Title: Naruto's Dad
Posted: 10/26/12
Main Characters: Naruto, Minato, Kushina, Jiraiya
Rating: K+ (As any story with Jiraiya should be)

Summary: Minato Namikaze, The Fourth Hokage, Konoha's Yellow Flash, to many of the citizens in Konoha, those were the names that they called him by. Of all the titles in his life though, Minato only had one that he would be forever proud of. Being the Fourth Hokage compared nothing to being called "Naruto's Dad".

Disclaimer: I own what I own, nothing more, nothing less.

© 2012, Reignstein, The plot of this story and the original characters belong to me. Any similarities that might occur are purely coincidental and I apologize in advance if such an occurrence ever does happen.

Minato's P.O.V

In the world of Ninjas and Samurais, very little things make sense to the naked eye. I won't get into much detail about how this is possible, but I will explain thoroughly the reason. There are moments in life that parents never want to miss, never should miss in fact. Sadly, however, many things have happened that my wife and I weren't lucky enough to experience. I would never regret my decision of sacrificing my life for my son, and neither would Kushina, but a big part of me always wished that there had been another way. Wished that Kushina and I had lived just to take care of him, make him feel less alone. I would have been happy if it was only her, at least, then, he would have the love of a mother.

This however, was one moment that the both of us could not sacrifice. This was so important, not only to him, to both of us as well. This was the proof that he was the son we loved endlessly, this was the embodiment of the dreams that both Kushina and I had when we were mere children. "Are you ready?" Kushina asked me. "This is the first in a long time, you know!" She added, making me smile. What parent was ready to see their child? They would be happy, ecstatic even, but being ready is an entirely different thing.

"Do you think he'll know that this isn't any simple dream?" I found myself asking, Kushina rolling her eyes as she took hold of my hand and began dragging me to the bright light. Sure enough, the Shinigami (Death God) had never prevented me from doing anything. He wasn't hostile or anything of the sort, and eventually he had allowed me to pass through to the next world. I felt like I suddenly owed that thing a strong thanks.

"Will you stop worrying!" Kushina scolded me. "He's our son, you know!" The statement did nothing but make me smile. No, it did not assure me (have you met my wife?) and it did nothing to prepare me (last time this happened I managed to earn myself a punch while my wife got a hug! Talk about gratitude from my offspring), but knowing that this boy—no, man, was my son did wonders for my happiness. The fruit of the love that Kushina and I shared, yes, he was our precious son indeed.

"You're probably more excited than me!" I finally countered, finding my voice. "It's already obvious by the way you talk—" The whack on the head was a fair price to pay for getting that out. It didn't hurt that much anyway. My wife can pack a punch probably as strong as Tsunade of the Sannin, but when it came to me she would never admit that the punches were never that strong. I'm sure that she would have done the same for Naruto, had he been lucky (or unlucky) enough to go through her disciplining methods.

"Shut up, Minato!" Kushina shouted. "It's not every day that this happens to my son, you know!" There she was, being over excited and proving my point. She dragged me towards the bright light, fully aware that I could pull my own weight, and I just laughed at her. My hot headed, beautiful, and caring wife. How was I so lucky to have met her? She claims she was the lucky one, but in the end I would always never admit that. She was the blessing that came to me, I was just the guy who saved her from getting kidnapped that one night.

"HEY! WAIT!" Due to Kushina's dragging and my own excitement, I forgot about my teacher. I didn't even consider the thought that he wanted to come with us as well. "I understand your dying need to see your son, but I practically raised the boy since he was twelve!" And of course the old man just wouldn't let go the fact that he had taken Naruto as his own grandson. The man sure did know when he had leverage on people, not that I'm complaining or anything. I'm happy that Jiraiya took Naruto in. Better him than anyone else, yes?

"Hurry up then!" Kushina shouted back, the lit path getting closer and close. Yes, she was still dragging me. "We only have a few hours and I don't want to waste time, you know!" The white haired man merely sighed as he ran forward, catching up with my eager wife.

"You don't know what you escaped, Minato." My teacher said. "Dealing with Naruto is like dealing with both you and your wife. He's just as loud, just as stubborn, just as arrogant—"

"And just as skilled!" I found myself cutting him off, knowing full well that this man practically adored my son.

A smile spread on Jiraiya's face, a nod accompanying it as Kushina's words of 'Of course he is! I expect nothing less of my son, you know!' and 'Minato, walk on your own! I'll leave you here if I have to, you know!'. She was way too excited for her own good, but no one was complaining.

