A/N

A bit of background on this story. I came up with the idea for this story after Naruto killed some of the members of the Elder Council during his fight against Pain, so it's set after that. As a consequence of killing the elders Naruto was banished and there was no 4th Great Ninja War as he went into hiding. As such the political landscape of the Five Great Nations has not changed and they are not allied with each other. Other changes shall be revealed in time.

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Minato had been planning for this for a while and now was finally the time to put his plan into action. He was leaving Onigakure, his hometown. He got up, out of his bed at midnight, as the clouds covered the moon. He put on his black zip-off pants and a dark blue shirt and sandals the same style as his father's. As a last step he donned a pair of grey goggles. He then tiptoed through the house and whispered, "See ya sis'," as he passed his twin's room. He then crept noiselessly through the rest of the house. He made his way through the village using the backstreets to avoid the patrols that his father had started after he became leader of their village.

Once he had reached the gates he noticed the two guards sitting at the registration desk. They were asleep. Minato wasn't going to take any chances though and crawled right next to the desk so that they wouldn't see him if they managed to wake up in time to stop him. Once he was out of the gates he stood back up and trotted off, headed to a little known path through the mountain range separating the Land of Demons and the Land of Wolves, intending to cut around the Land of Wind. Before he could even take one step on the path a bolt of lightning struck the path and when he could see properly again Minato saw the last person that he would have expected. He exclaimed "Tōchan!?" his father didn't say a word, instead letting his cloak flap in the wind. "There's a really good explanation for this."

His father raised his right eyebrow as if to say, 'Really? I highly doubt that!'

"Yeah. You see, Azumi-chan dared me to find some nightshade and there's this patch in the next vall…"

Minato's father sighed and said, "You'll really have to do better than that to pull one over on the jōnin of Konoha."

"The…of…uhh…." Minato stepped backwards as he said, "Konoha? What are you saying? Why would I be…"

Minato's father sighed and said, "Did you really think that your mother and I wouldn't notice?"

"Well, you're so busy and…"

Minato's father sighed and said, "I've known that you'd do this since I told you that story years ago."

Minato exclaimed, "Seriously!? But then why…?"

"You need to have your own experiences. I won't get in the way of that. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean I can just let you go off by yourself like this."

"Then you have come to stop me."

"No Minato. I haven't." Minato's father tapped a spot on his cloak and threw a pile of cloth to Minato, who caught it as it flew through the air.

Minato said, "What is…?" as he moved the fabric through his hands until it was the right way up. "This is!" and flung himself into his father, hugging him for the last time for at least a few years.

His father laughingly said, "Put it on," as he let his son down. As Minato put his new cloak on his father continued, "It's the same style as mine, but the main colour is black and the flames are crimson."

"Thank you! I…I…"

"You don't need to say anything. But I would like you to give me all of your Onigakure-style weapons."

"My…Why?"

"Because," Minato's father sighed, "You can't have anything that can be traced back to here. Otherwise you could be arrested, or maybe even something worse."

"Well…alright…but how will I…?"

"Don't worry about that. That cloak is fully sealed and has generic kunai and shuriken as well as a tantō, not that it would do you much good.

"Okay thanks, but wouldn't this be able to be traced here?" Minato asked, fingering his coat.

"No. It may be able to be traced back to me, but the materials used in it were acquired from a Land of Fire textile merchant. So there's no need to be concerned on that account."

"Well, alright then. Thanks Tōchan," Minato said, handing the weapons that he had packed to his father before waving farewell and walking along the trail.

Once he had watched Minato disappear, Naruto went back to the gates and found that they were still asleep. Naruto narrowed his eyes and shrugged as he thought, 'Well, something has to be done,' and tapped the desk that the guards were sitting at, inscribing a seal in front of both guards before heading back to the house that he shared with his pregnant wife and daughter.

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About a month later Minato staggered into view of the gates of Konoha, not having been able to find food for the last three days and not drinking for the last two. As he passed the guards at the gate, one of them said, "Name and reason for being in Konoha?" Minato completely ignored them in his desire for proper sustenance and kept on walking.

