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Burdens of a Leader
Naruto winced as his teammate ripped the kunai out of his arm.
"Gnh! Sakura-chan, that hurts!"
She merely bopped him on the head. "Oh, quit being such a baby. This is nothing compared to all the other stuff you've been through." Her eyebrows pinched together in concentration, and her hands coated with a green light. She pressed them to the hole in Naruto's right tricep, and the wound instantly started to close.
It wasn't the most pleasant sensation. Naruto whined, "Sakura-chaaaan . . ." He trailed off at her glare, then chuckled nervously. "It wasn't my fault?"
Naruto shivered as the girl tending to his arm smiled, toxically sweet. "Of course it wasn't your fault, Naruto. I mean, it's not like you were stupid enough to charge the enemy before they walked into our ambush."
The teenage boy winced. "That was—"
"And it's not like you let them slip past you and destroy the supplies that you were supposed to be guarding."
Naruto blanched. Sakura's tone was becoming . . . alarmingly strained. "Umm . . ."
"Oh, and don't let me forget!" Sakura's tone was positively dripping with sarcasm at this point. "You definitely didn't try to save your ramen over the scroll we were supposed to deliver."
"S-Sakura-chan?"
"Idiot!"
Naruto felt her fist come down hard on the top of his head. "Ow! Sakura-chan! Do you really think you should be treating a patient like this?"
The air turned frigid, and Naruto felt the absolute certainty that he had just said the wrong thing.
The blood drained from his face as he stammered his apologies, and a pink-haired demon loomed to devour his soul. He really couldn't be blamed for screaming like a little girl.
Kushina turned as her front door swung wide open, then blinked at the sight of her bruised and battered son.
She raised an eyebrow. "Tough day?"
"You don't know the half of it," he muttered, slipping out of his shoes and plopping down on a couch. "I think Sakura-chan's on her period or something."
Kushina snickered at her son's expense. "Maybe she'd be on her 'period' a bit less if you just started thinking a bit more."
Naruto didn't even dignify that with a response, merely opting to groan and shift his position on the couch. The red-haired woman laughed, then turned towards the kitchen. "I'm making ramen," she shot over her shoulder. "What flavor do you want?"
"—so."
"What?"
"Miso!"
A kitchen knife spun in the air, only to be deftly caught be Uzumaki Kushina, ramen chef extraordinaire. "Healing miso, coming right up!"
One hour and a steaming pot later, mother and son huddled around their kitchen table, slurping the salty awesomeness.
Then Kushina looked up, her face stuffed with noodles. She swallowed, then asked, "So what did you do to make Sakura hit you?"
Naruto turned red. "I messed up our ambush . . ."
Kushina stared at him. "So, did they notice you and your orange jumpsuit, or did they see Sakura's pink hair?"
Naruto's blush darkened, and he scowled into his emptying bowl. "I attacked before Yamato-taichō gave the signal."
Dead silence.
Naruto looked up to find his mother biting her lip as hard as she could and clenching her fists tightly. He face-palmed with a groan, "Just go ahead, mom."
The peals of laughter could be heard through the walls of the apartment. Well, more like raucous guffaws, but telling that to Kushina would be suicide.
"Ahhh," she gasped, desperate for air. "My son the strategist."
"Mom, come on! I was bored."
That statement started another round of laughter.
Naruto's head hung low as he trudged into his father's office. "Hi, dad," he sighed in greeting, plopping into the empty seat in front of his father's desk.
Minato looked up briefly from his battle with the entity known as paperwork. "Ah, hey kiddo! How was the mission?" Then he attacked a tax complaint, skimming through the contents, laughing an evil little laugh, and ripping the document in half and tossing it over his shoulder. An ANBU swooped down and snatched the tax complaint's remains right out of the air, then vanished into the shadows. Neither blond so much as looked up.
Naruto laughed nervously. "So, you want the bad news or the worse news?"
Minato froze, then pinched the bridge of his nose. "What'd you do this time?"
"Well, you see, it's a matter of how you look at—"
"Just get to the point, Naruto."
Naruto swallowed, then squeaked, "I messed up the ambush in the Land of Vegetables."
Minato frowned. "You messed up an ambush?" His son nodded, looking very uncomfortable. "And just who was your team trying to ambush?"
"Eheheh, funny story there, you see—"
"Naruto."