Walking through the blindingly bright light, I had no idea what to expect. Was I to expect the white area of nothingness that I had been in when Naruto and I had last seen each other? Would it look like the bright kaleidoscope that Kushina had described when she had been in contact with their son? Would it be a garden of flowers like most movies and books seemed to depict? Of all the possibilities I had running in my head though, what greeted me was not one of them.

A blast from the past was what greeted me when the bright light dimmed down. Nostalgia ran through my entire body, scaling my spine and making my stomach do back flips (or front flips). Considering that the last time I was in this room was the ninth day of October eighteen years ago, my reaction was rather standard. My wife, as always, seemed very close to burst with joy. "It has not changed a bit, you know!" She shouted out, and I did not want to die again by stating that this place was not even real.

"Isn't this refreshing." Jiraiya stated, taking a seat on the dining room table. The old house looked exactly as it did the last time I was in it. The same wooden furniture, the same warm atmosphere, the same stocked up bookshelves. "Last time I sat here, you told me you wanted to name your son after the lead character of my first book." I laughed at the rather fond memory.

"Biggest mistake I ever made." I joked, the old man only snorting.

I took the seat opposite him, Kushina pacing the room and muttering about Naruto's appearance. She was not known for patience, and had I been as expressive as her, I probably would be pacing as well. "After eighteen years he finally did it, huh?" Jiraiya mused. "Takes after both his parents then, he's even younger than you were!" I crossed my arms at that. I did not mind my son besting me, but it was not something I liked being rubbed in my face either. The 'Perverted Hermit', as my son called him, just laughed.

"AH!" Kushina suddenly exclaimed. "NARUTO!" My head immediately snapped away from my former teacher and turned towards the hallway that lead into the area. There, standing a proud five feet and ten inches, watched an eighteen year old blonde with familiar blue eyes. Jiraiya and I had no words as Kushina practically tackled him with her hug.

"Look how much you've grown!" My wife exclaimed. "I've been waiting for you for so long, you know! It wasn't much help that your father was so slow too! How have you been? How are you taking the news? ARE YOU PLANNING MAKE ME A GRANDMOTHER ALREADY?! Oh. My. Gosh! I'm becoming so old! You look like a man and you are ten times more handsome than your father – what am I saying?! You should sit!" My motor mouth wife managed to hug our son for one second and be dragging him towards the table the next second. He looked around, sleepy and unsure of what to do.

"Minato!" Kushina suddenly shouted out me. "What are you doing?! Get up and let your son sit beside his mother! I carried him for nine months, you know!" Looking at my son, it was obvious that this situation was yet to sink in. He was wearing a pair of orange pants with a green shirt, staring at Jiraiya as the old man just smiled at him. My wife on the other hand, had now managed to push me off of the chair and sit Naruto down on it.

"Has it not ever occurred to you that I wanted to sit beside my son too?" I asked, but Kushina glared at me and that effectively shut me up. I took the seat beside Jiraiya, and as I was about to speak, my son was the one who had managed to cut me off. Even such traits seemed to be genetic in the Uzumaki bloodline.

"MOM?! DAD?! ERO-SENNIN?!" Naruto's blue eyes were now as wide as saucers as his mouth began to open and close like a fish. "Wha—why—how—huh?" Very good Naruto, so many people will be looking up to you and you shall be teaching them how to speak the language that only you and your mother seemed to understand. "Why are you here?!" He decided to settle on, and almost immediately Kushina began to answer.

"Don't mind that anymore, Naruto! I don't want to waste my time talking about nonsense, you know!"

"Kushina, calm down." I manage to say, but she just pulled Naruto in for a hug and glared at me. "How can you calm down after seeing your son in so long?! It's okay Naruto, Mom loves you even if your Dad is worthless." I glared at her for that one, and Naruto pushed her away with a wide smile on his face. He has grown indeed. He would have been calling out a genjutsu had he remained to be the rather naïve son that I remembered.

"Then—then you all know? You heard? Can you hear that kind of stuff when your…you know…" I only laughed as I shook my head, Kushina joining in as Naruto looked at us as if we were insane.

"Yeah, yeah, we know." Jiraiya answered. "You'd think hearing you say it over and over would make it less of a shock, but I still can't manage to believe that they're entrusting Konoha to you. The place will be bankrupt within a month I say!" Naruto wasn't the only one who spoke freely, obviously. My son sent our teacher a long glare, smirking slyly. I feared what was to come.

"You know Ero Sennin, ("Don't call me Ero Sennin!" Was the old man's protest) I was thinking of doing you a favor and showing you my new and improved Harem no Jutsu, but just for that comment, you're not seeing anything!" The defeated look on Jiraiya's face as he slammed his head on the table in agony was making me uncomfortable for two reasons. One, this was my child. Two, my child was a boy.

