Chapter 3: Twitchy little ferret, aren't you?

Minato sighed. He was currently enduring the worst part about his job. Well, putting the hate mail he received from Hell aside.

Minato had nothing to do. It had been hours since he had judged Gatou and since then he had been all alone in this white space. It was in these moments that he realized how alone he was. No one to talk to outside of newly departed souls. Even then, they would stick around only for so long. So he was stuck with either having nothing to do (besides plotting a second death for a certain pervert, which he would never admit to doing in the first place) or wishing that people would die quicker. Anyone who knew him knew the latter wasn't likely to happen anytime soon, so he was stuck being bored.

That is until the Death God decided to pay him an unexpected visit.

Never one to be short on dramatics, the normally white room turned pitch black and ominous music played as the cloaked figure stepped out of thick air (because thin air was so cliché according to the Death God) .With a snap of the Shinigami's fingers, the room returned to white and the music stopped. He looked down at the blonde, looking not the least happy.

"Hello, Hokage-kun." Said the stoic sounding (but undoubtedly unpleased) Death God.

The deceased Hokage was forced to look up from his plot to murder his sensei once he arrived in limbo and give his full attention to his superior. There were few times when the Death God was not pleased. While Yondaime had never had to worry about being the focus of his wrath (for he was his favorite) others were not so lucky.

"Shinigami-sama, is something the matter?" Minato tried to keep his tone formal. It was hard to do so when the being before him was obviously trying to keep a casual air about him, even though he was radiating killing intent.

Whose he trying to fool, trying to be cool like that…

The Death God rose up to his full height and his false smile was replaced with a look of pure … annoyance?

Geesh, I actually fell for his cheap 'Oh look at me I am super scary' drama act. I am getting too old for this.

"Hokage-kun, how long has it been since you replaced the power source for the queue indication device?" The Shinigami said the words slyly, which meant there was something Minato was supposed to get within that upfront question of his.

Hmmm, let's see…

Yondaime looked at his desk and checked the calendar.

"It's been around 12 months since I last changed it, why did you think it was important to let me know this?" Yondaime had a scowl on his face when he asked his not so sincere question. His day had been very tiring and busy for him. Sure, being bored sucked. But this over-dramatic facade had to end sooner rather than later.

"Hokage-kun, how often are you supposed to change the power source within it?" The Death God was speaking slower than normal, as if talking to a child who does not comprehend something very basic.

Minato let out a soft groan, recalling a conversation about this very subject years earlier.

Flashback

The deceased Hokage had developed a twitch. This probably shouldn't be possible, given the fact that he had no physical body for a twitch to develop from. Then again, this happened to be the guy that had won well over 10,000,000,000,000,000 in various forms of currency from people taking bets against him on the fact that a punk like him could never become Hokage. Granted, half of it was from Tsunade-chan. The Hokage managed to put on a smile remembering the only sentence Jiraiya had managed to spurt out when he found out that Tsunade had bet against his dream of Hokage.

Congratulations in advance. Could you…make all the bathing houses in Konoha co-ed when you get the job?

Doubtless to say he had a bit more to say, but Tsunade decided that her old teammate looked like he needed a nap via one of her fists.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he just shook his head at the visage before him. It would seem, according to the screams of mass murder (literally) that the powerful (and very proud) Uchiha clan had been slaughtered. Minato found this startling, seeing that whoever did this must have been sickeningly powerful. Not to mention twisted. Oh sure, mass murder was horrible to begin with. It was worse when he had to do the paper work and deal with those who had been mass murdered.

5 minutes before

A woman stepped forward and walked quietly, her head bent in sadness, to Minato's deck.

"Excuse me, but aren't you Yondaime-sama?" Minato had to fight the urge to roll his eyes as everyone suddenly stopped talking and looked at him. Several gasps filled the white void as people recognized him once they had stopped screaming of their own bloody murder.

Although no longer needing an answer, Minato decided to answer the polite question.

"Yes, I am Namikaze Minato, better known as Konoha's Yondaime Hokage."

Minato did not catch the recognition between himself and Naruto in Uchiha Fugaku's eyes.

"S-so… we are really dead?" The voice belonged to a young man who seemed distraught at the prospect.

'I would have thought the screams of being murdered would have been a tip off.' Yondaime thought wryly.

"Yes, I am afraid so. I am sorry that you have fallen victim to a tragedy such as this, but I am afraid that no matter the circumstances, death cannot"- He was cut off by an angry looking man.

"What do you mean you are sorry? You are supposed to be great, why not restore us to life! We are the Uchiha clan, how could this happen to us?" More than half of the clan looked like they agreed with him. The others looked appalled that he would dare speak to a Hokage in that tone of voice.

The first twitch due to the Uchiha clan massacre happened right then.

