Author's Note: Remember how I said to disregard the newest manga chapters? Disregard me saying that. I still don't like it, but I'm going to work with it. Anyways, thank you always for any and all forms of support and I hope you enjoy the chapter. Not much more is left (about two more chapters after this one). Enjoy.

Chapter 9

"Mother, can you hear me?" Kakashi asked as he made his way back into the space within his mind, the warm bonfire with the log benches. She emerged slowly from the bushes, sitting down next to her son.

"You want to see the end, don't you?" she asked, only to receive a nod from him. "Seeing all of this at once…. I don't know Pup…. We'll see how it goes."

It haunted his dreams for the week between Isao's sentencing and his actual death. Poor Katsu and Hana, all chopped to pieces in the training field, and Isao staring into nothingness with his black vacant eyes.

"Sakumo?" Mikazuki whispered as she shook her husband from his sleep. His eyes flew open to stare at his extremely worried wife. "You were screaming…"

"I… I'm sorry," he said quietly as he sat up in bed, trying to pull himself together. Mikazuki just wished there was something she could do… but wait, there was.

"I have an idea," she said with a slight smile. "There's this song… my mother use to sing it to me and my siblings, as her mother did before her and so on… It's said to have mystical qualities, and make a person fall into a sound sleep, regardless of the storm in their head."

"I have a hard time believing that," Sakumo sighed. "It sounds too good to be true."

"We'll just have to try and see if it works," she said as she sunk back into bed, Sakumo following suit. "Hmmm, now how did that song go exactly? Ah yeah, I remember…"

"A naoidhean bhig, cluinn mo ghuth. Mise ri d' thaobh, O mhaighdean bhan," she started singing as she moved closer to her husband, resting a hand on his chest. "Ar righinn oig, fas as faic. Do thir, dileas Fein. A ghrian a's a ghealaich, stuir sinn. Gu uair ar cliu 's ar gloire. Naoidhean bhig, ar righinn go. Mhaighdean uashaill bhan"

As soon as her song finished, she looked to Sakumo, who did seem to be more tired, but wasn't exactly asleep yet.

"That's a pretty song," he said quietly, obviously more tired than he had been. "What does it translate to?"

"Let me see….Little baby, hear my voice. I'm beside you, O maiden fair," she started, somewhat singing it but not able to because the translated words didn't quite match up. "Our young Lady, grow and see. Your land, your own faithful land. Sun and moon, guide us. To the hour of our glory and honor. Little baby, our young Lady. Noble maiden fair."

Before Sakumo could even tell her what he thought about the song or whether it was just a myth that it had mystical abilities, he was fast asleep. In Mikazuki's eyes, his slumber proved the 'myth' to be correct. The warmth and serenity of this memory quickly ended and it jolted to another.

Sakumo paced the length of his backyard forcefully, each second of Isao's execution ringing in his mind, torturing him. He wished that Mikazuki was home, but she was working today at the Yamanaka's flower shop. He wouldn't see her until at least that afternoon.

"A day alone with my thoughts," he said aloud, cringing at the words. "I need to find some friends."

Knowing that Jiraiya was probably sleeping off a night of research and Minato was probably training, Sakumo went to talk to his other friends, the dead ones.

"Hello again," he said as he stood at the memorial stone in the training grounds. Whenever he came here, he didn't think very much about his lost teammates that he'd had through the years and never knew very well, but his mother and father who had both died on separate missions. His father had died when he was just a baby while fighting off a swarm of enemy shinobi who were trying to infiltrate the village. His teammates had gone to send for back up, leaving him extremely out numbered and with no chance for survival. To say his mother was devastated would be an understatement.

Sakumo's mother was a stern woman. From what he'd heard, his father was more of the soft one of their pair, but he didn't know for sure. Her indifference and impatience towards her son often lead him to training on his own and spending a lot of time reading books while she would go on mission after mission. Being grown now, he wondered how anyone could ever love a woman so cold, but she could have been different before he knew her.

She was captured as a hostage and eventually killed while on an espionage mission. Her team didn't go back and save her because it would endanger the mission. Even though Sakumo knew he should've been sad, he didn't cry.

This was the company he chose to keep: he absent father and his cold-hearted mother, both long gone from the earth.

"I need to make more friends," he told himself as he stared down at the memorial stone. "No offense, Mother and Father."

"Are you talking to a rock?" Jiraiya asked with a laugh as he came up behind Sakumo.