"JIRAIYA!" Kushina suddenly shouted, Naruto and I cowering slightly. I smiled at that. It seemed that even in one meeting, my son has managed to figure out how much fear his mother could send into someone's heart. "YOU PERVERTED OLD MAN! YOU HAVE TARNISHED MY SON'S INNOCENCE!" The fact that Naruto created the technique before he even met Jiraiya was obviously not registering in my wife's mind. I was not planning on pointing that out though. I did not have a second death wish.

"Kushina…" I managed to let out. "You're the one who didn't want to waste time."

A switch seemed to have flipped, for she was suddenly back to her smiling self as she turned back to our son. "So, Naruto, are you nervous?" I decided to ask, remembering when it had happened to me. I was so nervous that I was pretty sure that the ANBU were there to make sure I didn't runaway rather than to keep me safe. "Any questions you want to ask the man with the experience?"

"You still just got lucky…" Kushina mumbled.

When Naruto's eyes turned to me, I felt a chill run down my spine. He looked at Kushina like she was the light in his horrible world. He looked at Jiraiya as if the perverted man was the Hokage with so much admiration. Naruto, however, looked at me and all I could see was guilt. Why? "Uhm…dad…I…" Again with the language that only he and his mother could understand. "Can I talk to you…alone?" He was pointing towards the hallway, and I nodded my head. Kushina was not pleased, but allowed us to walk out in peace.

The moment we were hidden from view, Naruto did something that I did not expect. My only son hugged me. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me as tears suddenly fell down his eyes. "I'm sorry…" He stated, and I was all the more confused. Why was he so guilty? What did he have to apologize for? "I—I—didn't even get to hug you…" Thinking back to our first meeting, I shook my head and returned the boy's hug.

"I understand," I explain. "I really had no right to act like a father at the time, especially after how you grew up—"

"No!" He exclaimed. "I always wanted to have a family, and when I met you I didn't even realize that you were the first blood relative that I had ever even met. I just took out my anger and didn't even think that maybe I should have just spent the time with my dad rather than with the Fourth Hokage." Perhaps it was unintentional, but I felt all the more like the bad guy. I was the one who acted rather distantly after all.

"Let me tell you something, Naruto." I pushed him away slightly, keeping my hands on his shoulders as I looked him in the eye. "I told you that I believed in you, right?" I asked, he nodded in response. "I meant that. I didn't say it just because I was obliged to, I said it because I knew that those were the words that I wanted to tell you. You needed to hear them too, didn't you?" Again, Naruto nodded his head.

"Are you proud of me, dad?" Naruto asked.

"How could I not be?" I retorted back. "I'm standing in the presence of the Sixth Hokage after all."

My son hugged me again. "I love you, dad." My heart filled with warmth, much like the effect it had when Kushina were the ones to say the words. I responded by hugging him back, muttering my response of how much I loved him and how much I was proud of him. I then mentioned that we should probably get back to his mother before she threw a hissy fit about not spending enough time with her son.

"Now I have two titles like you!" Naruto exclaimed, taking his seat beside Kushina once more. He wiped his eyes to hide the evidence of the tears he had spilled too. "Except, my first title didn't sound as cool as Konoha's Yellow Flash." I laughed at that as I shook my head.

Kushina had again nagged his attention, as I thought about what my son had just mentioned.

The Fourth Hokage, Konoha's Yellow Flash, those titles dimmed to being called Naruto's Father. Somehow, that title would never die. That title would always hold more meaning than the other two. It would probably have to be my favourite. After all, Hokage was a title given to great shinobis of Konoha, Yellow Flash could be given to Naruto if he managed to become just as fast as I (which I have no doubt he could), but there would always just be one Naruto, and I was glad to say that I would be the only one he would call his father.

Epic. Fail. Honestly.

I like how this starts out, but as the end approaches I feel like I just dragged it. I have a bit of writer's block going on, and I thought I would try to write something. I really shouldn't have pushed it. I'm posting this anyway, cause I thought that even if it's a bit of a fail and rushed, I still like the concept and plot of the story. Also, I wanted to make a Namikaze Family Fic and this falls into the category.

I hope that you liked it, in fact why not tell me what you thought of it? Maybe I'll try to write a better one, any suggestions on a plot I could do? I want to make a happy family fiction just because I know Naruto deserves it! Also, Minato and Kushina are two of my favourite characters in the series as well!

I apologize for any grammatical errors that you may find. I don't have a BETA and only proofread my own work. Feel free to point them out to me and I will edit it when I have the time. Thank You!

~*..*~*..*~Reignstein ~*..*~*..*~