The second guard called out, "Hey! Hey kid!" Minato didn't hear him so the guard got up and leapt over the desk and said, "Hey, wait up a sec would ya. What's your na…" putting his hand on Minato's shoulder. "...me!" and cried out in pain as Minato grabbed the hand off of his shoulder and bit into it, with his mouth watering, seeing it as food. The guard chopped Minato in the back of his neck with his other hand, knocking him out, to stop the boy from eating his hand.

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Minato groaned as he woke up and tried to rub his eyes of the sleep dust in them, but found that he couldn't. He then tried to force his arm up and heard a clanking noise but still couldn't move himself. He then opened his eyes and found that he was looking at a ceiling made up of many white panels. He thought, 'This room looks just like…but I left Onigakure over a month ago, so…' Minato tried to turn onto his side to look out the window, but ended up only able to turn his head. When he had done so he saw not the mountains that he was used to seeing through a hospital window, but a field of grass edged by a bright garden filled with orchids of many colours. It was bounded by a chicken wire fence separating it from the tree-filled Hidden Village. He realised that he must have made it somehow, though the last days of his trip were slightly fuzzy.

He heard a voice say, "You're up!" from the other side of his bed. He turned to look after them as they left, but he only got to see a flick of pink hair fly behind the doctor(?) that had clearly been looking after him.

Minato said to himself, "Well, there's care for ya!" Five minutes later the pink haired medic came back into the room with a blue haired woman that had her hair in the same style as his mother's, but this lady had pale lavender eyes. Minato said, "Uh…hi," and grinned fox-like.

For some reason the sudden urge to inflict mass amounts of pain on her patient descended over the medic-nin, who said, "Hi. My name's Sakura and I'm the doctor that's been looking after you for the last few days."

"Days!?" Minato exclaimed. "How long was I out for?"

"Technically it's about forty hours, but two nights have passed since you got here."

"Seriously?!" Minato almost shrieked. "Normally I'm out of these places in a couple of hours."

"Hours?"

"Yeah," Minato grinned, "I heal real quick," causing that urge to wash over Sakura even stronger than before.

"Is that so?" Sakura asked, writing something down on whatever was on her cliplboard.

"Yeah. Otōsan told me that lying to female doctors is bad for my health."

"Is that so?" the blue haired woman said.

"Yeah. I asked him why once and he told me that he had this brute of a teammate."

"Oh? Is that so?" the blue haired woman said, seeing the tick mark appearing on her friend's forehead.

"Yeah. I asked my Mum what she thought of that teammate since it seemed to be a bit of a sore point with Otōsan and she told me that Otōsan's teammate was a brain-dead banshee."

Sakura shouted, "SHANNARRROOOOO!" as she slammed her fist into Minato's stomach, getting terrified of the consequences that she would be facing as she saw Minato's face contort in pain. That was quickly replaced by anger as the patient that she just punched exploded into many red and black orchids.

The blue haired woman started to laugh as pink chakra roiled around her friend, visible evidence of her rage. Sakura said, "Hinata! Where is he?"

Hinata sighed and said, "No Sakura, I'm not going to let you go off and kill him. Remember, Hokage-sama has put him under my care. Besides, you're on call."

Sakura grunted before sighing and saying, "Fine," the chakra fading away. "Make sure he gets back here."

"Alright," Hinata said, activating her Byakugan as she leapt through the window.

XXXXX

Meanwhile, Minato had followed his nose to a ramen stand near a big building with the symbol for fire plastered above it. When he felt his clone's memories return to him upon its destruction he said, "Yūkaku Bunshin no Tenjou," confusing the ramen stand owners more than his ordering eight bowls of extra-large miso-pork ramen with extra narutomaki causing the owner, Ichiraku Ayame, to have tears well up in her eyes.

XXXXXXX

A/N

Attacks

Minato

Yūkaku Bunshin no Tenjou: Orchid Clone of the Heavens

A physical clone that uses one or more flowers charged with chakra to create. It explodes into many flowers, of the type(s) used in its creation, when struck, providing a useful smokescreen