Prelude IV

6 Years Later

A slightly older Minato is making his way to the Hokage tower, after he was summoned by the sandaime. Minato was recently announced as one of the heros of the third great shinobi war for his efforts in pushing back the invading forces of the tsuchikage, he along with Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Mikoto, Hatake Kakashi, and the ANBU commander.

Minato was quickly ushered through the hokage tower and into the hokage's office, as he looks around he takes notice of the two men in the office watching him. Finishing taking in his surroundings he gives them a charming smile and rubs the back of his neck bashfully, before becoming serious and saying, "Namikaze Minato reporting Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen gives the man a gentle smile and says, "Relax Minato-kun, I have called you here along with the ANBU commander to congratulate you on your performance during the war, and to say that I have chosen my successor."

Minato's smile falls a little before he quickly masks it and asks, "Is that so Sandaime-sama? Who have you chosen if it is alright for me to ask?"

Hiruzen smiles a little wider and says, "Minato-kun I have chosen to make you my successor."

Minato is unable to keep the shocked look off of his face and takes a few seconds to recompose himself. After he successfully composes himself he says, "It would be an honor Hokage-sama. Is that why Kitsune-dono is in the room?"

Hiruzen's smile loses some of its warmth as he looks over to the other occupant of the room, his message clear to them all. So the ANBU Commander takes over the explanation saying, "I am here to inform you, Minato-kun, that I am in the process of retiring from the ANBU forces and it is customary for the hokage to pick the next ANBU commander. With Sandaime-sama passing on the position to you we have decided that you should be the main deciding factor on who the new commander should be. Do you understand so far?"

Minato answers by giving a quick nod of his head and saying, "That would be amazing, but I do not know most of the shinobi in the ANBU forces and it sounds like you would like the decision made soon. So am I to assume that you have candidates that I am to choose from."

The kitsune masked ANBU commander nodded his head pulling out three folders from a seal from his flak jacket and sets them open on the desk in front of Minato and Hiruzen. These three ANBU shinobi are of the best that I have to offer from my forces at the current moment, the first as you can see is current ANBU Captain Genma Shiranui, he has displayed himself well and has proved how adaptable he is in many situations. Personally I think I would rather have him remain in his current position as he is a better field worker and is a major reason for his squad's success. The next candidate that I would like to show you is ANBU captain Ibiki Morino, he currently is the head of the ANBU IT department. I believe that Ibiki has valuable experience that is already within his reach as a department head and this will lead into him to ease into this role more so than some of the other candidates. I also would like to recommend that he be allowed to continue on in the IT department as he is one of our top members in that area. The third and final candidate for my replacement would be one ANBU captain Mikoto Uchiha. Although a member of the ANBU she was the one I felt would be one of the best members to replace me and take over the position…"

"What do you mean that she was the one that you would have recommended the most? Is she no longer the best choice?" Minato asks.

Anthony looks at Minato for a moment before answering, "Sadly I was just informed by Mikoto that she would also be retiring from the ANBU forces as she has important duties that require her attention as the Uchiha matriarch. She also let me know a few more details that I'm sure will come to your attention at a later date. This leads me to suggest Ibiki Morino or ANBU captain kuma to take over as ANBU commander."

Minato looks at the two files and thinks for a few moments before nodding his head and saying, "I agree with Kitsune-dono, Ibiki Morino would be the best out of the two options to replace him. Now if you don't mind I have to get home and tell Kushina this awesome news, maybe this will be as great as the good news that she wanted to tell me about."

The two men across from him chuckle a little at the man's situation, both already knowing what the news was that Kushina wanted to tell him about.

"Well then you best hurry back to your wife Minato-kun, so that you can exchange your news to each other."

"I think I will hokage-sama, thanks again and have a good day hokage-sama, kitsune-dono."

Minato doesn't even wait to see any reactions from the other two men, before flashing away back to the Uzumaki-Namikaze estate to swap news with his wife.