It would not be the last.

From there things had gone from mildly uncomfortable, to bad, to worse, to Yondaime having a full fledged twitch.

It had certainly been a learning experience for Yondaime. His first years with the Shinigami were more or less always supervised by either the Death God himself or his secretary, who Minato always made sure to call 'Assistant-Sama' after his first encounter with her. But that is another story for another time.

The newbie judge of souls had never had a case like this before even when he had a supervisor to help him. Hundreds of people, slaughtered. He could imagine that the sheer number of deceased at one time only got this high during war times. Minato, who was thinking over this situation while yet another young man was yelling at him irately, was not hesitant to believe that fully trained Shinobi who gave their lives out on the battlefield would not be screaming at him at what an injustice it was. He could not say the same for the majority of this clan.

Not being able to calm the Uchiha clan down, even with a few people on his side, he decided to use a measure he never thought that he would consider.

Ask the Death God to appear.

So, finally out of both patience and reasonable options, Minato pressed a red button under his desk.

Nothing happened.

And Minato's twitch got slightly worse.

Minato pressed it again and again. Once again, nothing but the slight noise of the button being pressed occurred.

When he was just about to send every last soul here to eternal damnation and blame it on stress later, the Death God appeared besides Minato with a worried look on his face. Truth be told, he didn't exactly have facial expressions, it just sort of looked like it by the lighting in the room.

"Sorry for the bad response time, Hokage-kun. There has been a lot of lag with the death server today for some reason." The Shinigami had obviously chosen to ignore the dozens of terrified screams coming from the others in the room caused by the aura of dread surrounding him. Tilting his head to the left he looked over all of the newly deceased people.

"Ah, that would explain the lag."

Minato had managed to calm down his twitch, although anyone who looked at him could tell that he was very strained and set to go off at any moment.

"Shinigami-sama, I can't handle all of these people. They are driving me nuts." The Death God raised an eyebrow.

"How long have they been bothering you, Hokage-kun?"

Minato looked at a clock on the wall and did some academy math.

"Around fifteen minutes, why?" The Death God made a noise that could have been mistaken for a chuckle if one believed a creature such as it could have made such a noise.

"Minato," this caused the man to sit up straighter and look at his superior. The Death God almost never called him by his given name, so this had to be important.

"…you are a moron."

You have got to be kidding me…

"My favorite moron, mind you, but a moron nonetheless. Whenever you have problems come to me. No matter how small you believe they are. While it is true I like to see how you adapt to situations without my assistance, the credibility of your work comes before my amusement." The Yondaime was shocked. The Death God was actually coming off wise for once. He waited a few moments for the Death God to start to snicker or say a wise crack, but it never came.

"Anyway, your situation is solved easily enough." The Death put a hand inside of his robe and withdrew a small control panel with a singular black button on it and a red light at the top.

"This is the Queue Button. Pressing the black button will remove everyone from this limbo into another one. A waiting room, if you will. When there is no one in here pressing the black button will let a person inside of here so you can handle them one at a time. It runs off a special crystal; make sure you change the power source at least every 12 months. The panels and buttons come in a lot of different colors if you want your favorite color. Oh, we are also working on an auto feature in the near future so you won't have to press the button. It's really neat." Minato couldn't help but think that the Death God reminded him of a giddy teenage girl who was talking about their latest love.

Hold on a second…

"What do you mean by 'we'?" There was no mistaking the grin that appeared on the Shinigami's face this time.

"Quick as always, Hokage-kun. As I have told you before, I have a few other souls who work for me for one reason or another. Maybe you'll get to meet them sometime. I dare say a couple of them would intrigue you to no end."

Minato was about to question him but the Death God put his hand up.

"I must be off. Have fun!" With that the Death God disappeared from view and Minato had a long day judging the Uchiha clan.

End Flashback

"Right, I forgot the crystal needed to be changed. My apologies, Shinigami-sama." Yondaime gave a slight nod of his head to make up for a bow and the Death God couldn't help but feel mocked.

"Anyway Hokage-kun, since you have let it deplete the Queue button will need replacing. You have a long line of people waiting. Since this is broken, you can't let anyone enter here due to the systems based around this handy button. However, I'll let the next soul in when I leave. I daresay it won't take me long to fix this, so by the time you are done I'll be back." With that the Shinigami opened a portal (show off…) and left through it.

In his place stood Momochi Zabuza, demon of the hidden mist.

"Hello Zabuza." The Yondaime greeted civilly.

Zabuza slowly turned his body around to face Minato. When he looked to the blonde's face his eyes widened in surprise.

"Yondaime Hokage? The last place I expected to see you hanging out was Hell." There was no humor in his voice. It was a resigned bluntness that allowed Zabuza to say those words so casually. The judge of all souls let out a hearty laugh.