"That's what it looks like, doesn't it?" Sakumo asked with a slight laugh. "Yeah, I guess I'm just trying to get my mind off things."

"Talking to rocks isn't a way to do that," Jiraiya said as he grabbed his friend's shoulder and tugged him along to the exit of the training field. "You know what I do to get my mind off things?"

"I'm not hiring a hooker," Sakumo answered quickly, making Jiraiya laugh even harder.

"I meant the other thing I do to get my mind off things," Jiraiya said after he composed himself.

"You write about your experiences with hookers. I know, I've seen you working on it," Sakumo answered with slight caution, not sure if he liked where this was going.

"Hey, you make it sound like porn," he grumbled. "It's smut, not porn, there's a difference." Before Sakumo could interject, Jiraiya sped up his point. "Anyways, I finished the first draft a day ago and I've been looking for a good friend to read and critique it for me, and since you seem to want to get your mind off things…."

The look Sakumo gave him was a mixture of disappointed, embarrassed, and slightly interested.

"Fine," Sakumo agreed, only to be dragged away by his overly enthusiastic friend.

"Now, you have to keep an open mind Sakumo," he said for the 5th time as they walked through Konoha and towards Jiraiya's apartment. "And keep my audience in mind."

"You're not seeing this part," Mikazuki said with a slight blush as she focused her energy and fast forwarded the memory. Now it was later in the evening and Mikazuki was in her house, trying to read a recipe for dinner. She still had trouble with reading Konoha's native language, even though she could speak it, so she constantly kept a pocket translation dictionary that her father made her in her dress pockets, so she could look things up. To ease the tension of having to focus so hard to read such a simple thing, she hummed quietly to herself as she scribbled the words down in a way that she could understand. She froze as she heard a noise outside, a rustling in the trees.

Bull sat up from where he was sleeping on the kitchen floor, near Mikazuki's feet and instantly started barking. Whatever was out there, he heard it too.

"Shh, it's okay," she said as she petted the large dog, but he wasn't calmed in any sense of the word. He bolted over to the sliding doors, scratching on them until Mikazuki let him into the yard. Her sense of security disappeared with the dog as she quickly closed the door and grabbed one of the cooking knifes off the counter. "If you're in here, you had better go. My husband will be home soon and he'll kill you, if the dog doesn't first."

Silence filled the house, unsettling Mikazuki even more as she slowly crept from the kitchen into the main room and to the front window. She could see Sakumo coming towards the house with somewhat of a hurried gait. He must've heard Bull barking. She threw open the door and hurried out onto the porch.

"Please hurry up Sakumo," she yelled, making him run over to the house at almost inhuman speeds.

"What's wrong? What happened?" he asked as he came inside with her, making sure to lock the front door behind him.

"I think there's something outside," she said as she looked towards the back sliding doors. "Bull ran out after whatever it was, I think."

"I'll go see what it is. You stay put here," he said, noticing the kitchen knife in her hand. "And take this. It'll be a little more effective than that." He took the knife from her and replaced it with one of his kunai. With that, he flew out the back door to find Bull.

Mikazuki ran her thumb across the top of the sharp kunai, not sure she'd be able to use it if she had to.

"It'll be fine," she said to herself as she walked away from the back door. "Whatever it was, Sakumo and Bull are handling it. I have nothing to worry about."

Trying to calm her nerves, she pulled a random book off of the bookshelf in the main room and sat down on their small green couch to try and read. It was an encyclopedia, so she just flipped through and stared at the pictures, not wanting to take so much time to decode the text. Then she heard it. The distinct sound of a foot stepping on the wooden floor. With a thud, she dropped her text book and gripped the kunai knife tight in her hand, running over to see who it was and hoping that it was Sakumo. Before she could even take in who was standing there, her kunai knife was gone and she was held tight against the person's chest, the kunai that she was going to protect herself with now tight against her neck.

"Don't move," he growled and while Mikazuki obeyed, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Bull, what in the world were you chasing?" Sakumo asked as he met up with the dog. Before he could try and figure it out though, a scream shot through the air, sending both Bull and Sakumo running back to the house. "It must've been a diversion."

Never in his entire life had Sakumo ran as fast as he did back to his house, Bull struggling to catch up behind him. When he made it back to the house, his stomach dropped at the sight of his wife on the back porch, a kunai knife held to her neck by someone he didn't quite recognize from where he was.

"Don't move," he said sharply, instantly giving away his identity. It was Isao's father, driven mad with rage and sorrow over the loss of his son. Sakumo knew he needed to distract him, just enough so that he could formulate a plan to get him away from Mikazuki without getting caught in any tricks that he could do with his sharingan.

