Our Father in Nirvana (and Thy Son on Earth)
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
A/N: Hey, it's over! :D I had fun with this story (well actually I have fun with all my stories but this one was special for reasons I won't bother articulating to you), thanks for sticking with it.
Bocchan, for those who don't know, means "little master" and usually refers to the master's son.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
As dawn rose mistily over the land, they struggled up and down the hilly paths at the walking pace of a civilian because Pumpkin refused to be carried on Sakura's back like a basket of rice.
"It's bad for my self-esteem," she explained to Sasuke.
"All miseries spring from the presence of ego. One should submit to the womb of the word where one is part of a macro organism," Sasuke preached.
"I would do that," Pumpkin said, "Only I can't actually find the womb."
He might be dark and unconcerned with the world, but he knew sarcasm when he heard it. "True enlightenment," he scowled, "is a concept people like you will never grasp."
"Now, now," she said, "Is that what the Buddha would say?"
"Weren't you supposed to be mourning your dead mistress?"
"And that," Sai said as she burst into loud tears, "Is what my book calls waking a slumbering lion."
"Sasuke, you jerk," Sakura muttered hopelessly as she moved to comfort the wailing girl.
The rebel camp where Hoshi resided was located in the rugged terrain flanking Iwagakure. The hills were tamed only by narrow, winding paths that seemed to be leading them in spirals. Though the campsite was technically a secret known to none but the rebels themselves, Pumpkin had revealed that she used to take food parcels to Hoshi on his birthdays and all the major gift giving holidays because he too had been an Ao.
"There'll be no more of that, though," she said fiercely for the twelfth time as she let Sakura dry her tears, "Not after he killed his own sister!"
She and Sakura led the way, followed by Sasuke and Sai (who were almost but not quite walking together). Kakashi and Minato brought up the rear in thoughtful silences of their own.
The great stage director in the sky cued their dialogue and Kakashi Tai Chi'd their silence in the crotch.
"Sensei," he said, "Have you ever seen Obito or Rin in the afterlife?"
"Hey," Minato said, "Don't try to get any spoilers out of me. you'll just have to read the book through to the end like I did."
"Okay then, do you hear what I hear?"
"You mean the inexpert trackers tracking us inexpertly? Yes."
The younger shinobi heard it too. Sakura leaned into Pumpkin and whispered. Sasuke and Sai started arguing to cover her. Minato stretched his son's arms luxuriously, catching his old student in his uncovered eye.
"Ow!" Kakashi cried, "Dammit sensei!"
"My bad," Minato apologized, "Naruto's arms are longer than mine."
"That's 'cause he's more apish," Sakura called back to them, "I know because every time I slam his head against something I can hear his tiny pea sized brain rattling around."
"Apes don't have pea-sized brains," Minato said crossly, "Stop razzing on my son."
"I'll razz on my teammate any time I feel like it," she growled, "You see, his parents are dead. There was no one of proper authority to stop us from doing it when he was young, so now he's used to it."
"That was cold," Kakashi said to his sensei, "They really don't like you."
Kyuubi kept mum, and Minato said nothing further in addition to that topic because at that point two darkly clad figures tossed themselves from the deep woods to their left, tumbling onto their path and leaping up with matching expressions of dire annoyance.
Pumpkin shrieked unconvincingly as though a ninja had recently whispered to her that the people tracking them might make an appearance soon. The whole group stopped as they were and waited for the newcomers to speak.
"Halt!" barked the one on the left, "You have trespassed on our lands and must be executed!"
"No," hissed her companion, "We have to arrest them!"
"Oh yeah," said the first, "We will arrest you, and then you will be executed! Choose you means of a possibly violent and totally unnatural death!"
"I'd like to die I battle," Kakashi opined, "In a last, savage burst of fury."
"What, you mean like Zabuza?" Sasuke asked, "That'd actually be pretty cool."
"I think I'd like to be burnt publicly," Sakura mused, "More…moving. Almost guarantees martyrdom, and I'd like to go knowing that my dying screams traumatized someone. A nice revenge."
"That'd be insanely painful though," Minato argued, "Which is why if I could die all over again I'd drown. Just the calm rush of water, a few moments of inescapable panic, and then…you know."
"I'd've liked to die with my mistress," Pumpkin bemoaned, "Oh, but life is agonizing without her!"
"I'm starting to think there was more to their relationship than met the eye," Kakashi murmured to Sasuke, who secretly thought so too. "What about you, Sai?" the Copy Nin asked his latest addition.
