A sort of continuation of my one-shot 'Tradition'. You don't really have to read that though to get this one.

-:-

Jiraiya let out a sigh. He had thought he nipped this problem in the bud, but unfortunately he was still dealing with this problem. What problem was that? Well it seemed that Tsunade was still going on about how Minato should not have married Kushina.

"Hime, just give it a rest. There's nothing that can be done about it now."

"That may be true, but I still wished Minato didn't marry Kushina or the very least met a different girl beforehand!"

"…Well, there was one time it seemed he had interest in someone else."

"Really? When was this?"

"This was long before he and Kushina had gotten really serious. He was fifteen and I had taken him on a training journey…"

(Flashback)

Jiraiya and Minato were walking down the road, with Jiraiya giggling perversely at the thought of the women they'd meet in the next town.

Minato let out annoyed sigh. "Jiraiya-sensei, do you honestly think it's a good idea to do "research". What if Kaasan finds out about it?"

Jiraiya just gave off a smirk. "Tsunade-hime knows that I won't do anything. Those other women are just for my books."

"I still think you shouldn't be doing this, Otousan."

Before Jiraiya could say anything in rebuttal, he and Minato had to jump out of the way of an incoming wave of kunai and shuriken. Looking up to where the weapons came from, the two Konoha ninja saw someone wearing a black cloak standing on a tree branch. His face was hidden by the shadows his hood was making.

"You are trespassing and trespassers will be killed!" exclaimed the man. From the sound of his voice though, Jiraiya surmised that he was no older than Minato.

"Oi, we're not doing anything! We're just walking on through!" yelled Minato getting ready to fight.

"You're still trespassing, you idiot!" yelled the cloaked man. Without warning, he jumped towards Minato and started to clash with the blond teen.

The Gama Sennin wanted to get in there and stop the fight, especially since the teen Minato was fighting felt familiar. Luckily, the fight ended when another person, also wearing a black hooded cloak, came and kicked the first cloaked man away.

'What just happened?' thought Minato.

"What the hell was that for, Nagato?" demanded the first cloaked man. Jiraiya's eyes widened at the mention of the name.

"You attacked them for a foolish reason, Yahiko," said the one named Nagato as he took off his hood, revealing his red shoulder-length hair.

Jiraiya couldn't believe it. He never thought he'd see these two again. If these two were here then that would mean the third of his old students was not far behind.

"Yahiko! Nagato! Long time no see! And I know you're there Konan, so come out!" exclaimed Jiraiya.

It didn't take long until a blue-haired fifteen-year-old girl appeared next to Nagato and Yahiko. Minato's eyes lingered on her for a few seconds before he turned to Jiraiya. No one noticed that Konan's eyes lingered on Minato as well.

"You know these three, Sensei?"

"Indeed. These are the students of mine I've told you about many times before."

"Okay…then why did they attack us?"

"That's cause you were trespassing!" exclaimed Yahiko, taking off his hood, showing off his spiky orange hair.

Yahiko's outburst snapped Konan out of her staring and she turned to her teammate, giving him a deadpan look. "You attacked them because you thought Jiraiya-sensei replaced us, Yahiko."

Yahiko turned red in embarrassment. "I did not!"

"Yes you did," said Nagato. "If you remembered, Jiraiya-sensei had mentioned when we first met him was that he already had students back in Konoha. If anything, we were the replacements."

Yahiko was about to yell at Nagato, but was stopped by Jiraiya. "Okay, that's enough you three. No one was seriously hurt. Now, since you three are here, why not join Minato and I so we can catch up on old times?"

Nagato, Konan, and a reluctant Yahiko agreed to this and joined up with them on their way to the next town. As they walked, Konan walked next to Minato.

"I would like to apologize for Yahiko's behavior earlier. He has a tendency to take action without thinking things through."

"It's okay, Konan-chan. No harm done," said Minato with a smile.

Konan blushed a little, her heart fluttering from Minato's smile. The other members the party noticed this. Nagato looked confused by Konan's redness, Yahiko felt a twinge of jealousy, while Jiraiya gave a small smirk.

'So two of my students are victims of "love at first sight", huh?' thought the super pervert, who had also noticed earlier when Minato was looking at Konan. He knew that look well.

