I was playing Naruto : Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 and I wondered how and why Naruto got hold of the coupon that was rewarded to the player for beating Obito and sealing the Nine-Tails. Was it still good after so long? Does Konoha really honor coupons written for any merchant? Who decided it was an appropriate 'thank you' to Minato for sealing away a demon bent on destroying the village? Hell if I know, but I can give a guess at how his son ended up with it about sixteen years later. This is my interpretation of that bit of game logic.
"I've been meaning to tell you about your parents," the third Hokage started wearily, imagining he was talking to the excitable blonde he thought of as a grandson. It was a conversation he desperately needed to have with the boy, but there were so many complications to keep in mind. The Professor was a man who liked to have plans to cope with complications. So he rehearsed.
"Your mother, Kushina Uzumaki, was the previous Jinchuuriki for the Nine-Tails. She was an incredible shinobi, but she tragically died as a result of your birth. That is why you were chosen to be the next human sacrifice."
He frowned. That didn't sound quite right. Perhaps he would work his way around to that point.
"Your idolization of the Fourth Hokage is more fitting than you know. He was your father, Naruto. He loved you so much that after your birth weakened the seal keeping the Nine-Tails imprisoned in your mother, he sold his soul to the death god in exchange for making you the next jinchuuriki."
The third sighed, rubbing at his wrinkled forehead and wishing for his pipe. Unfortunately, he had run out of tobacco and one of the desk minions was running to the cornerstore for more.
'I can work out those details later,' he decided. 'What questions might Naruto have?' Sarutobi huffed and puffed on his empty pipe in deep concentration, tapping the fingers of his left hand against the top of the desk and slowly leaning back in his chair contemplatively. 'If it were me, I would want to know why I was chosen, and if they left anything behind… I think I answered the 'why' question,' he decided perfunctorily. 'It was an emergency and they knew he would do well as a jinchuuriki due to his Uzumaki genetics. As for what they left behind…' Sarutobi was momentarily stumped. Their apartment had been destroyed in that same attack, the only mementos of their lives were probably hidden underneath Kakashi-kun's bed (always within reach, but out of sight so that they didn't pain him on a daily basis more so than they already did), and they had possessed very few monetary assets due to the expenses they incurred stocking up on baby supplies in the last months of their lives.
Then he had it. "That's it!" Sarutobi happily thumped a fist upon his desk, never minding that his secretary jumped up four inches in her chair and glared at him. "Let me see here…" Diligently, the Third Hokage scribbled down a note to himself on his day planner, underlining it once he was done. He had barely finished writing when the four man ANBU squad who would be accompanying him to the Chuunin Exam Tournament flickered into his office, already posed in a diamond formation and kneeling. "Yes, yes, just a moment," he muttered, carefully closing his day planner on the words "Tell Naruto about the coupon Minato earned for defeating the Nine-Tails."
'I can get it to the boy after the tournament today,' he decided cheerily, feeling quite pleased with himself and slipping on his robes of state. 'If he wins his match it will be a prize, and if he loses it will be a consolation.' That taken care of, he put on his best game face. He always felt that he had to appear his most serious in front of other Kage. You turn out just one student who becomes more famous for getting beat up outside bathhouses than ninja work and suddenly everyone doubts your ability to do your job. It really wasn't fair. "And the Kazekage is always an exceptional prick about these things," he mumbled to himself too lowly for even his loyal ANBU to hear, carefully positioning his formal hat and shuffling to the door.
Years later
Tsunade drunkenly pawed through her drawers, looking for some spare paper to write on. Shizune had left the office early for a date after extracting a solemn vow that the Hokage would finish all the items on her itinerary for the night before turning in.