At this point, Naruto pleaded to the Lord of Ramen to deliver him from evil without harm.
"We were ambushing some guy named Danzō."
The silence in that room could have killed.
Minato's eyes turned flinty, and his mouth grew razor-thin as he clenched his teeth. "That old bastard is still alive?"
Naruto was on the verge of a panic attack due to the aura his father was emitting, but he still managed to stutter out, "Y-Yamato-taichō managed to find him. Decided to follow him and try to take him out. Dad, who is he?"
Minato looked down at a paper on his desk. It was a report from the Academy, the list of the new batch of recruits. Minato's anger spiked momentarily, and Naruto nearly bolted.
"Is your team safe, Naruto?"
"H-huh? Oh, yeah! Everyone's fine! I was really the only one who got hurt, but Sakura-chan fixed me up . . . Then beat the crap out of me." The last part was muttered under Naruto's breath, but Minato heard him anyway.
"Good," the Yondaime said. "From this day forth, you are no longer a part of Team Yamato."
Naruto blinked. "What?" The words simply weren't registering.
Minato reached into a drawer and pulled out the necessary papers. "There's too much to do, now. You need to stop fooling around."
"Dad, wait, what?"
With a flourish of a pen, the papers were signed, and the documents whisked away by emergency ANBU couriers. "You're leaving the village, Naruto. Jiraiya-sensei is going to train you on the run."
Naruto's hands slammed down on Minato's desk, scattering papers everywhere. The Yondaime looked up at his son and arched an eyebrow.
"You can't do this," Naruto said. "You can't! I'm a part of Team Yamato! You can't!"
"Naruto."
"You can't do this to me!"
Something snapped in the air, and Minato rose to his full, menacing height. "That's where you're wrong. I can do this, and I'm doing it. You're off the team."
Naruto stared at his father, mouth dropped open in utter disbelief. Then he clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes to a dangerous degree before storming out of the room.
Minato slumped back into his chair.
"Well, that could have gone better. Don't you think, kiddo?" Jiraiya poked his head in through the window. Naturally, the ANBU had ignored him as they would ignore a chair or a lamp. Just part of the scenery.
Minato pinched the bridge of his nose. "I need you to keep an eye on him, sensei. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."
Jiraiya turned to stare out the window. "Of course. But I'll be travelling quite a bit."
"Exactly. If Danzō's back, we need Naruto on the move as much as possible. I also need you to train him, sensei. In that."
Jiraiya froze, then turned. "You really think he's ready to learn that?"
Minato didn't meet his gaze. "He has no choice."
"Minato, he's fifteen years old. You want me to teach a kid that young sage-mode?!"
Minato covered his face with his palms, massaging his closed eyes. "You know we have to try and make him as strong as possible before Danzō attempts to get his hands on him."
Jiraiya's expression went grim, and Minato felt a cloud of guilt hanging over the both of them. "Can you talk to him, sensei? You might be the only one who can get through to him right now."
"Sure I can, kid."
When Minato opened his eyes, he was alone. Slowly, he reached into a drawer in his desk and took out a photograph. It was old, worn at the edges, and beginning to tear, but it was still precious beyond measure.
The Yondaime Hokage of Konoha murdered his tears before they could be born. He reached out almost hesitantly and brushed the picture with his fingertips.
Blue eyes, bright blonde hair, and stubby little limbs. A lump formed in his throat, stubbornly refusing to go away.
"Daddy! Daddy! Look!"
Naruto was too young to remember, but Minato never forgot.
The little girl beamed, her smile bright as the sun, and Minato couldn't help but swoop down and plant a kiss on her cheek.
He bowed his head in all-consuming shame. "I can't let him take Naruto, too. I'm sorry," he whispered.
The toddler girl in the picture stared back at him, smiling from the top of her father's shoulders.
His heart felt like it was ripping in his chest, each and every beat making it worse and worse.
I'm so sorry.
A single tear splashed onto the photo.
"Daddy, Daddy, pick me up!" Her voice was so happy, so full of life.
Minato quickly wiped it off, then scrubbed at his eyes.
Sometimes a leader has to crush his feelings, and that's exactly what he did.
"Daddy!"
The picture went back in the drawer.
"Daddy?"
A whisper.
And the drawer slid closed.
...
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