"Death by sex," the artist said firmly. There was a pause as everyone considered his answer, and then a loud chorus of agreement.
"What the—god damn it!' the rebel woman who'd first posed the question of death seethed, "I wasn't trying to spark a discussion, assholes! I was intimidating you! Raana," she turned to her comrade, "Tell them!"
The man ruminated and gave his opinion. "I'm celibate, but I like the idea of death by chocolate. Does a sort of poetic justice to the dessert, don't you think?" he asked the female, "Miu?"
The girl gave a short scream of frustration and threw down her weapon, a saber.
Sakura retrieved it and offered it back to her. "Listen," she said, "Miu, and Raana. Hello, hi. We're ninja from Konohagakure and we've a favor we'd like to ask of one of your people. His name's Ao Hoshi—do you know him?"
There was a sharp intake of breath from Raana, which Miu ignored. "Know him?" she laughed, "Know him! of course we know him; Raana here worships the air Hoshi breathes and the latrine he craps on, don't you Raana?"
"Yes," said the man, "He's a genius!"
"He's a swindler and a crook and he made it so Raana pretends to be asexual like him."
"Asexual?" Sai frowned.
"Asexual," Pumpkin affirmed, "Hoshi-san has no feelings of lust for either men or women."
"It's a hormone deficiency," Miu scoffed dismissively, "And its cute that Raana thinks he has it too but I hear him masturbating late at night—"
"Miu," Raana said evenly, "Go shove your head up your own ass and die."
"Anyway!" Miu yelled, "Why should we take you to him, eh? We should execute you!"
"After arresting us?" Sasuke suggested innocently.
"Yes! After arresting you and subjecting you to a fair trial by a jury comprised of our peers!"
Since all that would mean actually getting someplace more civilized than this sad path, the ninja let the civilians boss them off the path and up nearly half a mile of a wild mountain.
A small crack in the mountain's side allowed them to pass single file into a large cavern. Armillariella mellea mushrooms covered the walls up to a certain extent. The rusty sign post proclaimed the place to be Ye Olde Courtroome. The roof had the fuzzy aura of a bat dormitory.
"Adding e's to the end of a word doesn't make it of yore," Minato said, staring unhappily at the batshit under his feet, "Why—"
"Shhh," Miu said, "You'll disturb the gods."
She cast a reverent look upwards and Raana rolled his eyes. "Right," he said, "And she thinks my role model is bad. At least Hoshi doesn't crap on our legal system."
"Not literally," loomed a male voice out of the darkness, "But he never pays his taxes, the pesky bocchan."
They moved past the walls of luminescent mushrooms that threw an eerie foxfire over the cavern floor, past roughly hewn tone benches and came to a stone dais where one man lounged, a bone between his lips. He had a wild crown of reddish hair that was streaked with grey; dark, stylish sunglasses hid his eyes.
"Our magistrate and leader," Miu introduced, "His name is Fuggen Osm."
"Okay," Minato said after a pause, "What is it?"
"Fuggen Osm," Raana frowned.
Minato said, "Uh-huh," in a knowing way that signified that he knew nothing.
"Very nice magistrate," Sai approved, "Are the sunglasses there to invoke an image of the blind Lady Justice?"
"No," stretched Fuggen Osm, "I have them on to emotionally distance myself from people."
"I see," Sakura said, "To maintain a professional, unbiased mentality."
"No," Fuggen Osm said again, "I just don't like making friends with people. They make the most pompous assumptions."
"Wouldn't they make worse assumptions (like we just did)," argued Minato, "If you don't let them know the real you?"
"Sure," the judge said, "But they (unlike you) might do it behind my back and so I'll be spared the agony of having to hear them, yeah?"
Sasuke cast a dour look at Kakashi. "Why are all these people so stupid?"
His infinitely more patient sensei cast an arm around the boy and grinned. "Never underestimate the power of morons in large numbers."
Fuggen Osm randomly leapt to his feet and waved his hands at Miu and Raana. "Go, go!" he yelled, "Leave and be merry! Go forth and multiply!"
Accustomed to their boss' eccentricities, the trackers bowed briefly and left. Fuggen Osm took exaggerated steps to the fungal wall, sniffed one fine specimen and took a bite out of it.
"That can't be good for his health," Sakura frowned, and he seemed to agree with her. He spat it out, stomped on it, and looked up sanely at them.
