Slowing Down
Chapter 3:
Minato Namikaze
Minato Namikaze was twelve when the world slowed down.
A young woman tried to pickpocket his mother while they were out grocery shopping. When Minato started running over, everyone around him just sort of froze. He dashed past the old woman arguing with one of the employees and ran past the little kids who were hanging off of every surface. He grabbed the lady by the wrist and time went back to normal
His mother looked at where he was and how fast he ran over, and then tilted her head. She smiled at the young woman and plucked her wallet back.
"Minato," His mother smiled through her clenched teeth, "could you please turn this young lady over to the authorities?"
Minato smugly -though he tried his best not to show it- escorted the petty thief to the nearest policeman. He ran back to his mother who had finished purchasing their food and they went home to their apartment.
Minato grew up on Kawarama avenue with all the Earth immigrants. They weren't a numerous bunch, but for a couple blocks all anyone could hear was Earth language spilling from lips. There was the one store that specialized in Earth foods and at the end of the road was the renowned Earth-style potter whose fumes from the kiln made the whole street complain. It wasn't a typical upbringing for a Konoha shinobi, but it was Minato's Konoha.
His mother worked in an Iwa themed resturaunt that was popular only with shinobi. The civilians deemed it disloyal to eat food that originated in their rival country. Only the shinobi who had to go near Iwa during a mission would come to the resturaunt and that was because Rock food was delicious. He grew up learning to speak Earth with the waiters and all the staff who were happy to chat as long as he didn't interfere with their work. He heard the shinobi talk and laugh about their experiences on the field and who had the coolest scar. He really wanted to be a ninja.
Minato was ecstatic when he was signed up for the academy. Every patron heard him ramble about how he was going to be best ninja ever and he was going to be so cool and have such an intimidating nickname. The ninja would just ruffle his hair and laugh and reminisce about their academy days. When his back was turned, they'd look wistfully at the happy civilian kid who was probably going to die when he hit the field.
They had nothing to worry about. Minato was pretty good at the whole ninja thing. It helped that time was on his side.
He was a bit directionless as a chunin. Jiraiya saw him as this savior child, but he didn't really feel like a savior to anyone. He was pretty good at killing things and was a bit infamous for his stone-cold face while working, but that wasn't what saviors did. Plus, it was looking like they were going to have to go to war with Iwa and that didn't sit well with Minato. He and his mother never had any ties to Iwa itself, but they were Earth people -Minato only half- and he didn't know if he could look into their eyes and know that he could have been one of them had his mother decided to risk it. Empathy was the death of a ninja and Minato heart was too open.
He was having dinner at his mother's apartment that night. She made him a rock rice cake like he was 10 years old again and coming home with a perfect test score.
"Stop scrunching your brow when you're thinking too hard. It will give you premature wrinkles," she scolded scrunching her brow in the exact same manner her son did.
"But what if you want to look wise?" Minato sassed.
Sayuri rolled her eyes at her smartass son.
"Then put on some glasses. They made Mitokado look smart and he's still duller than a box of river stones."
"Mom," Minato exclaimed scandalized, "He's on the council! You're not supposed to say that!"
"You're not disagreeing with me."
Minato gave no response which said all that she needed to hear.
"What's worrying you?" She asked.
"It's nothing really."
His mother raised her eyebrow.
"It's just, I dunno, we're almost certainly going to war with Iwa and I can't help but thinking about how I would have been and Iwa nin if you had made a different choice," He admitted while running his hand through his hair.
"But I chose to raise you here so why does it matter? Yes, I could have taken you to Iwa although I probably would've settled somewhere else," Sayuri said, "Your precious people are here Minato. Think about them instead of where you could have been. They're the ones need you."
Minato sat in silence for a minute. His mother narrowed her eyes at him.
"You're too skinny. You better not be accidentally starving yourself because you never paid attention to my cooking lessons. When you marry Kushina-" His mother ranted.
Minato's face turned scarlet as he exclaimed, "Mom! I haven't even asked her out!"
His mother paid no heed to his embarrassment and continued to give him unsolicited and unhelpful cooking advice.
