I'm mostly just putting this up for now to see what kind of a reaction I get. I plan to finish it, but I may or may not wait until I'm done to continue posting. (Just depends on if you guys want to read more or not.

There are three OCs in this story, and many more are mentioned, but those three are the main ones.

Going by the names used in this first tiny section only, the dialogue for the first have goes as follows: Shino, Karura, Minato, Itachi, Shikamaru, Shino, Shikamaru, Shino, Itachi, Minato, Itachi, Minato, Karura. (Shino and Shikamaru are canon, the other three are the OCs. It'll make sense very shortly.)

I'm going to put up the second chapter as well because they're both necessary to get a feel for the story. Beyond that, it really depends on the feedback I get.

So, enough of my rambling.

Enjoy!

Sunadokei
Chapter 1

"You're sure about this? Karura? Minato? Itachi?"

"Yes, Shino-sensei."

"We already sent Kakashi-jiji back. If we don't get going soon, we'll be erased along with everyone else."

"Hey... Sensei? Can you tell Tousan I'm sorry for leaving like this?"

"You should have told him yourself..."

"Shikamaru."

"But I get it. You don't have the time... We'll tell him. Get going, you three."

"And be careful. If Kakashi doesn't succeed..."

"We know, Shino-sensei. We went over it a hundred times. Maybe more."

"Mostly because Kakashi-jiji was likely to forget."

"Minato!"

"Well, it's the truth!"

"Oi! Minato, Itachi! You two coming or not?"

The two men laughed, looked at the older men, then turned and ran over to their female companion, who was standing in the center of a very large, very complex seal. The woman was already flashing through hand signs, the seal starting to glow, brighter and brighter as she continued.

Then the light shone bright enough to blind the two bystanders before finally fading away.

The trio and the seal were gone.

*-.-*-.-*-.-*-.-*

Four people were crouched in a tree. The eldest and only adult, a blonde, was blinking as he looked at a prone figure lying on the ground.

"You've got to be kidding me," the dark-haired of the two boys with him said.

"Oh boy..." the other boy muttered, his hair silver.

"It's an old man," the dark-haired boy said.

"Here we go," the lone female groaned.

"We came all the way out here... Because of an old man?!"

The adult sighed, looked off in a random direction that was not the dark-haired boy's, and started counting silently.

"I thought we were out here to investigate a chakra spike? I don't care how great a ninja you are, no old man is gonna have enough chakra to be noticed all the way out here from Konoha!"

"And no self-respecting ninja would be yelling that loudly in the presence of someone who may or may not also be a ninja."

All four of the ninja in the tree looked down at the old man in surprise as he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. The blonde dropped down to the ground not far from the man and walked up to him cautiously. The other three followed his lead after a moment.

"Are you from around here, ojiisan?" he asked, kneeling next to him. The man groaned.

"I know I'm old, but you don't have to rub it in my face. Karura, Itachi and Mina—humph... They're bad enough," the man grumbled, seemingly cutting off the last of the names he'd been listing. "And it was all Neku's fault. Ah well. My name's Hyosuke. Hayashi Hyosuke."

"Namikaze Minato," the blonde said simply, still looking a bit bothered. "You're... a retired ninja?"

Hyosuke snorted. "Retired... Nice joke, kid. No such thing as retired in a war. Which is why I'm here, and not at home in Amegakure."

Minato frowned. "You're not wearing a hitai-ate," he said. Hyosuke nodded.

"Never said I was on a mission. If I am, it's a self-assigned one."

"You're a nuke-nin?" the dark-haired boy asked. Hyosuke looked up at him and blinked rather lazily... with his right eye. Now that his white hair had shifted a bit, Minato could see that the left eye was covered with an eye patch, and there was a rather nasty scar running down his cheek.

"If you're going to be rude asking questions like that, you might as well offer up a name," Hyosuke drawled. The boy looked sheepish.

"Ah... Obito. I'm Uchiha Obito."

"Um, I'm finding it a bit suspicious that we're trusting him," the silver-haired boy said. Obito looked at him angrily.

"It's called being polite, Bakashi!"

"Polite... like you aren't being?" the girl muttered.

Minato sighed and stood. "I'm sorry for this, Hayashi-san, but Kakashi brings up a good point..."

Hyosuke shrugged. "So what are you going to do? I was just trying to find someplace to settle down and pretend I'm not a ninja."

Minato crossed his arms, looking down at the old man quietly for a few minutes before he sighed, putting a hand on the girl's head. "This is Nohara Rin. That's Hatake Kakashi," he said, nodding toward the silver-haired boy. "We're a team from Konohagakure, though I'm sure you've already figured that out. We came out here under orders to investigate a chakra spike, and you're the only person we've found. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come back with us."

Hyosuke sighed, overdramatically, Minato noticed, and stood up. "Lead the way, then."

Minato glanced down at Kakashi, who stepped into a position relatively behind the old man, while Rin and Obito quietly flanked him.

The blonde started walking, then, realizing that the old man wasn't quite as harmless as he looked, he sped up until they were running, before deciding to take to the trees.

He found it rather suspicious that the elderly man seemed to have no difficulty whatsoever keeping up with them as they jumped from tree branch to tree branch.

"So, what's Amegakure like?"

"Obito!" Rin scolded. Hyosuke chuckled.

"Rainy. It is constantly raining," he said. He looked over at Rin. "And there's nothing wrong with curiosity."

"Except when he won't shut up," Kakashi grumbled from the back.

"How long have you been a ninja, Hayashi-san?" Minato asked. Hyosuke snorted.