"While the white walls do tend to put me in a bad mood, this is not hell Zabuza. This is limbo. This is where your soul will be judged. It is I who will be doing the judging." The Yondaime looked over Zabuza thoroughly. He was surprised that Zabuza had kept his sword even in death. It wasn't unheard of, as he himself had kept the sword gifted to him by Gamabunta, a miniature of the boss frog's own weapon. The man seemed to be calm and relaxed. The blonde would go as far as to say at peace. It was rare for a shinobi who died in battle to be at peace completely. This new development could only mean one thing.

More paperwork…

"Requesting file of Momochi Zabuza." Minato extended his right hand and a folder appeared in his hand as soon as his arm was fully extended.

Minato motioned Zabuza forward as he began to flip through a very large folder.

"This is good stuff. I'd suggest writing a life story and getting it published." Zabuza couldn't help but feel at ease with the Yondaime. He spoke in such a stupidly casual manner that you'd think he was talking about clouds rather than someone's life. Yondaime flipped a page and continued. "You were a highly skilled killer at a startlingly young age. The sheer volume of blood that you have spilled is truly remarkable. It cannot be said that you were ever a clean worker. While shinobi must be held to a different standard in terms of murder due to the nature of our business, you were never one to show mercy to anyone. The weak, the young, the innocent, it made no difference to you. That pisses me off."

Zabuza froze. Something had slipped into the Yondaime's voice in the last few sentences that wasn't casual whatsoever. It was a raw emotion. Anger? Disgust? Zabuza didn't care much about his judgment, but he just proved to him that he wasn't all smoke and mirrors.

This guy… I don't think he even knows he can freeze people with just his voice… So this is why he is respected even in death.

Minato kept flipping through pages, reading quickly all the important parts of the report. The pride of the Namikaze clan was looking for something to indicate a change in Zabuza. Finally Minato did something he liked to do a great deal.

He put the paperwork down.

Minato scratched the back of his head and put on a wide grin. Zabuza merely stood there silently . In fact, he had been doing that a lot since arriving here. Yondaime decided to get him to be a bit more talkative.

"You know, Haku would be a very pretty girl." I should win an acting award for keeping a straight face while saying this…

Zabuza's left eye began to twitch.

"He means a lot to you, doesn't he?" Minato stated the question more than ask it.

"Yeah, he is my son, blood or no blood. He was too damn good for the world." Zabuza had a few tears on his cheeks just thinking about Haku. Zabuza believed that there was no shame in letting emotions show off duty in front of your betters. The Yondaime was certainly his better. Kakashi had defeated him to earn that respect from Zabuza. That Uzumaki brat…

Might just change the Shinobi world if he lived long enough.

Zabuza wasn't one to get sentimental, but the kid had him pegged with that speech about himself and Haku. The kid didn't have the talent of Haku, but he had something just as important.

Guts.

No matter what you do in life, if you want to be great, be it for good or for evil, you have to stand up for your way of life.

He knew he had failed to do that when he had been hired by Gatou. A gutless pig was all that bastard ever was. Yet he allowed himself to be hired. At least he took care of that problem himself.

He hoped that kid would raise hell, he had it in him.

"I spoke with Haku earlier and it seems you met my son. How is Naruto doing?" Zabuza could feel the 4th Hokage appraising him intently. He just shrugged it off, not like you could get any worse than hell.

"He is a mouthy little bastard, that's for sure. " Minato took the time to scratch the back of his head, remembering his own childhood. He guessed that his son inherited his loud mouth antics from him.

I am glad I have moved passed such immaturity…

Somewhere, an angel cried.

"The kid is going to make a fine shinobi, I am sure. If he can set a stray dog like me straight, he'll be alright." The blonde raised his eyebrow at this admittance.

"Set you straight? Care to explain what you mean by that?"

And so Zabuza launched into the age old tradition of retelling an epic story.

Thirty Minutes Later…

Minato was grinning ear to ear, pride clearly showing in his eyes at his son's heroics. He was very glad that his son seemed to not be spoiled whatsoever. In fact his son was probably in a better position than he himself was at that age from the sound of it. The grin quickly slid off his face as he turned back to Zabuza.

"I believe you are a changed man Zabuza. Nevertheless you have committed too many horrible deeds for my conscious to allow you off the hook so easily. So, for a time undetermined, I have sentenced you to the worst fate imaginable." The blonde bowed his head for a moment to allow Zabuza to absorb all of that information.

After a few moments Zabuza's curiosity got the better of him.

"What punishment do you speak of?"

Minato looked up with a very big smirk.

"You are now my assistant."

A/N: The White Space would have been lonely without somone to keep Minato company. Plus, I have a lot of bad intentions planned for poor Zabuza.