"Why are you doing this?" Sakumo asked as he focused on the situation.

"Everything has to be equal," the crazed Uchiha said slowly. "You took one of the most important people in the world to me, so it's only fair that I take that from you. Poor thing here is shaking though. Must be scared out of her mind. Isao wasn't so cowardly. He accepted his unjust fate from the moment it was given to him."

From what he could see, the best way to reach Mikazuki would be to use an Earth Style jutsu and go underground, coming up from the ground in the small space between the two of them. If he moved quickly enough, he could pull the man's arm away from Mikazuki's neck and get her into a safer position. Without putting another thought into it, he quickly fired off handsigns and executed his plan. And while the Uchiha was fast, he wasn't fast enough to prevent Sakumo from getting Mikazuki away from him. However, he was fast enough to begin running off.

"You call her a coward and yet you run like a dog with its tail between its legs when I refuse to accept your twisted judgment," Sakumo said darkly as he caught up to the man and sent him flying against the ground with a swift kick. "I'm impressed Isao was even as talented as he was, seeing as you don't seem to be exactly the best that the Uchiha clan has to offer."

Isao's father didn't even get the chance to pull himself off the ground before Sakumo pulled his tanto from its sheath, charging it with bright white chakra and using the move that gave him the nickname White Fang to send him to see his son in the afterlife.

"You've killed me now too," the man whispered as he bled to death. "Now you have the guilt of killing both of us over your head."

Sakumo had no time for guilt or any reflection of his actions as he ran over to make sure Mikazuki was alright. She sat on the partially destroyed back porch, her mouth covered by her hands and her eyes glowing and white. Her entire body shook with either adrenaline or fear as Sakumo ran over to her.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he looked her over. She said absolutely nothing as her eyes stared at the bleeding corpse in their yard. "Here," he said as he picked her up bridal style and brought her in the house. From carrying her, he could see that she had a cut on her leg that was dripping blood, either caused from being pushed away and the kunai cutting her or from a stray sliver of wood slicing her, but either way it didn't look exceptionally deep, so he brought her into the bathroom and sat her on the counter as he dug through the medicine cabinet for disinfectant and bandages. She still said nothing, but her hands had drifted down to resting in her lap.

"You'll be just fine," he said as he dabbed disinfectant on a cotton swab and cleaned her leg. "It's just a small cut, nothing too severe."

"…you killed someone," she said out loud, not believing the words herself.

"I protected what's most important to me," Sakumo answered as he poured a little disinfectant on the bandage wrap and started wrapping her leg.

"But… how could you…?" she asked, finally looking down at her husband.

"Your life is more important to me than anything," he answered. "And he had every intention of killing you. Even if I had let him go, there would've been the possibility of him coming back. I could receive some negative repercussions, but the bottom line was that I was protecting what's most important to me, and the Hokage will at least respect that and understand the situation."

"That poor family," she thought out loud. "Losing two members in one day."

"The Uchihas have more than enough members," Sakumo said bitterly as he scooped Mikazuki back up. Even though it didn't seem to bother him much as he laid her in bed before going to explain to the Hokage what happened, the incident replayed in her mind more than most bad memories.

Mikazuki and Kakashi felt as though they were in a whirlwind as they flew through time to the next dream. Mikazuki didn't look at her son, only straight ahead, for she knew this was the last stop, the last memories of her own that she had, and she knew that he could either take it well or not. She didn't say a word, but took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze as they appeared in the training fields, where she stood at the age she was now, slicing away at a tree with Sakumo's tanto.

"I use to do that to vent," she told Kakashi as he watched the dream version of her cringe at the pain in her hands from gripping the tanto so tightly. "I couldn't hurt people, but trees were easy targets."

Before she could say anything else, dream Mikazuki stopped her slicing at the faint sound of a child crying. Quickly, she sheathed the blade and walked through the forest to find a small boy sitting in the mud, his goggles on his forehead so he could wipe his eyes.

"What's the matter?" she asked as she knelt near the boy so they were eye level. Obito Uchiha looked up at her with scared eyes, still sniffling.

"I'm lost," he answered. "It's stupid for me to be crying…. I'm a shinobi after all, but I can't find my way home and it's so dark…"

"I'll help you," she assured as she stood back up and offered the small boy her hand. He took it with hesitation but held her hand as they kept walking. She knew the path through the dark like the back of her hand, since she'd made many visits to this same spot almost daily since Sakumo's death. "What's your name?"

