I hate this story but I'll put it up anyway. Please review and let me know what you think. I had to let all you guys know about my Naruto binge and my eternal devotion to Minato faints, what can I say? I love him!

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Minato felt his eyes creak open. The darkness that he now called the 'sky' was still swirling in its never ceasing, infinite complexity, like lamp oil thrown on black eel-infested water. He could feel the dark around him pulling at his soul. It was the only thing he could feel, being too dark to see, too silent to hear and odourless to his nose, and even then the feeling was limited, not a feeling as in a touch but instead a feeling of the heart. Not that emptiness was much of a feeling, he mused, the only thing he could do in this senseless realm.

As was now a habit every time he 'woke up' from what felt like a state somewhere between sleep and death, he wondered how much time had passed since his battle with the Kyuubi? What had become of his son? Had Konoha lived to tell of more battles? What about his students and friends? What about his people? Who was hokage now? What if no time had passed at all? What if the world he once thought he lived in was just one big part of his imagination? What if the only thing that ever actually existed was 'here'? Where was 'here' exactly?

'If it was a world in my imagination I hope I find my way back there again' he thought as the smile of the girl he had loved flitted into his mind, and something he vaguely recognised as an emotion brought tears to what he remembered were called eyes in that place. Her touch had felt so real, his pain of loosing her felt so real and his wonderment and thoughts felt real too. It was just himself that felt wrong, floating in a place that he didn't think he belonged in.

'If this is what the death god did to me...I don't think I like him anymore' he thought. He began to drift off, the image of two arms for some reason were floating around in his head, along with the face of someone he was fairly sure he'd seen before, someone who looked like a snake...

He wished with all his heart that he could see all those faces again, feel his senses burning with sights and sounds of that village. He wanted to know everything. Instead it was like he knew nothing. For the first time in this abstract existence, Minato tried to speak to the darkness he felt.

"Will I ever get out of here?" Surprised at his own voice, as croaky and unused as it was, still rang clear in his ears. He floated in shock for a moment, amused at his own ability to speak and wonderment in the fact that he'd never tried to talk before.

The emptiness began to pull away from him, as if he was now something to be feared. "Why didn't I try to talk before? Something is clogging up my brain..." The dark shrank away again. Suddenly he felt a rasping breath, flow over him.

"S-Shinigami...?" He called, recognizing the breath that had been the last thing he had sensed in the world of the living.

'The world of the living?' The darkness pulled away even further. That reality felt very real now.

"Shut up!" The raspy voice called.

"Why? Tell me Shinigami." Minato felt himself answer.

"Your thoughts clog up my senses! Enough with your babbling!"

"Then let me out of here!" There were tears running down his cheeks.

There was no answer. The breath he could feel had stopped but the dark water around him still felt like it was draining away. His skin hit something solid and he looked around.

His eyes took a moment to adjust but there above him was the sun, and the sky with clouds in it and birds! Minato leapt to his feet and true enough there was grass below him. He turned in wonder and nearly fell off a strategically placed cliff. As he tried to regain his balance the sound of battle. The cliff met with two huge statues, opposing each other, looming above the lake far below the cliff. There were two people standing on either statue; that much he could make out. He was fairly sure that both were ninjas from the way they moved, one was a little less refined in his movement, however the other one wasn't much better, though both were moving at a barely recognisable speed.

"What do you think?" The Shinigami spoke like he was inside his head.

"Think of what?" Minato asked, puzzled at the death god's question.

"What do you think of your son's fighting ability?"

His eyes widened and he ran as fast as thunder to the battle scene. The two people battling were a blur of black-blue and orange. They stopped for a moment to size the other up. The black and blue blur was a raven haired ninja with black clouds rolling over one side of his face. The other – Minato's heart skipped a beat – looked exactly like himself, the wild blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes. He was crouched down like an animal and appeared that he was the less practiced of the two, or, the angriest. He wore the forehead protector of the hidden leaf village whilst the other, he could make out, had the Uchiha fan crest on his back, a clan only found in Konoha.

