The night was heavy with omens. Shadows seemed to flicker in the autumn landscape. Clouds veiled the bright full moon. Wind moved through the trees in sporadic currents.

  Far from the village center, beyond typical patrol rotations and prying eyes of the ever watchful shinobi. The hidden birthing site had been relocated for the third time. Elite shinobi guarded each approach towards the small cave opening. Seals layered the tunnel entrances. Sensor barriers overlapped like woven steel.

  Inside, Kushina screamed. The sound tore through the cave walls; it vibrated off the walls and down the halls. Raw, primal, shrill and terribly human.

  Outside the perimeter, Kurogane and Arata stood sentinel. Steel bracers caught faint light from concealed lanterns carried by the patrols nearer to the distant village. Breathing out the autumn night air, fogged out in the cold air. They had been requested personally by Kushina and allowed personally by Minato.

  Arata shifted slightly, gaze lifting toward the partially obscured sky. “…Tonight reminds me of our Fuyuka’s birth.”

  Kurogane’s spine stiffened, frowning as she turned to Arata, her eyes sharp. “Do not say that lightly.”

  Turning partially to his wife Arata said simply with a shrug with a little smile. “I don’t, Love.”

  The pair then felt it, a sudden shift in the wind. Something in the air displaced. Kurogane’s hands formed rapid signs: Dragon, Ox, Boar, Snake, Monkey, Tiger. From every tiny plate along her scale mail coat a single whisper thin strand of chakra extended in a near three hundred and sixty degree covering. Chakra spread outward, subtle, refined and barely noticeable.

  The soft words whispered in her head, an older man’s voice who had once passed on the technique to a much younger woman. “Kinton- Jiton: Kaji ōiki Kanchi, The Forgemaster’s Domain Field.”

  The field extended further and further out before eventually bending backwards on itself back towards Kurogane. The strands of Chakra extend searching for metal. Trace filings wriggle between root and sand grain. Weapon edges from Arata’s equipment and those further towards the village. Foreign resonance within the outer patrol area missing. Nothing.

  Then as the field extends back towards the cave Kurogane’s field flickers against something-

  A sudden tremble or tremor. Not on or in the earth. In the air, the empty space before the opening of the cave.

  A sound erupted from within the tunnel, in the short time from sensory technique to Kurogane and Arata releasing it wasn’t the Thunder God of Minato. Arata’s own technique picked it up. Short combat, violent and efficient.

  Kurogane and Arata moved without a word, disappearing from the ground and appearing at the mouth of the cave they found the guards just inside dead, barely any signs of them fighting back.

  They burst into the inner chamber corridor and froze for half a heartbeat. A masked man emerged from the sealed inner chamber. Navy Black cloak. Orange mask with black lines spiraling around it. One visible eye burning crimson beneath the pattern.

  In his arms, a bundled infant in a crimson cloth. In the distance, a beastly scream ripped across the land. The world seemed to crack and shudder at the no longer restrained bestial rage.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Kurogane’s gaze flicked to Arata, Arata didn't look at her. With one slight nod and no words the pair knew what they would have to do. The Hokage and the shinobi of the village would handle the beast until the Biju could be sealed. They would handle this.

  The masked man regarded them calmly. He observed coolly. “You are not the Fourth,”

  Kurogane took a half step forward gripping her blade in one hand and another along two scrolls under her great coat. “No.”

  Nodding, the figure calmly took out a Kunai and held it between himself and the pair. “I am Madara Uchiha tonight the Leaf will burn and Minato Namakazi and Kushina Uzumaki will die.”

  At the declaration the smile on Arata’s face turned upside down the mat of scar tissue turning his frown into a restrained snarl. Kurogane could feel her clan's Kekkei Genkai slowly release, the blood in her veins cooling into a mercury like metal as it is filled with her chakra. The man lifts the Kunai up slightly then prepares to thrust down. In that singular heart beat Kurogane’s Chakra finishing transforming, thrusting out her blade she sends a multitude of chakra threads along it seizing hold of the kunai as if her blade extended to parry the blade, stopping the blow.

  The figure wrenches the Kunai from her chakra’s grasp and then steps back a foot against the wall. Jumping up against the wall of the tunnel. Arata and Kurogane leap into the air preparing for the running battle.

  Metal shrapnel erupts from the tunnel walls bringing down large chunks of it down sealing a side tunnel ‘Madara’ attempted to dash into, pulled by Kurogane’s Chakra field. Holding up a single hand she holds up a single handed Tiger seal, the rebar and stone stuck with the twisting metal’s grasp seal the tunnel.

  Arata surges past her, kunai flashing towards the man’s back. The masked man seemed to shimmer and the kunai flicker past him and the baby as if he wasn’t truly there. All their attacks seemed to pass through him. Mangekyō's distortion warped and twisted the reality around the traitor, but even intangibility had limits so does an individual’s Chakra.

  Kurogane shifted tactics, drawing metal not at him but around him. A cage of spinning steel forced him to remain intangible longer than intended. The spinning metal dancing as if a puppet under Kurogane’s control. The slow trickle of a silvery rainbow from her eyes and heavy breaths are the only signs of wear on the Shinobi.

  Arata struck from blind angles, unable to perform his normal explosive performance that was his preferred method of killing. Arata simply darted in and out of the range of the intruder. Kunai and shurikin carved air. Covering for Kurogane as she finally makes her approach. Darting forward blade drawn in along her body. It licked out striking up into the intruder’s armpit. Blood finally splattered stone as Kurogane’s blade sliced through tendons under the shoulder at the precise instant his form solidified.

  The young baby slipped from his grasp. Arata dove, catching the babe against his stump and chest. In the same movement as he launched himself beneath ‘Madara’, he slammed a seal tag onto the masked man’s now limp arm. Ink flared to life, the expensive paper and ink burning aware as the seal penetrated both cloth and leather to the skin beneath. Arata’s Kanji along the paper glowed beneath the clothes of ‘Madara’ ; it was simple “Fūinjutsu: Wishful Dead.”

  The seal only partially activated before the masked man kicked Arata violently across the chamber but it was enough. Pain lanced through the intruder, his back arching slightly. The seal began draining chakra—mummifying flesh in a creeping script along the hand. Amplifying the pain as it turned his own chakra into a form of torture. Leaping away from the pair he withdrew another kunai and slipped it under his skin beneath the seal removing the partially activated seal. His eye flared wide as the script only slowly faded. “Impressive.”

  Space twisted as soon as Kunai left his hand heading directly at Kurogane, flicking her blade and it bounced off clattering against the stone. As the pair looked up to the tunnel. He had vanished. The seal flickered but was fading now that the flesh it had branded itself to was removed, the intruder was wounded but not finished.

  The pair held their guard as they turned to leave. Kurogane kept an eye behind them as they arrived at the end of the tunnel. They rushed inside, the room held two bodies within and one still alive on the prepared stone bed. Kushina lay collapsed. Her life force was dimming. Kurogane knelt instantly, pressing hands to Kushina’s abdomen, internal bleeding and her Chakra running rampant within due to the forceful release of the Biju.

  Arata placed Naruto gently beside her, the baby began to cry as it was placed down next to his mother, his arms reaching out. Kushina’s eyes fluttered open weakly. Her voice barely above a whisper as she took the effort to do something she might not have much time left for. “Naruto…”

  She forced breath through failing lungs. Before she slipped into unconsciousness. “My… Naruto…”