"Obito," he answered as his tears stopped falling and he gained some composure.

"Obito? Hmm, now that name sounds familiar," she said to herself as they walked. "Oh well, it'll come back to me. Where do you live Obito?"

"The Uchiha compound," he said as he slid his goggles back onto his face with his free hand.

"That isn't so far away from where I live," she said with a tired smile. "Wait, Obito Uchiha…. Oh! You're on Kakashi's team!"

"You know Kakashi?" Obito asked with a hint of distaste in his mouth. How could such a nice lady know Kakashi?
"Of course I do. He's my son," she said with a slight laugh. Obito looked at her as if she'd grown three heads and a tail. "What?"

"I… never mind…" he shrugged it off, figuring that Kakashi was either an entirely different person around his mom or that she was use to his personality.

"If you say so," she said back as they continued their walk in silence. Neither of them minded it though, since Obito was trying to figure out how this woman could possibly be Kakashi's mother. But Mikazuki was thinking on other things, like how being with Obito made her miss being around Kakashi. He'd been home after catching a pretty bad cold from overworking, so she had seen him quite a bit this week, but it wasn't the same.

"That's when I decided that things were going to change," Mikazuki told her son as they watched the scene. "I decided that when I got home, I would tell you that when you got better you needed to take less missions and I was going to start working at the Yamanaka's flower shop again. I was going to try harder to make an effort to keep us together."

"Except you didn't make it home," Kakashi said as he watched his mother walk his best friend to his house and walk towards the exit of the Uchiha compound before freezing from that undeniable feeling of being watched.

"Right," she answered as they fell into silence and watched the scene.

Mikazuki felt it all right, the shivers of someone's eyes glaring into her back. She didn't even consider it being simply because it was night and took off running out of the compound and through the residential streets as she tried to get to her house. Before she even knew what was going on, she was tossed off of her path and into the forest like a rag doll, falling into the grass and rolling several feet before finally being able to stand.

"Pathetic thing," a voice snarled at her. "Taking up space when more useful creatures could be existing."

Mikazuki stood slightly off balance from hitting her head as she looked up at the glowing red sharingan eyes that glared at her. She withdrew the tanto again, holding it in front of her even though her arms shook violently with adrenaline and fear.

"My father had wanted to take everything from the man who killed Isao," Fugaku Uchiha said with cool anger as he slowly walked closer to Mikazuki. "But he died before I was able to fulfill my father's mission. This will be as close as I'll ever get."

Fugaku came at her with high speeds as she swung sporadically to try and wield him off, but he was far too skilled and her abilities not as refined as his. Almost effortlessly, he knocked into her stomach and threw her yards away, slamming her into a nearby tree and making her cry out in pain.

"I guess in the end it's better that Sakumo is dead. There's no one to run to your rescue this time…" Fugaku said as he grabbed a kunai from his pocket and threw it at her, his aim being her forehead. Rather than hearing the sound of metal meeting flesh, he heard the kunai clink as it was sent off course by the tanto that Mikazuki used to block.

"He doesn't have to run to my rescue this time," she said breathlessly as she stood up with a stronger stance. "I may have had nothing to do with the death of your brother and I may feel sorry for you, but I will not stand idly by and let you murder me for crimes that I did not commit, nor did my husband."

Hearing her say these words sent him back at her with rage, only this time she was able to hold her own. Her intensified focus and his dulled focus made them more equally matched.

"This is where I thought I might actually win," Mikazuki told her son as memory Mikazuki focused energy into the blade and with mostly luck was able to power chakra through and slice into Fugaku's shoulder. He cried in pain as she tried to run off, only to stumble from the deep slices in her arms and legs. She had reached her limit and could not run, let alone fight. Fugaku on the other hand had worked past his pain, grabbed the woman by her arm and dragged her limp body over to the freezing river.

"Now you've seen the power of the Uchiha clan," he said as he stared into the river.

"What I witnessed was not power of the Uchiha clan," she said through teeth that gritted in pain. "All I witnessed was the evil force driven from hate and vengeance. As soon as I am dead, you will have no one to hate and your power will be gone."

Viciously, he reached down and grabbed her face, looking deep into her eyes with his cool rage. She didn't see that for long though, only small snippets of Sasuke and Itachi. She saw what life would've been like if the Uchiha clan hadn't been slain. Through this simple contact, she saw Sasuke become childhood friends with a small blonde boy who reminded her of Minato, join a team run by her son, and marry a pretty girl with pink hair. She saw it all, and in that moment in time, she couldn't hate him or Konoha, even though she had thought she did. All she felt was peace.

