Disclaimer – I own anything related to Naruto, don't sue me! Kishimoto owns Naruto, go bother him!
Q&S: A Shinobi's Tale
Chapter 1: Prologue
"Otousan! Are you done? Are you coming with us now? Huh, huh?" asked a small boy dressed in a colorful kimono to a man dressed in a similar, although not as colorful, kimono with a white haori over it. The boy was grinning widely as he finished firing off his questions.
The man was sitting at ornate desk with a small stack of papers sitting on top of it, or they were before the boy knocked them over in his rush into his father's office.
"Hahaha, now Naruto, you need to watch where you're going," the man playfully scolded his son as he shuffled around his desk to start picking up his papers.
A rush of footsteps came from the doorway and a woman appeared. She took in the scene with wide eyes, "Ah, Naru-kun! Look at this mess! I've told you before not to run around your tousan's office."
Naruto rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, looking as comical as a child in a kimono could be and replied, "Gomen, gomen Kaasan. I was just excited is all."
"It's no big deal Kushina-chan, he reminds me a lot of you where we were just children."
Kushina pouted, "Mou, Minato-kun. I wish he had more of your personality when we were younger, you were the calmer one after all. Naruto just has all of your looks and all of my personality."
Now sitting behind his father's desk in his absence Naruto was rummaging through the desk drawer looking for something. 'Where is it?' Naruto asked himself, 'I know I put them in here the other day.'
"A HA!" Naruto exclaimed, his blue eyes lighting up in excitement as he pulled out a small rectangular box. Setting the small box down onto the table he flipped the lid open revealing an assortment of colored pencils. Naruto glanced at his parents, "Hehehe, inspiration!" He then took a paper on the desk and started to doodle, losing himself to the drawing.
At the same time, the other two people in the room were busy straightening out the papers on the floor while continuing their conversation. "…but Kushina-chan he has your round face that I fell in love with all those years ago." Minato then started to organize the small stack of papers before grinning, "Besides, I was devilishly handsome in my youth and our son is devilishly handsome as well! Although I wish he had your hair color, Tomato-chan," he said to her.
As Minato looked up at her he saw that Kushina was blushing up a storm either in anger or in embarrassment Minato didn't know. "M-m-minato-kun, you know how I feel about that name!" she shouted red faced, slowly approaching him with a dark look in her eye. Anger then.
Minato slowly set down the papers on the desk and started backing away from the approaching red-haired woman both hands up in a sign of surrender. "Now, now, Kushina-chan.. Let's not get hasty." Then Minato hit a problem, or rather hit the end of the room, and found himself backed into a corner.
"Crap," Minato started panicking and looked around the room for some way out. Then he saw Naruto at his desk hunched over a piece of paper and let out a sigh of relief. 'Whew, thank god Naruto is drawing right now, Kushina usually drops whatever she's doing to see whenever he's drawing something new.'
Pointing frantically as Kushina neared him, Minato shouted, "Look! Naruto is drawing something! Go, go!"
Kushina's eyes suddenly shined as she thought, 'Another masterpiece from my Naru-kun! He he he, Mikoto-chan will be so jealous that I have another one!' She turned away from Minato, who slumped down into a nearby chair, and looked over Naruto's shoulder at his drawing.
The drawing contained the three of them in front of large, thick wooden gates which were open wide with vivid lights all around them and the moon shining overhead. Naruto was sitting atop his father's shoulders with a grin that was mirrored on his father's face, while his mother was smiling at both of them while seemingly shaking her head at Naruto's antics. It looked like Naruto had gotten some cotton candy in his father's blonde hair without him knowing.
Not wanting to interrupt Naruto while he was so concentrated in his drawing Kushina made her way to Minato still sitting on the chair nearby. "I wonder where he got his artistic talent from," Kushina asked Minato as she sat on the arm of the chair. "Who knows, maybe he's just one of those that comes once every generation." Minato replied.
"It's done! It's done!" Naruto yelled excitedly. He waved the drawing at his parents while saying rapidly, "There's tousan, and kaasan, and me!" Before his sentence could grow out of proportions Kushina gathered Naruto in a hug gushing out in happiness, "Oh, my son is such an artist! The other clan wives will be so jealous at Naru-kun's new drawing."
