MINATO DEATH

Many fans around the world are still wondering about the real circumstances of the Fourth Hokage’s death. 

Occurred just before the beginning of the story of the manga Naruto, Minato died in episode 249 of Naruto Shippuden while protecting his son and the village from Nine-Tails’ attack.

However, although Minato’s Death is one of the most horrible death scenes to watch, it still remains one of the most interesting event to analyze as it will trigger all the different aspects of the future of Naruto which we will detail in the rest of this article. So let’s see together how did Minato die!

HOW DID THE 4TH HOKAGE DIE ?

NARUTO’S BIRTH

Kushina, Minato’s wife, is pregnant with Naruto and is about to give birth in episode 247 of Naruto Shippuden. Being the Jinchuriki of Kyuubi, the village of Konoha has to take important precautions to prepare for this act. Indeed, the Tailed Beasts are locked inside the Jinchurikis with Sealing style techniques in order to protect the hosts from the power of the beasts inside their bodies. However, these tend to lose their power and be at their weakest during childbirth, that’s why it is clearly a very sensitive period to deal with.

 

Minato, who became Fourth Hokage after Hiruzen Sarutobi at this period, prepared for every issue and had Kushina transported to a secret location so that she could discreetly give birth to her son.

Unfortunately, Tobi discovers the hidden place and bursts inside during childbirth and steals Naruto from the hands of the Hokage, preventing him from re-forming the seal of Kushina. In a critical situation, Minato is forced to teleport himself with his Flying Rajin jutsu in order to put his newborn child to safety.

Gotten rid of the Yellow Flash, Tobi takes advantage of the Jinchuriki’s seal being weakened to free Nine Tails from Kushina’s body. He then succeeds in controlling the giant beast thanks to the power of his Sharingan.

 

After having ensured the safety of his son, Minato comes back to the battlefield and saves his wife who was about to be killed by Kurama under the influence of Tobi. Learning that Tobi’s objective was to destroy the Hidden Leaf with Nine Tails, Minato takes Kushina home to Naruto and prepares himself mentally for the upcoming fight while he gets his famous Hokage Cloak.

 

TOBI ATTACKS THE LEAF

Taking no break, Obito travels to Konoha and summons Nine Tails right inside of the village. 

 

While every shinobi is requested to help with the situation, Minato teleports on the Hokage Mountain to take an overall view of the situation. Sneaking behind him, Tobi attacks Minato from his back which forces the Fourth Hokage to teleport himself away to avoid the attack. 

TOBI VS MINATO

Tobi joins Minato outside the village and then begins one of the most mythical fights of the Naruto series, Minato vs Tobi. Both Shinobis are using their best techniques to beat their opponent, but it is finally the famous Yellow Flash of the Hidden Leaf who finally manages to strike the fatal blow with his Rasengan and succeeds in branding him with a Flying Thunder God seal.

 

With this seal attached to his opponent’s body, Minato is now able to teleport freely to Tobi whenever he wants. So to release Nine-Tails from his control, Minato uses a contract seal on his opponent which blocks any direct control the summoner has over a summoned creature. Tobi losing this advantage is forced to flee.

MINATO VS NINE TAILS

As Nine-Tails was about to destroy Konoha with a Tailed Beast Ball, Minato managed to return to the village and teleport him outside, close to where Naruto and Kushina were. However, this last technique used up most of his chakra which forced Kushina to take over thanks to his Adamantine Sealing Chains.  

But Kushina is dying. Indeed, when a Jinchuriki loses his tailed beast, his/her death his unavoidable. That’s why she proposed to her husband to seal Nine-Tails inside her again and die with him, but Minato rejected this alternative. 

The Fourth Hokage thought that Kyuubi’s power could be useful in the future. So he decided to make Naruto the new Nine-Tails Jinchuriki and seal a part of Kushina’s and his memory inside of Naruto as well. However, Kyuubi’s amount of chakra was too much to be sealed inside an infant, so Minato had to use the Death Reaper Seal to separate Nine-Tails chakra in half. The Yang part will go to Naruto and the Ying part will be sealed inside of him.

Using the Death Reaper Seal allows the user to seal any entity inside himself, but the price to pay is heavy, a horrible death where his soul will remain forever trapped inside the Shinigami‘s stomach, with no possibility of reaching the afterworld. 

MINATO AND KUSHINA’S DEATH

After the first part of his plan completed, Minato had now to seal the second half part of Kyuubi inside his son with the eight trigrams seal. However, Nine Tails, noticing Minato’s plan, launches an attack on Naruto and tries to kill him. 

The denouement is bloody and resulting in the death of Kushina and Minato, impaled by the claws of Nine Tails, using their own bodies as shields to save their son. 

With their last moments, both parents told their son their last words of love and wished him to stay strong as his life will definitely not be easy. Then Minato sealed the other half of Kyuubi inside of Naruto while sealing some of his wife as well. When Naruto will need some assistance someday to learn how to control his Bijuu, her chakra will activate to help him with his task. He then sealed some of his chakra inside of his son that should activate if ever the seal was about to be broken so that he could restore it directly.  

 

Ultimately, he asked the Third Hokage to protect his son and keep his identity as much secret as possible. If people knew that he was his son, his life could be in danger, which the Third agreed to. With those final words, the Death God ate the last part of Minato’s soul and ends his life.  

Fourth Hokage Death

What a horrible ending for both Naruto’s parents. Kushina and the Fourth Hokage die in episode 249 of Naruto Shippuden while protecting their child from Nine-Tails.

They left behind them an orphan and their death will coordinate the next events of Naruto’s life.