His son, Naruto, the name rolled through his mind like a tempest, looked like a teenager – How many years of floating in that blackness had passed? What had become of Konoha if two of its young ninja were fighting each other like savages? Who was in the wrong here? Minato knew how proud the Uchiha clan were, it was not likely that they'd lower themselves to fighting like dogs or betraying Konoha. If that was the case, Minato shivered, was it his son that was in the wrong?

"What happened here? Why are you showing me this?" Minato asked the Shinigami.

"It will show you the damage you have caused your son." Minato moaned. He knew he wouldn't like whatever was coming but couldn't bring himself to look away. The boy – his son – had power exploding from him, an orange shell forming around him. Minato recognised the chakra and shivered as the Kyuubi's evil eyes clouded his mind. The Kyuubi was taking over; Minato let a gasp fill the air.

"He's not just a normal ninja now, is he?" The Shinigami cackled.

"D—don't--don't show m-me th-this!" He covered his eyes wishing to god that it wasn't real, wishing that he was back in the dark.

"You're the one who wanted to see what became of your son. If you don't like it, just walk away. You are not dead anymore."

Minato stared at him. "...what? I'm alive?" he felt the Shinigami nod.

"I can't stand letting a soul go but it appears that that jutsu has worn off. Scram."

"Worn off?" Minato gasped and checked his pulse and found that his heart was pulsing and he was breathing. "I-I'm...A-a-alive?"

"Remember this, runt, you may know him but he knows nothing of you apart from your face on that godforsaken tribute mountain. To him you're nothing but history. Interfere with events if you will, but think about what you are doing."

He felt the Shinigami's presence leave him. "No! Wait!" He lunged for the death god in his mind. "I have more questions I need to ask!" But the god was gone.

Minato turned back to the battle and his eyes met a huge flash of light near the waterfall.

The battle had ended.

He panicked. What should he do? Did Naruto win? Is he dead? What about that Uchiha boy? Should he save them both? What was wrong? Who was the bad guy here? The Shinigami's voice bolted through his head. Don't interfere.

Minato bit down the urge to rush in and help the fighting boys. He knew he couldn't. Not until he knew the full extent of the situation. Not until he received a report from...from whom? He wasn't hokage anymore; no-one could help him. He'd been plucked out of his life and now he'd found himself thrown back into a life he was no longer in control of.

And suddenly he remembered Kushina.

She was lying on her deathbed, Humming softly to the baby in her arms even though she was sitting on a bed surrounded by her own blood. Naruto was crying. He knew. He knew what was happening instinctively and cried.

"Be strong" Those were her last words.

She died as the last lullaby hum finished.

Minato remembered rushing to fight the Kyuubi and felt a pang of guilt.

"Can I never get anything right?" He questioned himself staring to the sky.

He held himself there with a sinking heart for what felt like hours and watched as the Uchiha left the clearing without his son. Tears were streaking down Minato's face. That definitely wasn't right. Even if his son had betrayed Konoha, the Uchiha should have taken his body back to the village. Perhaps the black haired boy was too badly hurt to carry back his son's body? Was his son even dead? He contemplated these thoughts, trying to think of the situation before he couldn't hold back any longer. He didn't seem to notice the rain pounding down, soaking his jacket and running down his face.

Either way, it didn't matter.

The Uchiha had finally pulled himself away from the clearing. Minato rushed his Thunder Jump Jutsu, feeling his heart hammer at his chest and hastily sped down the side of the cliff. He arrived at the boy's side a millisecond later, eyes wide, desperately searching for signs of life.

Breath?

No.

Pulse?

No.

Chakra?

No.

Brainwaves?

No.

Nothing.

Minato's tears began to blend with the rain and blood as he quickly prepared himself. He flew through the seals as fast as physics would allow then quickly sited his hands on the young boy's chest.

Chakra rushed to his hands and air to his lungs. "Cross Lightning Jutsu" He croaked. A small zap of lightning left his fingertips down into the boy's body.

Nothing came.

Nothing at all.

A little air left the body, as if it had waited a long time for this moment but now the time had arrived it didn't know what to do. Live or die?

Minato suddenly felt the pressure of a great wave of chakra, boiling hot chakra. The wounds were healing at a ridiculous rate. It could only mean the Kyuubi was reviving him. Minato watched, not daring to move as he knelt next to Naruto, even in the presence of the Kyuubi he was hit with a wave of cold, hard determination to keep his son alive.