While Kushina was busy fussing over Naruto and dreaming about showing up the other clan wives Minato was cleaning up the desk, putting away Naruto's pencils and his paperwork back into his drawers. Minato took a quick look around the office to check that everything was in order before glancing at the clock on the wall.
"Hey, you two, since everything is put away and Naruto is finished with his drawing let's get going, we don't want to be there late after all." He finished, moving towards the door while looking back at his wife and son.
Gathering herself, Kushina held onto Naruto's hand and led him towards the door. "Oh, right. Come Naru-kun let's go. We wouldn't want to make your new drawing a lie right?" She told Naruto who was looking at his parents with bright eyes.
"Right! Yay! Yay! Going to the festival with Tousan and Kaasan!" Naruto sung, making up the words as he went. "Gonna eat some cotton candy! Yay! Yay!"
When Kushina and Naruto passed the threshold of the doorway Minato followed them, shutting the door behind him all the while shaking his head with a smile on his face at Naruto's song.
Closing the door behind him, Minato started following his family down a wide hallway riddled with family portraits and scrolls depicting the family motto. 'Protect that which is most precious to you' Minato read from a passing scroll. He didn't know he was standing in the middle of the hallway until he felt a tug on the sleeve of his haori.
"Otousan, what are you doing? Let's go." Naruto asked as his eyes held a sliver of curiosity towards the scroll his father was gazing at.
Minato smiled down at Naruto before gently picking him up while walking towards the scroll. "Sochi-kun," Minato said, gaining Naruto's attention, "This scroll, and that motto on it has been in our family for generations," he explained.
"Hai, tousan!" Naruto exclaimed, "Protect my precious people! Like you, and kaasan!" he said exuberantly.
'One day, I hope that extends to the rest of the clan,' Minato thought as he headed down the hallway towards Kushina who was waiting for them patiently with a smile on her face. "That's right Naruto-kun, we always protect our precious people, no matter the situation. Now let's get going to the Clans Day Festival your mother wants to show off your drawing after all."
"Yay! Yay! Festival!" Naruto chanted as they caught up with Kushina.
Arriving at a familiar scene depicted in Naruto's drawing of the large wooden gate and many surrounding lights Naruto's face lit up at the sight. Something was different however seeing as they gained quite an entourage behind the family. Among the entourage were an assortment of somewhat odd looking people.
One such person was of somewhat small stature trailed behind Naruto's family carefully taking in the sights and sounds of the approaching surroundings leading up the gateway. The person looked to be in his early teens with gravity defying silvery gray hair and a face mask covering the bottom half of his face from his nose down. His silent and serious demeanor was slowly starting to creep out the surrounding people.
A hand found itself to his shoulder, "Kakashi, calm down, we're in the middle of neutral territory, there has never been an attack here in known history, and I doubt there will be in the near future." A man standing as tall as Minato said as he patted the shoulder his hand was on.
Kakashi was adamant however, "But tousan, what if some random rouge ninja comes out of nowhere and attacks us! Or some samurai army appears from the foliage and attacks Namikaze-sama! Or some freaky snake monster guy looking to find out who he is summoning the greatest ninja warriors from the past to kill everyone at the festival!" He continued on for a couple minutes eyes wide, waiting for one of his ideas to come into being.
"Nonsense Kakashi! Don't be so pessimistic all the time," the man told him. He looked to be in his late 20s early 30s with a bed of his own silvery gray hair atop his head. His son looked to be a miniature clone of his father, much like Naruto looked like his father, golden hair and blue eyes on his head and face.
"Maa, maa, Sakumo-san, let Kakashi be," a spiky and white haired man with two upside down triangles underneath his eyes walked up to the two glancing ahead at Minato and family. "Besides, it never hurts to be prepared now does it?"
Sakumo looked contemplative, thinking of days past. "I suppose so, let's get going then Kakashi, Jiraiya-san. Wouldn't be too prudent to lose sight of Minato."
Author's Note: Greetings to readers and such. I know, I know, its a very short chapter, but it is a prologue of sorts to set up the rest of my story. This is my first story and I will most likely extend the length of each chapter as time goes on and I gain more experience and opinions from people such as you, the readers. I wanted to try my hand at writing something, and this is what I put together so far. I hope people actually read this and review.