I do not own a single thing, but I wish I did, oh how I wish i did

Jiraiya would like to believe that he was a patient man. He sat still for hours outside of a hot spring, in the name of his research. He spent neverending months adding information and contacts to his budding spy network. Even after an infinite amount of violent rejections from the love of his life, Tsunade, he still persisted in his efforts for a date. But this….well, this was starting to piss him off.

He understood the need for this mission, of course. Tsunade needed this rare plant

grown in Tetsu-no-Kuni, in order to heal a fair few shinobi from their war injuries. Among them Uchiha Obito, genin student of his own former student, Namikaze Minato. Obito had unbelievable luck, that was for sure. His legs had been crushed by falling boulders during a mission gone wrong, pushing one of his teammates, Hatake Kakashi(bit of a downer, that kid) out of the way. He gave up his left eye to said teammate, as Kakashi had lost one, and was convinced he was going to die. Luckily Minato had arrived just in time to destroy the boulder and get his team the hell out of there before it collapsed.

Yes, he understood the importance of this B-ranked mission, very he was having trouble with, was why he had to be the one to do it. B-ranks were for chunin, and he was a fucking Sannin! It was probably Hiruzen-sensei's idea of a joke, and as he was the Hokage, what he says goes. The old monkey should just step down and let Minato take the reigns already.

He was walking leisurely through a small town on the borders of Taki-no-Kuni when he heard it. The words that would change the lives of everyone in Konoha.

"Have you heard of that Namikaze kid's newest escapade?" one gossiping gray haired lady said to another of very much the same appearance, only with green eyes instead of the first's brown. Jiraiya swelled with pride, thinking they were talking about his student.

"Ugh, yeah," green-eyed one replied in a disgusted voice, "froze the whole lake with her freak powers, she did. Should be put down, the little menace." Jiraiya did a double take. That certainly didn't sound like his student, what with the use of female pronouns and the mentions of some kind of ice ability.

"Give her a break, she's only three years old," the first said in a placating voice. "And she's pretty darn cute too." A child? The green-eyed witch wanted to 'put down' a child?

The second woman sorted. "Well of course she's good looking," she bit out, "her whore of a mother looking like she did. I can't believe I was friends with that bitch. Y'know, when she gave birth to the kid, I asked her why she gave the kid such a weird name as Namikaze when it sounds nothing like her own, and you know what she said to me? 'It's the same thing I wrote on the card with my last kid for the orphanage in Konoha, so I thought I'd be consistent'! And the next day we find her little brat in front of the orphanage in a basket with a piece of paper and a name. To think, I laughed with her when she told me that she seduced one of the last survivors of the Yuki Clan. She'll turn out just like her mother too, rotten seeds bear rotten fruit, after all."

Jiraiya was shell shocked by what he had just heard. They made it sound like Minato had a sister. It was true that he was found in much the same way as this kid, in front of the Konoha orphanage. It was a bit far-fetched, true, but he'd heard worse things in his life. The least he could do was check it out, if only for Minato's sake, the kid had always wondered what had happened to his mother and whether he had a family.

Jiraiya heaved a long-suffering sigh, lamenting the time he would waste searching for a brat when he could be spying on beautiful young ladies at the nearest hot-spring. But nevertheless, he straightened his shoulders and set his jaw. It was time to show why he was made Konoha's spymaster.

Three hours later(about two hours and fifty minutes too long, in his opinion), a few seedy bars, and a lot of suppressed killing intent later, he was standing in front of a small dango hut that was rumoured to be partial to 'the annoying blonde cancer', as the bitter middle aged man he talked to last stated with disgust. His iron hard shinobi control was slipping, and he wanted nothing more than to douse all of these pitiful civilians with gasoline and set them on fire.

Every person he had talked to thus far had responded with hatred every time a blonde Namikaze child was brought up. The strange part was, there was really no reason for the hatred. When pressed, they all just stated that she was the worthless child of a whore and left it at that. I was starting to frustrate him. He decided that he would try this one last place, then move on to full out interrogation. At this point, he was too frustrated to give a shit that he wasn't supposed to harm civilians.