"Shinobi of Konohagakure and civilian guest," Fuggen Osm declared, "Welcome to Ye Olde Courtroome of the Rock rebels."
"Hey," Minato said, "How'd you know—?"
"Headbands," Fuggen Osm interrupted, "My people may be stupid but I am not. Now tell me, why are you here?"
Pumpkin, who'd spent way too long in silence, burst out, "We want Hoshi-san!"
Fuggen Osm looked unsurprised. "The bocchan? Um, no, he's too valuable. Thanks for visiting, buh-bye now." He pointed to the exit and set off toward the back of the cavern himself.
"I'm not sure I believe him when he says he's not stupid," Sasuke said as they all followed him, "God I hate guano," he added as he stepped in a moist pile of it.
"Mix that into mud and you've got a face pack," Sakura grinned.
"Women are disgusting."
"We don't want to kill him or anything," Kakashi was appealing to Fuggen Osm, "We need a favor from him. Ao Kaya died—"
"On my orders. But it was Hoshi's idea. Were you chummy with the sister?"
"I wish," the Copy Nin said, thinking of all that wasted beauty.
"She was going to help us out with a problem," Minato said. Fuggen Osm kept walking, but turned to look the Yondaime's son's body up and down.
"I think I know you," he said, "Didn't you try to sell me something once?"
"I'm not a salesman," Minato brushed aside the accusation, "Can we just talk to Hoshi?"
"I have a question," Sai announced.
"Go kill yourself with it," Sasuke told him.
"Not now, Sai," Sakura griped.
"We want Hoshi-san!" Pumpkin wailed.
"I should've never accepted that teaching job," Kakashi grumbled.
Fuggen Osm stopped and pursed his lips, facing all three of them. They were at the mouth (or anus, your wish) of a passageway out of the cavern. It was lit on the inside with fluorescent quartz, which exists on my command. Go enforce truth elsewhere.
"Look," he told them, "You're not welcome here. Stop inflicting your company on me. I must warn you—I'm armed with knives.
"My question just became very relevant," insisted Sai.
"I hope you die from unsatisfied curiosity," Sasuke informed him.
"Hoshi-san!" Pumpkin sniffed. Kakashi put a comforting arm around her and Minato gnashed his teeth.
"What is it, Sai?" Sakura scowled.
"We're all high-level ninja. Why are we begging this man for an audience with Hoshi instead of smashing our way to him?"
What a good question, everyone thought, and Fuggen Osm began to run.
000
Somewhere in a happier dimension, Naruto said, "I'm bored."
"I have an extensive library," Hatsuoki invited, "You're welcome to browse through it."
"Books suck," Naruto said loudly to cover the shouts of his cousins as they dashed off in the pursuit of happiness.
"Card game?" Hatsuoki asked.
Several wildly unexciting rounds of Go Fish later, Naruto said, "I'm bored."
"Entertaining a teenager is hard work," Hatsuoki confessed to Awaimaru.
"Looks like it," the asshole said, "Well, see ya 'round."
"You're leaving!"
"Duh."
She blamed herself for befriending jerks, and looked at Naruto.
"Bored, bored, bored," he said.
Hatsuoki sighed. "Me, too."
000
They caught Fuggen Osm in about two seconds, of course, and tickled him blue until he begged for mercy.
"I beg for mercy!" he squealed under the torturous presence of Sakura's fingers on his ribcage, "I'll take you to him, I'll take you!"
It was mostly uneventful, their journey through the passageway. They emerged into the crater of the mountain, a deep pit with morning sky brimming way above it.
"Cripes," Kakashi despaired, "You live in a pit."
"It's a fucking awesome pit," Fuggen Osm said indignantly. Sakura threatened him with her fingers, and he let them sullenly towards a gathering of huts.
"Mornin', Fuggen-dono!" greeted a few early morning risers.
"Morning, comrades," their leader smiled back. "We the Rock rebels," he told his guests, "Are working to bring a better future to the world."
"Spare me, Fuggen-san," Pumpkin said tearfully, "Murder is not the way to a better future. I know what you're going to do with the Ao wealth. You'll distribute it to beggars. Beggars will be living in my Kaya-sama's ancestral abode. I ask you, if all the beggars are rich, to whom will the citizens give their trash to?"
"Pumpkin, please," Fuggen Osm said in mild chagrin, "We're not looking to take away the beggars' livelihood. We're trying to give them the dignity of humans."
"What do they need dignity for?" Pumpkin cried, "They're beggars!"
