Alright, I know that it has been a while since I have updated, and I apologize for this, but I had to give a speech in my Language Arts Class and apparently preparing a speech gives me extreme writer's block. But the good news is that I will probably give a longer chapter in a week or so, so enjoy. I do not own Naruto!!

Naruto's breathing was coming in sharp, quick paced gasps. The strange man held him by his collar with his back held up against the building behind him. The young shinobi was still struggling, but it was only half-hearted. The stranger was looking into his captive's eyes as if trying to decode the thoughts behind them. Naruto eventually stopped struggling, tired from fighting.

He hung his head down, breaking the eye contact that had been making him increasingly uncomfortable. The young shinobi tried to calm his racing blood, which was currently making a roaring sound in his eardrums. Try as he might though, the rest of his body wouldn't relax because of the excess of adrenaline that was coursing through his veins. The man standing in front of was deathly silent, appearing unsure of what to say.

The bright haired boy stares at the ground below him as he concentrates on evening out his breathing and avoids the piercing gaze that he knows is boring into his skull. Naruto eventually achieves to relax his breath to a slower, smooth rhythm, but his heart and blood were still rushing. The frustrating silence continued for a few minutes with no end in sight, and Naruto was starting to become agitated. The shinobi collected his courage and jerked his head up to stare down the strange man. Clearing the lump in his throat of the lump that had been blocking he started, "Well?"

The man looked at him in confusion but still remained mute. This progressed the boy's irritation and replied, " Are you kidding me? You obviously had something to freaking say ten minutes ago, and you've apparently made sure I'm not going anywhere right now so come out with it." The stranger continued to stare at Naruto, but he looked to be thinking.

Naruto continued to stare back at the eerily similar blue eyes as if to pry a response from the silent person. Suddenly the man's eyes dart to the right down the street at the sound of a cat knocking over a garbage bin.

As the man turns back, he sighs and takes another look at the blond youth in front of him. The stranger's eyes look Naruto up and down as if analyzing him. The man mutters so quietly that Naruto could barely make out the syllables passing from the man's lips, " how long have I been dead…"

Naruto snarled in aggravation attracting the man's attention once again, " If you're not going say what you thought was so important, can you at least put me down? My jacket collar is beginning to chafe." The man frowned and looked off somewhere with a guilty glance and gently lowered Naruto to his feet but kept a firm grip on the collar.

" You won't listen to me if I let you go completely," the man answered in a strained casual tone, " I just need you to listen." "And about the question you asked earlier; did you mean to ask who I am? Or what I am?"

Naruto thought for a second, he was unsure if he would get both questions answered, so he decided to go for the more identifying one, " You mean to tell me, that you actually have a name?"

The stranger nodded his head in response. " If you really want to know what my name at least used to be," he said as he clacked his tongue once, " I was called Namikaze Minato, but no one has called me that in a long time." The man continued to stare into Naruto's eyes to look for a response. "Or at least, I think it's been a long time…"

Naruto racked his brain, but the name had no more than a familiar echoing ring to it. He was about to ask another question when he felt another surge of adrenaline from a noise down the road; he looked down in that direction with Minato this time to see what the commotion was. It was nothing more than a civilian emptying their trash into its container, but an idea dawned on Naruto. Minato was temporarily distracted and his grip had loosened slightly.

The blond shinobi in took a deep breath and gave one last, hard, jerk and successfully removed himself from the larger man's hold. Naruto nearly fell to the ground from the force he had used to extricate himself from Minato's grip, but manages to retain his balance. He doesn't look back to see if Minato was chasing after him; he didn't look back even when he heard Minato give a hushed exclaim, "Naruto! Please! I just want to talk to you!"

Naruto could feel the man following him, and put on another burst of speed; the streets of Konoha were currently deserted. The boy had no true destination in mind; he obviously couldn't go back to his apartment, and just continued in random directions until he reached the roof of the academy. He didn't sense Minato following him anymore, and Naruto knew he needed to stop or he would be caught again. Naruto walked over to the shadowy edge of the building that was covered by an overhang from the roof entrance. The moon was out in full, casting it's dull rays to cast more shadows on the village. With his back against the building, Naruto had a full view of the Hokage monument.

Naruto reviewed the faces that were carved into it one at a time; the first and second Hokages looked the same as always, Naruto knew only a couple of facts from his academy days, and even those bits of info were probably just guesses from the past. When he got to the third face on the cliff he had a moment of nostalgia from being a small child. He passed to the fourth face on the monument; yet again, he knew facts that he had gathered from the academy, and bits from Jiraiya, but never a true personality to the Yondaime. Lastly, he looked at the fifth face of the current hokage. He always thought the face never truly reflected the personality of Tsunade, it showed her fiery temper just as much as it did her true age.

Naruto's mussing was interrupted when Minato dropped down on roof several yards from the spot Naruto was sitting. The man looked at the boy who was now nervously looking at him. As Minato was standing in the moonlight, his skin was slightly glowing like the gigantic cliff face. A thought suddenly dawned on Naruto; he looked back up at the stone faces above, then he turned his attention back to the man in front of him.

Minato suddenly realized what Naruto was doing and felt the boy's muscles clench when the realization hit him. The moon became completely uncovered by the sheer patches of clouds that covered it, and part of Naruto's face was illuminated with the same glow Minato was.

Naruto could feel his mouth move, but no syllables passed thru his collapsed voice box. Minato cautiously moved toward the shocked shinobi with slow steps. "Naruto …" The blond shinobi had his blood roaring in his ears and adrenaline coursing thru his body again; he wanted to run again, he wanted to get away before this spirit caught him again. But, as Naruto soon realized, his body was almost completely paralyzed.

Minato was now only a couple of feet from Naruto; his face was covered in shadow with his eyes blazing his concern and worry. The darkened man stopped about a foot from Naruto and looked down at the shaking shinobi. The man noticed that Naruto's lips were moving and crouched down to see if he could hear the chocked words.

Naruto followed the expressive eyes that came down to his level. His breath was choking form the soundless words he was trying to form. Minato strained his hearing and managed to catch several words that made his muscles freeze, " Y-Yondaime-sama …"

For some reason, I'm not really happy with this chapter. Maybe I just need to get back into the swing of things. Please review and tell me how I could improve my work.

Update: 03/08/10