Pushing aside the flap in the entryway, he was greeted by the sweet smell of dango and the quiet buzz of conversation by the patrons. He walked casually up to the middle-aged man running the counter, ordering a few sticks to keep up appearances.

"So," he started. "What can you tell me about a brat named Namikaze." Earlier in the day he was a lot more subtle, but his nerves were frayed and he just really didn't have the patience for it anymore.

The man with brown, graying hair stilled, and Jiraiya could have sworn he stopped breathing. This was the kind of reaction he was looking for. The man, Kirihara Takumi by his nametag, looked him straight in the eye without fear and asked, "What do you want with her?"

Jiraiya could have jumped for joy: finally someone who actually cared about the poor kid.

Most of the other conversations started with 'Why, are you here the kill the little whore?' or 'What do you want with that worthless little eyesore at the orphanage?'. He pulled himself together, he'd come too far to do anything but push on.

"Yeah, I know a kid back home who was in much the same situation as her," he paused, pulled a dango off the stick, swallowed and continued. "His name is Namikaze too, so I came to check any possible relations."

The suspicion melted slightly from Takumi's eyes, and he asked, "Does your kid have blonde hair, blue eyes, and scary intelligence?"

"Yes."

"Then you may very well be here for Mi-chan. Just a sec." He turned around and called into the beck, "Haruka, bring this guy to Mi-chan, would ya?"

A moment later a brunette in her late twenties came out, pulling off her apron as she went. "Why, Tou-chan?" she asked, keeping an eye on Jiraiya at all times.

"He thinks she's a relative of someone he knows, now march," and she did, pulling the Toad Sennin along after her.

"Just know that if you hurt her," she said after a few moments of awkward silence, "shinobi or not will find a way to kill you." And he didn't doubt her for a second.

A few minutes into the walk, Jiraiya was starting to get restless with the silence. Just as he was about to break it, Haruka spoke up.

"Are you really here to bring her to a family member, or are you just here to gain a powerful asset to your village?" she asked in a steely hard voice. Jiraiya paused for barely a second before answering.

"There's a young man in my village named Namikaze Minato, ever heard of him?" he asked. Haruka shook her head, and he had to force himself not to sigh. Apparently his student's name wasn't as well known as he had thought. The first few times he'd asked that question he had been shocked by how few people knew of Minato here, but by now he kind of expected it. Small, out of the way village, he supposed.

"He's my student," he continued, expertly hiding his exasperation at having to explain. "He was dropped in front of the orphanage much like I hear this kid was. Always wondered who his mother was, but he never really had that much hope in finding out after the first few busts.

Imagine my surprise when I hear his name mentioned in some random town I was passing through. Stopped to listen, hoping to her something I could use to tease him with later." He stopped walking, and Haruka followed his lead, turning around to look him in the eye.

"Instead, I hear about some little girl that nobody likes, that seems to hold a startling resemblance to Minato going by the descriptions I've heard. I owed it to him to at the very least check it out, if only to tell him I tried."

After a beat with neither of them moving, Haruka nodded her head in acceptance. "You know…" she seemed to be having trouble finding words for what she wanted to say. "The reason people hate her...it's not really for anything that her mother did, or even something that she did. This war….well, it drove a healthy dose of fear for shinobi into small towns like ours. We've heard of how many of them became battlegrounds, how many bystanders were thrown in as casualties. To tell you the truth, if you just give it five or so years, for the memories to dull a bit, people will be back to worshiping them a heroes. But for right now….. everyone is scared."

She turned and continued walking, talking with her back turned. "When her mother first came through here, nobody thought anything of it. She was just a pretty woman who was going to stay in our town to have her baby, before leaving again. When she revealed that the father came from a shinobi clan, it still didn't really concern anybody. Babies are harmless unless taught, and you had to be taught to be a shinobi, so there was nothing to worry about.

