd ball, and the dreams he would have from the Throne of Heroes would make it even worse when it came to being odd. Ones in the throne all had great potential during their time, this Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze also had potential, as great as the greatest heroes in the throne, the likes of, Heracles, Setanta, Achilles, Karna and Gilgamesh, if not more. And a little alteration to the cycle of reincarnation would make it even better. Yes, Shinigami thought while chuckling, Naruto would be great. Both for himself and for Shinigami. His real payment for sealing Kyuubi would be Naruto himself.