"A Sannin keeps its word," Tsunade slurred happily, victoriously pulling out a nicely bound journal with a gold cover and opening a bottle of her nicest ink. She flipped through pages, looking for a blank one to tear out for her fancy letter, not interested with boring, pedantic notes from god knows how long ago. Her predecessor had apparently not trusted his memory for anything or used the office workers for their kami-given purposes, writing absolutely everything he found important down. She had found entire books full of such crucial, hard-hitting notations as "the Kazekage doesn't look nearly as good in white as he thinks he does, that fatass" and "Find out why Koharu and Danzo snickered in Tuesday's meeting about tariffs".
Then she saw a name she recognized and stopped, running one perfectly polished fingertip down the page to make the slightly smudged ink stand still long enough to read it. Tongue sticking out of her mouth slightly in concentration, Tsunade carefully sounded out "Tell Naruko about the coup.. coup… coupon that…" She squinted slightly, leaning in until her nose practically touched the document. "Ah!" she declared victoriously, poking the paper hard enough for it to tear. "Minato earned for defeating the Nine-Tails!" the Godaime Hokage read aloud with careful enunciation, grinning at her own cleverness.
Although it was a little rude to pour her own, an accomplishment like that deserved a few saucers of the good stuff. And company…
Pleased with her own brilliance, Tsunade signaled to the increasingly disillusioned young ANBU who had been watching his Hokage get smashed alone in her office. It wasn't even six yet.
'Better them than me,' Neji thought to himself but carefully did not say as he leapt gracefully out the window and took to the rooftops on his mission to assemble team seven for an emergency in Tsunade's office. Her phrasing, not his.
Convinced that something was severely wrong, even the eclectic and chronically lazy elements of team seven met outside the Hokage's office in good time. With a grim face, Yamato eyed the assembled group. 'What kind of mission would require Sakura, Naruto, Kakashi-senpai, that flirtatious weirdo in the belly shirt, and myself?' he wondered, ducking his head and obediently falling into the line behind his sempai like just another fluffy head in an oddly colored train of ducklings.
"Team Seven!" the blonde woman behind the desk toasted cheerily as they walked in, sandaled feet on her desk and disastrously close to falling out of her top. Naruto's eyes honed in on the good seven inches of cleavage showing like a thirsty man would eye ice water kept out of his reach by thin, cracking glass.
Yamato turned bright red and straightened his spine like there was an iron rod through it. 'Naruto!' he fumed. 'Show some respect to your Hokage!'
Then he noticed that his sempai had stopped pretending to read that damn book and was eying the blonde woman with visible interest. Yamato groaned, embarrassed.
"I've called you all here today for a very special reason," the drunk who signed their paychecks started officiously, one finger pointing straight up. Her eyes crossed and she let her hand fall to her desk and land with a mighty slap that sent a crack streaking across the surface. She gave a silly grin to the teen engaged in a death stare with her breasts, leaning forward in a way that sent one boob jiggling precariously over the edge of the scarlet bra that was now visible underneath the white top falling off her shoulders. An orange book slipped through nerveless fingers and hit the floor, splaying open wantonly and bending pages in a sacrilegious manner. Sakura slapped her forehead and gave a glare that promised violence to Naruto and Sai for some reason, who was placidly not blinking with a gaze directed at Tsunade's left ear.
Yamato nearly turned purple with the effort he expended holding in hysterical laughter at the thought of how his senpai would react later when he realized he had dropped his precious book. The man had hospitalized ANBU for trying to grab Icha Icha books during spars and routinely used explosives as bookmarks as a deterrent for jackasses who thought that stunt was clever—when he realized the pages were bent, there would be hell to pay. 'But who would pay it?' he wondered almost philosophically.
"I'm so proud of you Naruto," the blonde woman hiccupped.
"Eh?" Sakura frowned, casting a skeptical look at her teammate. Sai's dark eyes flickered to the book on the floor curiously and he bent to pick it up. Yamato snickered quietly. 'That was not a good idea, Sai-kun,' he noted.