"Hey," Sasuke growled, "Not that I enjoy hearing civilian concerns—I don't—so is that Hoshi?"
Everyone turned to look at a young man with his back to them and Ao Kaya's puce hair.
"That's him," Fuggen Osm said heartily, "Well, you guys have a fun talk. I'm just gonna go round up a posse and see if we can't chase you away."
"Not so fast," Minato said, "You're coming with us."
"Why does that sound so foreboding?"
000
In the land beyond time, Naruto said, "Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Fuck, yeah! Faster, bitch, faster!"
"Now, now," Hatsuoki reprimanded him, "Just because you've won the game doesn't mean you need to forger your indoor voice."
"This is my indoor voice. Kaka-sensei says I'm incapable of human decibels and the bastard agrees."
"Fine," Hatsuoki said, and left the teen alone with the video game. She moved around her courtyard, pausing at the ornamental bushes scattered here and there, checking on the human realm every now and then. She was watching Hoshi, and now a group of people were approaching him, a young blond leading the way.
"Naruto! Naruto, come quickly!" Hatsuoki hollered, bringing the scene out into the air (figuratively speaking) in front of her. He'd want to see this.
He, actually, was more interested in playing GTA: Chinatown Wars and I for one am not going to blame him.
000
"Di you say resurrection?" Hoshi asked.
"No," Minato said in irritation, "We didn't."
"Oh. It'd've been nice if you did. I had a dream about resurrections last night and I think it signified something."
"No more coffee before bed?" Sakura guessed.
"Well, yeah, but also something bigger."
"Can we focus," Minato carried on, "I was telling you how your untimely assassination—"
"Is an assassination ever timely?" Hoshi sneered at him.
"Well," Kakashi pondered, "If you were to kill someone right before they were going to press the proverbial big red button…"
"Point," Hoshi conceded.
"Can I continue?" Minato grit out with an abysmal attempt at politeness.
"May I continue," corrected Sai, who'd been practicing his grammar.
Minato turned in desperation towards Sasuke, who might be his only ally in the face of all this formidable nonsense.
"I would," acknowledged the Uchiha with a self-satisfied smirk, "But I don't like you."
"The faster I leave, the faster Naruto comes back."
"Oh, yeah," Sasuke said, "Okay morons, shut the hell up except for the blond."
Fuggen Osm raised his hand. "I used to be blond," he said hopefully, "Can I talk?"
"No. Current blonds only."
"Hey," a passing blond quipped, "Current blonds only what?"
"Are dumb," Sai said proudly, having remembered the joke from a book. The blond stiffened (not in his dark places) and grew red in the face.
"Sorry," Sakura lifted a hand lazily, "He's an idiot."
"Control your idiot, then," the blond griped, and marched away.
"Sure," said Sakura, "You wank."
Fuggen Osm said, "That's my citizen you're talking to."
Pumpkin said, "Do you really want to make her mad at you?" and he figured no, he really didn't.
The story came out not in bits and pieces, but in quarks and mesons.
000
"My daddy's in there?" Naruto asked, peering at his body through Hatsuoki's window.
"Basically," she said, "They're negotiating with Hoshi."
"Who is really kinda cute, by the way," Leiko mused thoughtfully. Her twin emoted disbelief at her.
"I wish I could see what my dad's face looked like," Naruto whispered.
"Oh, you can," Hinako said, "We carry around family pictures, don't we Leiko?"
"Sure do," Leiko said, and presented her cousin a photo of Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure.
He stared it at for a long time, and then went, "Wow, they really made his nose look good on that Hokage monument, didn't they?"
Daddy's little boy.
000
"And so," Minato concluded, "You now have the hereditary power; we need you to use them to banish me from whence I came."
"Like an exorcism?" Hoshi asked.
"If that helps you."
"Can't."
Kakashi put in, "We can pay you."
"I didn't say I won't," Hoshi explained, "I said I can't."
"Why on earth not?" Pumpkin exclaimed, "You're the next in line!"
"Search me," Hoshi shrugged.
"No Sai, not literally," Sakura thrust out a hand to stop the artist as he moved.
"Look," their puce haired hope pursued, "Pumpkin, you know me. If I stood to benefit by helping out, I would. And helping these ninjas could totally benefit me. But I'm ashamed to say I have my limits and my rules and I don't charge if I can't deliver. Maybe I have a black sheep older sibling hidden somewhere because I don't have the powers."