"I don't hate you," she said as he picked her up by her neck and held her over his head. Just before he dropped her, she whispered almost inaudibly, "you're sons... They will change the world... For better or for worse..."

The river water was painfully cold as each water molecule pierced her skin and open wounds as it pulled her down the river and to an unknown location to her. So this was the end of her path? Her last stroke on the painting of life?

"Kakashi will be so lonely," she whispered as she stared at the sky. "Sakumo, why did we leave him all alone?"

She drifted into unconsciousness at the memories of her, her husband, and her son before everything went wrong.

"Are you sure he's a boy?" Sakumo asked as he sat with his wife in her bed in the hospital as she held newly born Kakashi. "He's too pretty to be a boy."

"He's gorgeous, but a boy all the same," she said weakly as she stared at him. "He's going to drive the girls insane, I just know it." She looked away from her son for a minute to look at her husband. "Do you want to hold him?"

"Me?" he asked with surprise as he held his hands up in surrender. "I... I'll probably break him."

"You won't break him," Mikazuki said with a smile as she carefully handed her son over to his father. "Be careful to support his head and to hold him tight to you or he'll become afraid."

Sakumo was extremely careful, becoming alarmed at Kakashi's slightest movements. He kept looking to Mikazuki to make sure he was doing it right, only to receive reassuring smiles. Once he was comfortable, he actually looked down at his son.

"You're right, he's definitely a boy," Sakumo said with a nod as he stared with pride at his son. "He has that awful white hair that runs in all of the men in my family."

"It isn't awful," Mikazuki insisted as she scooted closer and leaned her head on Sakumo's arm. "It's peculiar, but not awful."

"Do you have a name in mind?" he asked as he moved the subject.

"I thought Meko, like the moon," she said as she petted her still son's head. Sakumo sighed slightly. "A lot of people have been named that in your family, haven't they?"

"You have no idea," he said as he slightly rolled his eyes. "I was thinking of the word scarecrow… because he's so still like a scarecrow."

"What's that word?"

"Kakashi," Sakumo said slowly, liking how the name sounded. "Kakashi Hatake. It's fitting."

"Very fitting," Mikazuki agreed.

"Pup! It's time to come inside!" Mikazuki called out to her three year old son who was romping in the backyard with the dogs. "Your father's home!"
At the mention of Sakumo, Kakashi pushed away from the hounds and ran into the house, kicking his sandals off and running down the hallway to his parents' room. Standing in the open doorway was his father, a man who he didn't see much but he still adored.

"Father!" he yelled excitedly, making the tired shinobi turn around with some enthusiasm and catch his son as he threw himself at his father.

"Hey there Kakashi," he said with a smile as he held him in his arms so they were face to face. "How have you been? Not giving your mother too much trouble, are you?"

"I never give her trouble," Kakashi insisted as his father carried him into the kitchen where his mother was making dinner. She always made the best meals when his father came home from long missions.

"I find that hard to believe," Sakumo said with a smile as he ruffled his son's hair.

"Will you tell me about your mission?" Kakashi asked as he moved past the subject of his behavior, afraid that his mother might mention his accidental destruction of Mrs. Yamanaka's petunias.

"Not right now," Sakumo said as he felt his wife giving him a look.

"Plleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaa ssssssssssssseee Father! Just a little bit. How many shinobi did you fight this time? Where were they from? Did you protect an important Daimyo or rescue a princess? Did Jiraiya Sensei go with you?" Kakashi asked excitedly as his father set him on the ground. He could feel the look still beating on the back of his neck, so he knelt next to his son and signaled him to be quiet.

"No princess or Daimyos, but Jiraiya and I did fight some hidden mist shinobi after finding some important documents hidden deep within the enemy lines," Sakumo whispered to his son as he watched Kakashi's eyes grow big with amazement. "But, that's all confidential and you can't tell anyone. Promise?"

"I promise!" Kakashi said loudly with excitement, only to be shushed by his father again. "I promise," he said quietly, glowing under the approving look from his father.