After he got promoted to jonin on the battlefield, Minato wanted to learn the hiraishin. It wasn't actually a super highly classified technique despite being created by the Nidaime. It was used sometimes to flee from dangerous areas quickly, but nobody used it during battle, because no one could use it for battle. Most people got so disoriented from the quick motion that they'd just barf. If a person could hold their lunch, they had to recalibrate themselves quickly enough to their environment to fend off enemy combatants which no one ever could. It was just very impractical.
Minato wasn't most ninja though. He had this weird thing he could do -he was hesitant to call it a bloodline limit- which lent itself to that specific technique. If he timed it right, he could use the slowed down time to get a hold of himself and where he was in relation to everything. He could zip around the battlefield quickly and take out combatants before they even had the chance to strike. Tobirama's seals could be improved though. If you had more than seven markers, it became difficult to select where the person would teleport to and Minato needed an infinite number of teleportation spots to use this technique to its full potential.
Minato wondered how Tobirama managed to use this unwieldy teleportation in battle without the ability to slow time down.
When Minato announced his modified hiraishin to Kushina she laughed hard at its long and ridiculous name. She then tried to not laugh and take it seriously which only made her laugh more. Minato didn't know whether to feel slightly hurt or just to adore his girlfriend more. He chose the latter. She's great.
Minato was a killing machine. All he had to do was zip around the field and then the combatants were dead. That plus his Rasengan made him get in more and more bingo books. He even had an embarrassing nickname: 'Konoha's Yellow Flash'. Weren't those names supposed to be badass? Everyone else got cool monikers like 'White Fang' or 'The Sannin' but the moniker Minato got was kind of wimpy. He had slightly too many feelings on the matter.
Then he got saddled with a genin team. It's traditional to only get a genin team after 3 years of service, but there was war and tradition had to be modified. He got three very different students: Obito, who was competent if he could just focus, Rin, who was shaping up to be a solid medic and the most mentally sound, and Kakashi, who was extremely good at killing people but not at anything else. They needed a lot of work. Kakashi was best as an independent shinobi, but was downright abysmal at teamwork. Rin was the best at teamwork and could drag the boys into resigned acceptance of each other's existence, but she got flustered easily in high stress situations. Obito would pick fights with Kakashi over such stupid things, but he was physically the strongest and would have the largest chakra.
Right before Kannabi, Obito and Rin were finally starting to yank Kakashi out of his isolation and put on stoicism. It was really refreshing to see a hint of a smile from underneath his mask. They were all idiosyncratic, but they were just starting to mesh together and become a whole rather than three individuals saddled together. Minato was giddy at the thought of moving on from all those boring trust exercises.
When war comes, it's too easy to forget that genin are children. Sometimes the genin forgot too. Kakashi did more than forget; he actively suppressed his childhood to become the shinobi he thought he had to be. Rin and Obito had their moments of being childish -Obito more than Rin- but it was easy to forget that they weren't just adults in small bodies. During the Kannabi bridge Minato forgot because he had to.
Then Obito died.
Then Rin died.
Minato was glad to not be from Earth for the simple reason of not having to face his own wrath and grief in battle. He crushed Iwa's forces with vengeance. It would never bring them back, but at least he could make them all pay for starting this pointless war filled pointless fighting resulting in pointless death. Minto was going to drown them all in sorrows and jutsu.
The war ended and Sarutobi let Minato have a heavy part in drafting the peace documents. Everyone pretended that Sarutobi wasn't complaining loudly about how old he was for the hat and how nice it would be for someone a little more youthful vigor to take up the mantle. Oroichimaru called Minato young and inexperienced, which was a fair point. It didn't negate the fact that Oroichimaru was bitter.
What made Minato so devastating during the negotiation talks wasn't exclusively his terrifying reputation or his ruthless logic, it was also that he understood everything that the Iwa nin were saying. They would try to pull a fast one on him with the translators and it wouldn't work. Afterwards, he struck up a conversation with Onoki in the Earth language. His reaction was worth any tactical error that revealing his command of the language would have granted.
Earth had to pay war reparations through the nose and Minato couldn't have been smugger.
After the war his life was almost perfect. He married Kushina, was chosen to become the Yondaime Hokage, and had a child on the way.
Then Minato died.