Around Nine Months Later October 10th

In a secret cave five screams can be heard, three of which are newly born children and the other two well one was from Kushina from extreme pain and exertion. The other was from Minato who had the unfortunate pleasure of having his left hand crushed from Kushina's extreme grip and trying to maintain the kyuubi's seal. The three children in order of birth are a boy with tan skin who facial features seem to come from his father, although he does have his mother's eyes and small tufts of blonde hair mixed with slight red at the tips. The second child was a girl who seemed to almost have the same tanned skin and obviously takes after mother's facial features, but has Minato's bright blue eyes with crimson tufts of hair with blond at the tips. The third and final child was also a boy that had facial features from both parents, although his eyes were the same as his father's and he had small tufts of pure blonde hair on his head. Minato and Kushina named them in order, Menma Nawaki Uzumaki-Namikaze, Mito Ria Namikaze-Uzumaki, and Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze.

A/N: I'm going to skip the part where the masked man comes and forces Minato to save the children and allowing him to capture Kushina and releasing the Kyuubi from the seal this part will remain the same as in canon, but with two additional children. I am picking back up after Kushina is able to capture the Kyuubi in her chains.

In the open field with Minato, Kushina, and their children

Kushina is holding the kyuubi back with her chakra chains even though she is close to collapsing from her exhaustion, while Minato is staring down the masked man, who appeared in the tree line, with his children behind him. Kushina knowing what Minato is planning is trying to talk him out of it only for a bright yellow flash to appear between the two next to the children. Which immediately has both parents on edge until they see the man who appeared from said flash.

"Anthony? I didn't know you knew the Hiraishin. Anyway that's besides the point I need you to protect us from the masked man while I perform a sealing ceremony to seal the kyuubi into my children."

"Minto do you plan to use the shiki fuin?" Minato replies with a grim nod, so Anthony continues, "I'm sorry then I can not allow you to do that."

"What do you mean you can not allow me to perform the sealing? It must be done to protect the village! Don't tell me you are on the masked man's side!?"

"I would never harm this village, Minato. The reason I can not allow you to perform the sealing is the village has lost one hokage already this night, it can not afford to lose another. I have already lost my father there is no way I will let you throw your life away too."

Minato is hurt when he hears the third passed away, but then his eyes narrow when he hears the second part of what Anthony says. "What do you mean you won't let me throw my life away, why would it harm you the same as when you lost your father?"

Anthony's eyes widen a little, but he sighs and says, "I can't let you do that because you are my son, Minato." Everyone's eyes widen at this before Anthony continues, "But that is not the reason I can not let you do this Minato, I can not really be considered a father to you anyway for all the pain and suffering I put you through. No, I can not allow you to do this because you would be putting your children through the same pain that I put you through. Let me start the process of redeeming myself by sealing the kyuubi."

He doesn't allow Minato time to respond before he starts running through hand seals and shouting out, "Uzumaki Style: Eight Trigrams Sealing Technique" With his jutsu cast the kyuubi is slowly being absorbed into his body and mixing with the part of the kyuubi that was sealed into him when Mito had passed the burden onto him and Kushina. He allowed the unsealed conscious mix with the sealed conscious inside of him as he balanced the amount of yin and yang chakra before passing parts of the kyuubi's chakra onto the triplets.

"What did you just do?" asked Minato and Kushina at the same time.

Anthony fell to his knees tiredly taking deep breaths before answering them, "I held some of the kyuubi when Mito passed it on to both me and Kushina, but I was able to communicate with the kyuubi inside of my seal. This allowed me to allow us to become on better terms, I would almost go as far as calling us close friends. Well for the seal I absorbed the full amount of kyuubi's chakra and allowed the part of kyuubi's consciousness inside of me absorb the power and consciousness of the one being sealed therefore giving the children a chance of having the kyuubi as an ally. As this was happening, I balanced out the chakra so that I was passing on equal amounts of the kyuubi's yin and yang chakra before sealing it and a portion of the kyuubi's consciousness into the children. The chakra should be able to regenerate enough to make each of them as powerful as if they were all jinchuuriki of the kyuubi, but the seal will not be broken unless all four of us are defeated and the the kyuubi released from all four of us at the same time." He took one more deep breath before falling to the ground unconscious.

Minato looked at his wife who seemed to have recovered during Anthony's explanation, but still looked as confused as he did. He shook his head so that he could focus on the matters at hand he scanned the surrounding area and after finding no sign of the masked man walked over towards his family creating four clones, he grabbed his wife while the clones grabbed a child each and the last one grabbing Anthony. After making sure everyone was secured and safe, he used the Hiraishin to flash back to his house to allow everyone to rest before flashing away to calm the others of the village.