"More than twice as long as you've been alive."

Minato turned his head just enough for Hyosuke to see his raised eyebrow. "You don't look twenty-eight to me," Hyosuke added.

Rin's eyes were wide. "Fifty-six years? That's a long time! How old are you, anyway?"

Hyosuke chuckled. "Old. Extremely old. I'm good at what I do, and I'm lucky. It's a very good, very lucky ninja who lives past sixty."

"Again... We're trusting him, why?" Kakashi asked.

"You're starting to sound like a pessimist... Does that make you the optimist?" Hyosuke asked, looking at Obito. The Uchiha chuckled a bit and nodded. "That having been said... If you feel like tying me up and carrying me would serve you better, feel free. I'm rather a bit tired of fighting, thank you."

Minato frowned, but focused on their destination. Maybe it would be a good idea to get the old man into the Torture and Interrogation Department as soon as possible...

"So if we drop you into T&I, you'd cooperate?"

Minato groaned, and Hyosuke chuckled. "Somehow, I had a feeling that would come up. I just hope they don't feel up to the 'T' part of that too much. I'll talk, happily. Not like I know anything that's going to help, but I've got nothing to hide. Nothing like that, anyway... I might refrain from disclosing some of my hobbies... Never mind. I'm starting to ramble. Karura says I do that too much..."

"Who's Karura? Your granddaughter?" Obito asked. Hyosuke was silent, and Minato glanced back, noticing the troubled look on his face.

"Not really. I've only ever had one Genin team. My students... The girl married one of the boys, and the other married another girl, and they both had sons about the same time. Those two got put on the same team as the daughter of one of their friends. The boys had gotten into the habit of calling me 'Jiji'... it rubbed off on Karura. It was actually kind of nice. I never got a chance... to have a family of my own," Hyosuke said.

"What happened?" Rin asked quietly. Hyosuke shrugged.

"War. War happened. Karura, her teammates, their siblings... I felt for their sensei. He got trapped in the same position I'd been in. No family, just three kids around the same age his would have been if he'd married and had a child before the woman he loved died," he said quietly, seemingly getting lost in his thoughts. He seemed to be following Minato on pure reflex now, which baffled the blonde even more. "Karura told me to leave. She gave me the means to do so. No one will miss me. I just hope they got out in time too."

Minato almost missed the next branch. "Her team deserted too?"

Hyosuke sighed. "They hadn't originally planned on telling me, but I kinda walked in on them trying to smooth some things over. Itachi was the one to decide to trust me, to talk Karura into helping me get out. But... I left before they did. If their plan worked, no one will notice that the four of us left..."

Minato was quiet for a few moments before he dropped back down to the ground, onto a road. "Come on. We might as well head in through the gates."

He glanced at Hyosuke, who, despite seeming no worse for the wear than the three kids, was having a slightly harder time breathing than he had earlier. He didn't look all that pleased about this, but he also didn't seem too put out by it, either. Minato figured it had to do with the fact that he knew he was old enough to be tiring easily and wasn't happy about it.

The blonde led the older man and the three kids through the streets of Konoha quietly, glancing back once in a while to see Hyosuke looking around, like he was trying to see all of the village at once. That faint expression of wonder told Minato volumes.

"Rin, Obito, Kakashi, go on ahead and tell Sandaime we found him. I'll take Hayashi-san to T&I," Minato said, stopping not far from a building bearing the kanji for 'fire'. The three kids looked up at him, then at Hyosuke, before sighing and continuing on toward the building. Minato steered Hyosuke in another direction.

'A ninja, albeit one who deserves to be retired, who seems to be used to tree-jumping even though there aren't many around Amegakure, who doesn't seem to want to do anything except get away from war... And what caused that chakra spike?'

Minato's mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and questions he wasn't sure he wanted answered when he reached the building housing the Torture and Interrogation Department.

Minato stopped, then—reluctantly, he would admit to himself later—and turned toward Hyosuke. "This is it..."

Hyosuke nodded, then allowed a small smile to grace his lips. Encouragement for a younger ninja who wasn't so sure of his path, Minato realized as he took a deep breath and led the old man inside, unable to meet his eyes.

Two figures stepped out of the shadows, and Minato paused, Hyosuke coming to a stop beside him. The taller, older figure crossed his arms. "I take it he's the source of the chakra flare?"

Minato nodded. "Beren, Ibiki... This is Hayashi Hyosuke. Hayashi-san, Beren is the head of T&I, Ibiki is training to take over for him," he introduced the three men.

The younger man, who looked to be in his late teens, frowned, but Beren nodded almost imperceptibly toward Minato.

"We'll take care of him. If you would, Hayashi-san," he said, gesturing for the elderly man to follow him further in.

Hyosuke was soon seated in an interrogation room across from Ibiki.

"You might want to bring a Yamanaka in here. I'm willing to tell you the truth, but you won't believe me if I do," Hyosuke said as Ibiki sorted out the forms he was supposed to be trying to fill out during the questioning.

Ibiki glance up at him suspiciously before picking up a pen. "I'll be the one to decide that. Now, why don't we start with your age?"

"I'd have thought you would want to start with my name."

Ibiki watched the man carefully, and while he wasn't looking at the teen, he was also completely relaxed. So far, at least.

"Very well. Is your name Hayashi Hyosuke?"

"No."

Ibiki raised an eyebrow. "Is Minato aware of this?"

"No, and for good reason."

"I'll determine that. Name and age, if you would."

"Hatake Kakashi, age sixty."

Ibiki stared.