I was born screaming, though I did not yet understand what pain was. The first sensation that tore through me was not cold, not hunger, and not even the touch of flesh, but hatred. It was raw and suffocating, heavy as iron chains around my chest, and it had been with me long before I drew my first breath. Something ancient and furious had reached out across the void to touch my soul, and I recoiled instinctively, sensing its dark intentions. Even now, in these earliest moments of awareness, I knew that I had been set apart from the ordinary, from the other children of this world, from my twin who lay just a few paces away, wailing in innocence that I did not yet share.
The room around me was chaos incarnate. Figures moved frantically, their faces hidden behind masks and expressions I could not see, but their movements conveyed a terror I would never forget. Air filled with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid smoke of fires burning somewhere beyond the walls. The building itself trembled as though it understood the violence outside and sought to flee. Through the commotion, the roar came again, deep and resonant, vibrating through the floor beneath me, shaking the very air in the room, a sound that no human being should ever hear without being broken. I did not yet know its name, but my body recognized it instantly, clawing at me, urging me to fight or flee, though I was too small to do either.
A hand touched me then, cold and urgent, and lifted me into the air. I blinked up at a figure whose face I could barely make out, golden hair catching the flickering light. His eyes widened as they fell on me, registering something terrible, something that made him hesitate. In that pause, the darkness within me swelled. I did not cry as my twin did. I did not wail or squirm. Instead, I felt the pull of the chakra, the raw, untamed essence of the world's most destructive force brushing against me, and I welcomed it without knowing why. The air hummed with power, and in response, my tiny body shivered and coiled instinctively around it.
The name Naruto reached me even before I understood its significance, whispered by a man whose golden hair glinted even in the shadows, and who cradled the other newborn with hands trembling in fear and awe. Minato Namikaze. The Fourth Hokage. My father in this life, though I did not yet know him, though I had no concept of family. He looked at my twin with love, worry, and hope, while his eyes flicked to me with something else entirely. Fear, perhaps. Or recognition of a danger he could not yet name. My soul, alien and ancient, recoiled and stirred at his gaze, understanding something he did not: the imbalance he sensed would shape the course of our lives in ways that no human could control.
He did not touch me again, not immediately. Instead, he spoke softly, almost to himself, though every word echoed in the chamber as if the air itself feared it. "This one... the chakra... it's wrong." His voice was quiet, but in it I heard the tension of a man who carries the weight of a village on his shoulders, a man who knows that a single choice can mean life or death for thousands. His hands never left Naruto, yet his gaze remained fixed on me, on the tiny body that shivered in the seal arrays etched across the floor by trembling fingers that sought to contain what could not be tamed.
The seals burned against my flesh, yet it was nothing like pain as I would later know it. This was something older, deeper a connection to the vast, raging power that had claimed me before I was born. The Nine-Tails. I did not yet have the words for it, but I understood the essence of the beast in a way my twin never would. While he would grow up craving love and recognition, I would learn that power is not given; it is taken, clawed from the darkness, and held fast with hands that never tremble. And so I accepted the flood of chakra that was forced into me, a torrent that set my body alight with sensations I could neither name nor resist. My scream tore through the room, a sound so unnatural that even the seasoned shinobi around us flinched, yet I felt no fear. Only anticipation. Only hunger. Only the knowledge that my path had been chosen before I could even cry for comfort.
Minato's face was pale as he knelt beside me, moving with deliberate care to ensure that the excess chakra did not crush me entirely. His lips moved silently, forming words I could not hear, and yet I felt the rhythm, the intent. He was trying to save me, though he did not understand that in trying to control what I carried, he had already marked the path that would separate me from the world he loved. He turned briefly to Kushina, whose own energy flared weakly, a flickering candle in the storm. "It's too much," he whispered, voice trembling despite his calm exterior. "If we seal it entirely in him, it could kill both of them. The balance... it's broken."
Kushina's cry was sharp, filled with desperation and fear. "No! He's just a baby! He's still so small!" But Minato shook his head. "I know. That is why I must contain it carefully. This is not mercy. This is survival. For the village. For them. For us." He returned his gaze to me, and in his eyes, I saw the first hint of what I would one day call regret. Not sorrow, exactly, but the understanding that my life would be a series of choices forced upon me by others, and that I would carry the consequences long after their voices had faded.
I felt the seal tighten, a lattice of glowing chakra that burned without consuming, restraining without killing. The Nine-Tails' power surged within me, but I did not resist. Resistance was for those too weak to survive, and I had already understood that survival was not enough. I wanted more. I wanted control. I wanted recognition of what I was, even if no one else would see it. I welcomed the beast into my consciousness, felt its wild thoughts brushing against my own, its hunger licking at the edges of my mind. It was not malevolent in the way humans define the term. It was pure force, pure instinct, a creature born to destroy and dominate. And in that raw essence, I found... kinship.
Minato's hands worked quickly, drawing seals in patterns meant to contain me, to stabilize the transfer. He muttered incantations under his breath, words heavy with meaning and desperation, weaving lines of energy into a web that shimmered against the dim light of the room. He worked with precision, with the skill of a man who had mastered every technique known to his kind, yet even his mastery was strained against what I contained. A single miscalculation, a slight falter, and I could have unleashed the fury that the Nine-Tails offered freely, obliterating everything in this room, everything in this village, and possibly the world beyond. Yet I did not act. Not yet.
For the first time, I understood the power of patience. Even now, in the cradle of infancy, I learned that control was not instinctive. It was earned, and sometimes it required watching the world burn before moving a single finger. I let the energy course through me, hot and intoxicating, feeling every vibration, every surge, every pulse of raw life and death in this newborn body. And with each passing moment, I felt a bond form not with my twin, not with the villagers, not even with my parents but with the force that had chosen me as its host. I did not yet name it. I did not yet understand the consequences. But I knew instinctively that it was mine, and that it would follow me through every moment of my existence.
Hours passed in a blur of sound, motion, and sensation. I do not yet know how long it was before I felt calm, before the flood subsided into a steady hum beneath my consciousness. By then, the village had been torn apart in places, fires still smoldering, screams still echoing faintly through the corridors. My twin slept, swaddled in protective seals that would one day become a source of strength, a vessel for hope. And I... I remained awake, not from fear, not from hunger, not from pain, but from understanding.
The world had made its first mistake in giving me life. The second mistake would be in underestimating me. And as I opened my eyes fully for the first time, letting the dim light of the room fall across my tiny, fragile face, I made a choice. Not consciously, not yet, but in the marrow of my bones, in the beating of my infant heart, in the stirrings of a soul older than the village itself. I would not be like him. I would not follow the path of hope, of smiles, of acceptance. I would walk another road, one paved in shadow, one fueled by power, one that would leave its mark on every soul foolish enough to stand in my way.
And in that moment, beneath the cries of the Nine-Tails, beneath the fear of my parents, beneath the chaos that consumed Konoha, I smiled.
Not as a child, not as a brother, not as a human, but as something new. Something dangerous. Something unstoppable.
The twin who became a villain had been born.