Voices suddenly invaded his hearing. A mile away at most. Approaching at an awesome speed. They were talking hurriedly. Minato with his acute sense of hearing could only just make out the words.

"What are the chances they'll still both be alive?" One shouted.

There was a low growl and the quiet sound of a branch breaking underneath the approaching ninja's feet.

Minato looked down. The rain fell persistently and ran off his hair into Naruto's face. He needed to move away from the boy and plan his next move as quickly as possible. He wanted to heed the Shinigami's words and be careful what he got involved in. Naruto was alive and things were looking marginally better but Minato couldn't quite bring himself to pull away and found himself, for the first time, staring in his son's eyes. It hit him how much the boy looked like him as Naruto looked up at him, confused and trying to focus. Time seemed to stop.

"Over here!" The shout yanked the Yondaime back to reality.

He leaned down and kissed Naruto on the forehead. Flitting into the cover of the trees as the ninja came into the clearing. He grasped a kunai in case they were here to do his son any harm. Gritting his teeth at the prospect of killing shinobi without full grasp of the situation. Naruto's eyes had closed. Minato's muscles tensed preparing for action.

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Tsunande and her team of medic Nin had quickly got to work the second Naruto had arrived at the hospital with the retrieval team.

She'd been working all night at fractured bones and torn muscles, something she very rarely did personally. There had even been a minor operation done on Naruto's chest where there was an area with intense internal bleeding. What made her ogle more however, is what she found out in the operating room.

The tissue surrounding the bleed was damaged and any other medic Nin aside from herself wouldn't have noticed, but charred too.

Most would have put it down to the fight he'd been having with Sasuke, but she knew better.

The charring was the result of electrical current. Precisely placed electrical current, exactly above the heart. She doubted Sasuke's ability to first: perform a thunder jutsu, second: to hit Naruto with that jutsu (as they are notoriously difficult to control and it was within a battle) and Third: To aim at Naruto's chest so accurately that it would hit right above the heart. And then, the most puzzling part; if Sasuke actually managed to do all three of these things it would have most certainly killed Naruto and probably would've obliterated his ribcage and spinal column, leaving guts for all to see. If so, why wasn't Naruto dead?

"Granny-Tsunande?" Asked the blonde lying weakly in the hospital bed.

The woman looked down at him, almost with affection. "Yes brat?"

His face looked sad, sad beyond understanding. "There was someone there. Someone who looked like me...I think he even kissed me...right here." He took his bandaged hand and tapped his forehead.

"What are you yapping about?" The hokage raised an eyebrow questioningly.

Naruto stared off out the window with wide, glazed blue eyes. "A man... there was a man that looked like me. I opened my eyes and he was there. He had his hands here," He pressed down on his chest indicating the place. "I think he was crying...He looked like a sad version of me..." Naruto's voice became quiet and he looked up at her, turning his head the other way to watch her expression as she mused, leaning on the bedside table.

Tsunande had to stop herself from crying out loud. Lightning and an adult version of Naruto, only one man would look like that, know that kind of jutsu and have the incentive to want to save Naruto. The question was, how?

How could Konoha's yellow flash still, after 14 years, be alive?

Naruto looked at her quizzically. "Baa-chan?"

She had jumped to her feet and had gasped; staring at him as if he'd sprouted two heads.

"Naruto, you mustn't tell anyone of this, you hear?" She rubbed her knuckles into his hair violently for dramatic impact.

"Sure...if you treat me to ramen." He smiled foxily. Tsunande just grinned and nodded, knowing his show of character was put on, but admiring him for his strength on not retrieving his team-mate. His heart of fire was still blazing at least.

Tsunande turned to look out the window. She couldn't tell anyone, not just yet. Naruto couldn't know until she was sure he was ready, not until then. She could only barely believe it herself.

'Minato, thank you. You've saved us all again. You've seen your son proud.'

See what I mean? Utter crap.

Please review this wholly unworthy piece of gnome sh-- and tell me whether or not I am worthy to be called a Naruto fan. Thanks for reading!!