"Impossible," Sasuke said weakly, his heart sinking.
"Can I go now?" Fuggen Osm hummed with boredom.
"How do you know you haven't got the powers?" Kakashi demanded.
"Why do you think I wanted my sister dead?"
"You wanted her money and property to go to your sick, sick cause!" Pumpkin spat.
"Well, yes. But also, I wanted her talents. If I had the family's forte, I could do crazy shit."
"So," Sakura summarized, "You murdered your sister for the good of the world?"
"That was already established," Minato said glumly. "I assume you tested to see whether you could use the Ao jutsu?" he shot at Hoshi. It was Fuggen Osm who answered.
"Yes. Just before you came. It was because it didn't work that I was moping in the courtroom."
"Nice place to do that," Sai said, but they ignored him.
"So the next in line is someone with Ao blood in their veins," Hoshi said, looking a little interested, "I wonder if sis ever donated to blood camps."
"No," Sasuke said in horror, "You're not serious."
"If she donated," Sakura moaned, "She could've given blood to anyone. Anyone."
"Nonsense," Pumpkin sniffed, "Kaya-sama never gave to those crass blood sucking fiends. The only people she ever gave the privilege of sharing her blood to were her children…and me."
000
Naruto said, "I don't get it."
Leiko and Hinako looked unsurprised.
Hatsuoki stuck her pipe between her lips and elucidated. "The power to use the jutsu is transferable with blood. Kaya must've realized Hoshi was next in line and that she didn't like his intentions so passed her blood on to her close servant—who was older than Hoshi, thus removing him from the chain. If Pumpkin outlives Hoshi then the next person to be blessed by the ancestral talent would be Kaya's eldest child."
"Wait," Naruto said, "That girl's older than the guy? She looks younger than me!"
"Oh no, Pumpkin's over twenty, and Hoshi's only nineteen," Hatsuoki assured him, "She uses an old Iwagakure secret to look young."
"What is it?" Leiko asked keenly.
"Fresh cow dung mixed with curdled milk, applied daily on your skin. What?" she added defensively over the faked barfing sounds the girls were making, "That was the cost of beauty in my day!"
000
"But that's ridiculous," objected Pumpkin.
"God damn it girl," Fuggen Osm said, "This whole scenario's ridiculous. Don't belittle our imaginations with your scorn."
"Okay, the old guy stopped being funny and we don't need him," Sakura said, "Can't he leave?"
"Like he's going to miss this," Hoshi said contemptuously as he led Pumpkin to his hut, "Its monumental."
"Oh its mental alright," Sasuke said, but his scathing tone was mellowed out by his excitement at the prospect of getting rid of his best friend's father.
"I'm telling you, I can't do it!"
"Don't be so modest, Pumpkin," Minato said, "How can we help?" he added to Hoshi.
"Get the big blue book out of my bookshelf."
"Done," Kakashi said, slamming it on the desk at which they'd seated Pumpkin.
"Nubbin's coming back," Sai told Fuggen Osm in a happy tone.
"Whoop de fuckin' doo."
"Just read from it," Hoshi encouraged his sister's companion, "You can do it."
With strong feelings of not only misgiving but total lack of faith, Pumpkin began to recite the ancient incantation of a soul transfer.
000
"Holy shit," Naruto said, "This is it, I'm going."
"Wait!" Hinako hollered, "Leiko and I have to say goodbye from the whole family!"
They took him down in a flurry of hugs and kisses and suffocating affection. Hatsuoki felt a knock at her door.
"Who's it?" she called.
"Obito. Is Naruto still around?"
"Yes," the woman said, "Come on in."
The Copy Nin's source of power entered her nirvana and saw the three young people in an indecent pile.
"You know," he said, "It worries me that you're all on top of each other whenever I see you. I should tell your parents."
"Shut up," Naruto sulked.
"We were saying goodbye," Leiko told the dead guy.
"Great. Listen, Naruto, I have a favor to ask."
"Speaking of which," the blond remembered, "I forgot to ask Hatsuoki about your thing."
"What thing?" Hinako asked immediately.
"Secret recipe," Obito said, "Passed down in this family for generations. I thought I could barter for it."
"You attach way too much importance to food, Obito," Leiko shook her head.
"Well, it deserves it! Anyway, Naruto. I've got mail." He handed the whiskered boy three fat envelopes. "One's from me, one's from Rin and one's from Kakashi's father."
"I see," Naruto said, pocketing them, "And who do I give them to?"