Undeterred, Tsunade rested her chin on one hand and brandished a scrap of paper with the other, eyes watering furiously and head lilting slightly to the side. "I realized today that your father would have wanted you to have this," she sniffled, shaking the paper rapidly. Blue eyes blinked twice in shock and abandoned their attempt to use only optimism to coax the reputed best chest in the five great nations out of hiding.
Neji stared longingly out the window and pretended to be anywhere else, using his ancient and feared bloodline to read the slip of paper from his peripheral vision and then getting bored.
"W-what's that Granny?" He made a desperate grab for the paper but she pulled it away, tutting.
"Patience, Naruto. You see, this was given to him after he defeated the Nine-Tails."
Naruto gasped, hope filling in his expression. Sai tilted his head, momentarily more interested in how Kakashi-san had visibly started at the mention of Dickless's father and was staring at Tsunade's hand with a terrible intent (only flicking down to her chest about once every four seconds to make sure the situation hadn't changed) than he was in investigating the book in his hands.
Sakura and Yamato were the only ones who frowned confusedly and exchanged glances. While they both thought something along the lines of, 'Didn't he die the day he sealed the Nine-Tails? Why would he have a keepsake from that?', Naruto was too busy feeling hope at some connection with something his parents had actually touched.
"Here," Tsunade said solemnly, laying out the paper with a flourish and leaning back with a sentimental smile. "It's yours now."
He snatched it up and held the thin, yellowed paper up the dying light with a beatific grin. Then the smile died on Naruto's lips and confusion stole across his face instead. "Ten percent coupon?" he read, brows furrowed. "Ten percent of what?" Outside of the boy's field of vision, Kakashi slowly extended both hands towards the coupon in question. Dismayed, Naruto slumped into a chair and let the hand holding the coupon fall into his lap. Kakashi's gaze flickered between the coupon and the face of the inattentive subordinate holding the precious slip next to his genitals. Would he even notice a quick grab? Was this an acceptable break from his normal 'no touching the minions in the places marked in red on the counseling dolls' policy?
Thoroughly bored by all this, Sai gently set Icha Icha Office Warfare on the corner of Tsunade's desk and calmly walked out through the still open window, falling straight down out of sight and onto a magnificent ink cockatiel.
'Yes', Kakashi decided, hands snapping forward just as the blonde boy stood up again and glared at the Hokage, nearly overbalancing and falling to the floor. The paper fluttered innocently in Naruto's grip.
"Anything you want!" Tsunade said expansively, gifting him with an indulgent grin and a jiggle that destroyed Sakura's embarrassed assumption that the woman was unaware of the attention being paid to her anatomy. "You could go to Bed Bath and Beyond, or Victoria's Secret-" Suddenly Kakashi's attention was on the Hokage again for an instant, just long enough for him to catch the lascivious blink Naruto completely missed. "-or even that one really filthy place we don't talk about. It's yours now for anything you want. Treasure it always, and keep it away from Kakashi or he'll squirrel it away." Sakura eyed both her mentors thoughtfully.
The man in question didn't deny the accusation, something fiercely and recklessly sentimental burning in his heart. 'That was the last thing Minato-sensei was given,' Kakashi realized, torn between melancholy and the desire to hug the paper to his chest and see if he could catch a hint of a lingering chakra signature. Maybe it still smelled like Sensei? His normally dead, jaded little heart skipped a beat.
Thoroughly perplexed and disappointed, Naruto slumped over a little and rubbed out the wrinkles on the antique coupon with his thumbs. "Right," he said shortly, wondering why he had ever thought that drunk old Grandma would have come through on something important like this. Sakura elbowed him, a serious look planted on her face.
"Naruto, have some respect!" she hissed, red face dangerously close to clashing with her hair. "That's a gift from your ancestors."
"Alright, alright," he snapped, folding the coupon into his wallet with exaggerated care. "Thank you, old lady," he gave a mostly sarcastic bow. "I guess I'll use it at the tool store or something."
Kakashi's lone eye narrowed.