"Then the bitch ditched Mi-chan at the orphanage. Still, the scorn fell on the mother, for abandoning her child. That changed when she was about ten months old." Haruka took a deep breath to stomp down her rising anger, before continuing. "...One day, one of the children thought it would be hilarious to lure a stray dog to the park, when the orphanage was having a picnic. They didn't expect for it to start attacking the kids for food. The dog had just bit one of the kids on the leg when Mi-chan woke up from her nap. She panicked, and suddenly the dog was trapped in a box made of ice. Everyone started screaming, and no one knew what had happened. Until one of the older kids pointed out that Mi-chan's eyes were glowing. You can guess where it went from there."

And indeed he could. He could see exactly where that situation led to, and it explained why all of the villagers hated her, but never completely told the truth about why. You couldn't exactly say you hated shinobi to a shinobi's face, after all, and his hitai-ate was proudly displayed upon his forehead.

It also had the effect of cementing his decision to bring her back with him. There was no way he'd allow any child to grow up the way she was, let alone being who she was. She was coming with him back to Konoha. One way or another.

Haruka led him to a slightly overgrown park, a surprisingly few amount of children actually utilizing the play equipment. When she didn't stop by any of the little girls in frilly dresses shrieking on the swingset, he heaved a silent sigh of relief, he wouldn't be able to handle one of those high pitched creatures. Haruka finally came to a stop just shy of the edge of a small wooded area at the back of the park. She took a deep breath and yelled out "Miyuki!", which he assumed was her name, seeing as her nickname was Mi-chan . A tiny head popped up from the underbrush, and Jiraiya was given the shock of his life.

Damn if the kid didn't look almost identical to Minato. Matted, dirty blonde hair that would have been the same shade had it been clean, cerulean blue eyes that shone with hunger and suspicion at the sight of him, and a tiny little body that looked just a bit too emaciated for his liking…..there was a lot in her appearance that was not to his liking. Haruka held up a bag of dango, and the child's face lit up in joy. Jiraiya would deny to his dying day the fact that he had the sudden urge to coo at and cuddle her. Nope. It never happened.

"Hey sweetie," Haruka said gently, "there's a man here to talk to you" Cautious blue eyes swiveled over to him, taking on a contemplative look. He almost gasped at how much she looked like her brother(and he was sure now that she was, not a doubt in his mind).

He hastily gathered his courage and crouched down so that he was almost level with her(he was a very tall man, and this was a very small child. He'd have to lay down on the ground to be level with her), staring into her bright, bright blue eyes. "Hey, chibi," he croaked out thorough the lump in his throat, "I'm Jiraiya, and I'm a friend of your brother."

She tilted her head in an adorable(No! He was a badass shinobi! Adorable three year olds would not defeat him!)act of confusion, and asked, "Nii-san?" in an angelic little voice. She turned to Haruka, "I have a Nii-san?"

"We think so sweetie," she answered, kneeling next to Jiraiya and doing a much better job of looking her in the eyes, "And this man is gonna take you to meet him." To say Jiraiya was shocked would be an understatement. He had thought that there was no way that this woman and her father would let this little girl go without a fight, and judging by the choked quality of her voice, she wasn't very happy about it.

"Chibi," said small thing turned toward him in silent question, "would you stay here and play for a few minutes while I talk with Miss Haruka?" The three year old nodded and plopped herself on the ground with the bag of dango and started munching happily, while Jiraiya gently grabbed Haruka by the arm and dragged her a small distance away.

Haruka interrupted before he could speak. "You better take care of her," she forced out while tears streamed down her cheeks.

"...I will. And her brother will adore her. He'll never let anything happen to her." Completely true. Minato loved kids under normal circumstances, with this one being his flesh and blood, on top of her uncanny ability to wrap the big bad Toad Sennin around her little finger despite having exchanged less that ten words with her(another thing he will never admit to), he won't let anyone with bad intentions come within eight miles of her.

"Good." Haruka looked like she was going to continue, when they heard shouting coming from the direction the left Mi-chan in. Turning around, they saw a mean-looking twelve year old throwing rocks at a white kitten that was streaking right for the happily eating girl. The cat reached her and jumped into her lap, cowering from the sneering boy who came to a stop feet away from the two.