Obito turned to the girls to ask, oh my god, is he really that stupid? The girls replied grimly that yes, yes he was.
"To Kakashi," Obito enunciated, "You idiot," he also said, trying to pass it off as a term of endearment.
"Fine," Naruto said, "Will they be…you know, tangible on Earth?"
"Yes," Obito said, "They're written on magic paper. Ooooh," he waggled his fingers at the blond. Naruto stared blankly at him. the Uchiha looked at the girls again, who said no, he's not that stupid.
"Can we finish saying goodbye now?" Hinako asked, and tackled Naruto with love again.
000
"Hey," Minato said, "I think I feel something!"
"That's me," Sai said, "I'm putting my hand in your pants."
In the uproar that followed, Hoshi telling Pumpkin to keep reading was the only event of consequence that occurred.
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Sasuke screamed at Sai, who looked very hurt.
"The book says intimacy shows affection. I was just saying goodbye to nubbin's father to make a good impression, man-slut, so would you please metaphorically get off my back?"
"Sai," Sakura said kindly, "Let's take a walk."
"But I don't want to miss—"
"Sai." Sakura said unkindly. "Let's. Take. A walk."
You don't mess with a woman who can use that tone.
Kakashi turned to Minato. "Goodbye, sensei. I—well, it was weird seeing you again. Not that I actually got to see you again. But, I mean, meeting you. Was weird. But I don't regret it. Its just…um. I'm sorry for not taking care of Naruto when he was young. I'm sorry I gave into peer pressure."
Minato hugged his old student tightly. "I forgive you. just to me a favor, okay? Tell Naruto I love him. That I'm proud of him." Tears welled up in his eyes but he refused to let them stop him. "Tell him I'm sorry for ruining his life."
"Hey," Fuggen Osm shouted suddenly, "I remember where I know you from! You're that Naruto kid whose friend killed Deidara!"
"And I'm the friend," Sasuke divulged. Fuggen's eyes popped.
"Holy cow! That's crazy! I admire you, you know? Deidara was a shit."
Minato turned to Sasuke. "Um," he began awkwardly, "Look…"
"You're sorry about me hating you and wish you'd been a better father," Sasuke supplied, "Its okay. The loser didn't turn out too bad. He's got us, we'll keep him happy."
"Um," Minato said, "Cool."
Bye, asshole, Kyuubi said, I hate your guts, dead or alive.
Sakura brought Sai back and appraised the Yondaime. "Well," she said at last, "Take care. And…hmm." She pursed her lips as though stopping herself from calling him names and gestured for Sai to say bye.
"Farewell," the artist shook Minato's hand, "I think you're ugly and I'm happy to see you go."
"Screw this shit," Minato said, "Kakashi, I liked your goodbye the best."
Pumpkin finished reading. She looked wan and breathless; there was an unhealthy tinge to her skin. It was the blue-white complexion of a genteel person with bad circulation.
"The Ao complexion," Hoshi pronounced with a mix of satisfaction and longing.
That was when Minato felt his soul disengage, and the warm darkness of the afterlife enveloped him again. There was a powerful rush in his ears. He felt something brush up against him, something young, blond and startlingly familiar. The man twisted back towards his son, yelling, "Naruto!" and felt a sharp voice reply, "Dad!?" but the lure of death was too strong and he tumble into Hatsuoki's nirvana with his nieces looking at him in awe.
"Hey, Uncle!" Leiko said eagerly, "Nii-san left, like, two seconds ago!"
"You don't say?" Minato asked warmly, settling in to hear how kickass his son was.
000
"Your dad's a douche, man."
"More annoying than Ino!"
"I actually thought you looked less hot when he was in your body, nubbin."
Your father stinks worse than you do, kit.
Naruto frowned and looked at Kakashi for a second (fifth) opinion.
"It was nice to have my sensei back for a while. He was happy to see how loyal your friends are to you. A little insulted, but happy."
Naruto threw his arms around the captain of team seven. "Really?"
"He's proud of you, Naruto. What father wouldn't be?" Kakashi hugged hard. "You kept going, you kept trying. You made a life for yourself by your own mettle, out of his shadow. You're going to be a great man, just like him."
Naruto gave a great shout of laughter and let his sensei go. But Sasuke had to have the last word.
"Maybe not just like him. If you make my godson a jinchuuriki, Naruto, I'm going to kick your ass."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
/beams at the readers/ I hope you loved it. Like, really loved it.