The Ame Orphans stayed with Jiraiya and Minato for about three weeks before they had to leave. In that time, Minato and Konan seemed to be inseparable as they got to know each other, much to Yahiko's annoyance. His annoyance grew every time he heard Konan giggle at the stories Minato told of their sensei. She never giggled at anything he said.

As the two parties went their separate ways, Minato and Konan felt twinges of sadness as they felt they'd never be able to see each other again.

Jiraiya spoke up when Minato let out a sigh. "You okay, Minato."

"…Hai, Sensei. It's just that Konan-chan and I really seemed to connect. I don't know why, we just did. Do you think I'll ever see her again?" asked Minato, his voice holding some hope.

'Damn, It may have only been three weeks, but it looks like Minato fell hard for Konan and judging from the looks she gave him, she fell just as hard for him. Poor kids,' thought Jiraiya. He then spoke up. "Honestly, Minato, I don't know. Love is a tricky thing. At times it could allow two people to be together for the rest of their lives, yet at other times, it could force two people to stay separate."

Minato blushed bright red. "I'm n-not in l-love with Konan-chan!"

Jiraiya gave off a grin. "You may say that, but we both know that it's true that you are in love with her."

The Gama Sennin laughed long and hard as Minato tried to defend himself.

(End Flashback)

Tsunade looked at Jiraiya with wide eyes as he finished his story. Without warning, she then punched him in the head.

"What the hell was that for?" demanded a wide-eyed Jiraiya as he rubbed the bump on his head.

"If they both loved each other, why didn't you tell him to go after her?" demanded Tsunade, glaring at the white-haired man.

"Minato needed to make his own decisions, Hime. I couldn't tell him how to run his life in the ways of love. If I could have, I would have told him to go after a woman with a large pair of breasts and a nice caboose."

That earned him another hit to the head.

-:-

Meanwhile, in the Akatsuki's secret base…

"Are you sure I should be giving you this information, Konan-sama?" asked Itachi, the true last loyal Uchiha.

"The information you will be giving me is for personal reason that will not hinder the Akatsuki's plans, Itachi."

Itachi let out a deep exhale through his nostrils. He was glad that there was no one else around to hear this. "As you already know, Namikaze Minato became Konohagakure's Yondaime Hokage a little over thirteen years ago and then sacrificed his life by sealing the Kyubi no Yoko into his son, Uzumaki Naruto. In the short time he was Hokage and even before that, he was considered one of the greatest shinobi in history."

"I see…" whispered Konan. It still pained her that she never got to see Minato again. Even though she had a relationship with Yahiko later on in life, before he was killed and became the living corpse known as Pein, she still held a torch for Minato. It pained her even more knowing that he had married and had a child, but even she knew that he had to move on like she did.

"I will be on my way if you have what you needed," said Itachi as he walked past the paper master. Before he left, he stopped to say one last thing. "If it makes you feel better, in my time as one of Sarutobi-sama's ANBU, I had learned from Jiraiya-sama that Minato-sama was not as happy with his wife as he let on. It seemed that there was someone from his past that he kept holding a torch for, according to Jiraiya-sama."

With that, Itachi left, leaving a stunned Konan. The blue-haired master then gave off a small smile.

'Minato-kun.'

FIN

-:-

And thus ends the first ever Minato x Konan fic. I find the pairing interesting and would like opinions on it.

And before anyone bites my head off, this is a "what if" scenario that obviously takes place in a time period that happens before Minato and Konan hook up with Kushina and Yahiko respectively, so the canon pairings of Minato x Kushina and Konan x Yahiko still happen.

As to what brought up the idea of the pairing, from the information I have on the characters, they seem to be around the same age and I thought to myself "wouldn't it be interesting to see Jiraiya's students meeting each other at some point?"

In all honesty though, I wanted to put this pairing in another fic I had an idea for, but that wouldn't happen until far into the fic, so I decided to put the pairing out there in a one-shot beforehand.

All in all, I hope to do more Minato x Konan fic in the future, especially if it does well. Before that though, I have an idea for a Naruto and Mei fic (It is not going to be a pairing between those two as that doesn't seem right).