"Stupid ice bitch, give me that cat!" he yelled, advancing on her with a fist raised. Miyuki looked absolutely terrified, but stubbornly shook her head. The boy's face turned purple in rage, and just as he was about to yell at her some more, the boy's mother came in.

"Hayato-chan, what are you doing over here, you should be playing with all the normal kids over there" she said in an annoying simpering voice. Jiraiya could tell that she was the type of parent to dote on her child, and believe that they could do no wrong. This behaviour normally resulted in children who think that they are Kami's gift to the Elemental Nations, as shown here.

" But Kaa-chan," he whined, "I was just trying to catch the kitty so I could pet it, but the ice freak took her and won't let me see."

It was perfectly clear to see that the mother believer her child's words without question, and she rounded on Miyuki, who seemed to be trying her hardest to sink into the ground, At this point, Jiraiya had seen more than enough, and decided to intervene. He waltzed in there without a glance to the woman and her son, and scooped the little girl up, cat and all, walking away without a word. He stopped by Haruka, and she gave a short, tearful goodbye to the confused Miyuki. She cheered up considerably when he told her that they were leaving the village, and that he was going to take her to her brother. She bounced excitedly on his back all the way to Konoha.

Passing through the gates of Konoha without any trouble, Jiraiya set a course straight for the Hokage tower. With any luck, Minato will be there, as he is on quite a few days, learning all about the tiny nuances of being Hokage. Better to tell the story once then twice, and the sooner he unloaded the kid, the sooner he could swing by the hot spring. With a perverted giggle, he hastened his pace. He briefly thought about waking Miyuki, but she seemed to be comfortable using his hair as a blanket, so he'd leave her for now.

Bypassing the guards in front of his sensei's door, he briefly flared his chakra to announce his presence before walking right in without waiting for a response. At the sight of not only his sensei and Minato, but Tsunade lounging on the couch as well, he grinned. Even better, he could get her to check the kid over while he was here.

"Hello, Jiraiya," the Hokage said, amused by his antics. "I trust you completed the mission?"

Jiraiya snorted at the thought that he would have not finished a B-ranked mission. Did he mention that he was a Sannin? "Yeah, sensei, I did," he said, tossing the scroll filled with plants to Tsunade. "And that's not all I found."

Observing the Sarutobi's raised eyebrow, he turned to Minato. "Guess what?"

"What?" Minato seemed reluctant to play the game.

"I heard something about your mother." This caused Minato to shoot him a sharp look, that looked equal parts grateful and exasperated.

"Look, Jiraiya-sensei," he finally sighed, "I appreciate the thought, I really do, but I no longer have any desire to meet my mother. She abandoned me without a care, so I see no reason to reconnect with a family that doesn't love me."

"So does that mean you have to desire to see the girl I brought with me?" Minato's head shot up so fast, everyone in the room swore they heard his neck crack.

"You...brought my mother here?" he asked incredulously.

"Nope. I did, however," Jiraiya gently shifted Miyuki from his back into his arms, bringing her into view of the occupants of the room, "bring back your sister," he finished smugly at the astonished looks on all three faces.

Minato's response was a weird choking sound, his eye glued to the tiny little bundle in his sensei's arms. A bundle that was starting to wake up, making cute little mewling noises like a kitten. Much like the kitten she was still holding. Huh, Jiraiya thought with a frown, I'd forgotten about that.

Miyuki stretched lightly, yawning, and blinked bleary blue eyes at the occupants of the room. She cocked her head too the side. Tsunade cooed at the sight, and Jiraiya swore to tease her about it later. The elderly Sarutobi just sighed, he was getting too old to deal with all the bullshit his students seemed to attract. Minato just made another choking sound and fell over in a dead faint.

"..."

"..."

Miyuki cocked her head in the other direction as Jiraiya cackled. Oh, Minato was never living that one down!

I updated two stories today! I feel so accomplished!