"Good. Now go get ready for dinner," he said as he stood up and walked back to the bedroom to change like he had been before Kakashi ran to him. As soon as he closed the door, Kakashi walked into the main room area and over to where their shoes all lined up. There were his small blue shinobi sandals that he got this year when he started at the academy. Next to them were his mother's bright red flats that were decorated with purple and gold beads that made butterfly and flower designs. Those shoes didn't fascinate him though. It was his father's huge black shinobi sandals that always drew his attention. They weren't clean like his were or pretty like his mother's, but they were functional and well used. They had seen more of the world than Kakashi had in his few years of life, and maybe that was what fascinated him. Either way, every time his father came home, he couldn't help but stand in them, even though they were almost as big as his entire leg, and just imagine the missions his father had been on in them.

"What are you doing over there Pup?" Mikazuki called as she wiped her hands on her apron and came over to her son.

"Father has big shoes," Kakashi said with some embarrassment about being caught in his father's shoes.

"One day you will too."

She could see it now, her son standing in black funeral clothes at his mother's grave. Behind him, Jiraiya and Minato, trying their best to comfort the orphan, but to no avail. He didn't cry. He didn't scream in anger. He just stared blankly at the fresh grave where his mother would lay for an eternity.

"There's no proof that Fugaku did it," Minato said through his teeth as a new memory of him sitting with Jiraiya emerged. "He's not going to be held accountable at all."

"He's an Uchiha," Jiraiya said sharply. "I wasn't expecting him to be held accountable."

Kakashi was now much older and badly wounded from war. Being left with only one eye, he was resigned to the life of a sensei rather than joining the ANBU black ops like previously planned. He had turned down Obito's gift, not wanting to have any piece of someone who was an "accomplice" to his mother's murder.

"I refuse to have a student who's an Uchiha," Kakashi said with disgust as he stared down at one of this student's names: Itachi Uchiha. The Hokage didn't say anything, only accepted his wishes and assigned him a new team.

"We've discovered that the Uchiha clan is plotting against the Hidden Leaf," the third explained. "We need to create a team to stop them."

"I'll more than happily head it," Kakashi said quickly.

"I will destroy the Hidden Leaf Village," the same raven haired boy she had seen marrying the pink haired girl said viciously in her dreams.

"Mikazuki!" Minato called through her foggy memories as he ran over to her broken body. She didn't know how long she'd been floating down the river, but it had been long enough for organisms to start invading her open wounds and to leave her weaker and more battered than before.

"Minato, my good friend," she said weakly as he lifted her soaked body out of the freezing water. "I am glad I will see you one last time, to will to you what I know now."

"What are you talking about Mikazuki?" Minato asked as he examined his friend. "We need to get you to the hospital now. Who did this to you?"

"Minato, I'm going to die," she said sharply. "As it stands, I don't have much time. Just please let me tell you what I must and follow my last wishes."

He pushed aside his feelings of sorrow and of guilt for not protecting one of his friends so that he could clearly hear every word she would say. It was likely that he was going to be the last person to ever see her.

"I have to do something extremely… questionable," she started. "I cannot explain the entire domino affect of how this will play out, but-"

"You killed them. You killed all of them," Sasuke said angrily as he stared at the ground. "I will avenge my family."

"Miki?" Minato asked as he pulled her back into reality. She stared at him frantically as visions of Sasuke becoming an unstoppable force, destroying this village, her son, his team, and everyone she's ever cared for washed over her brain, assaulting any sense of doubt she had over her decision. She had to do it.

"I have to erase my existence," she said quickly, much to Minato's shock. "I have a spell… my mother taught it to me a long time ago, back before the shinobi attacked us. It's a spell that can white a person out of memories, that reconstructs new ones for them so they can continue with their existences untouched… No one's ever used it before, and I don't know how it will work exactly, but I have to…"

"Wait, slow down Miki, I don't understand where you're going with all of this," Minato said, only to be waved off by her.

"There's no time… I know I can manipulate it, or at least it's been said that I can, so that some people will keep the memories…. You and Jiraiya. Yes, that will be good. Okay, Minato, listen carefully. I need you to burn my remains and get rid of them when I die. Erase me. Then, you need to go to my house, go into my bedroom, and burn anything with me in it…"

She could already see the future changing, her son becoming gentler and even a sort of friends with the boy she had walked home. She also saw much death and destruction from a violent attack, but through the sorrow, a bright light.

"You have to take care of Kakashi for me," she continued as she looked up at his sorrow filled eyes. "Treat him like he was your own son because one day he will be like a father to your son."

Minato couldn't find words to say to that. His son? He didn't dare ask who he would marry or what his son would be like, knowing that she was already weak.

"Do you want to see Kakashi one more time?" Minato asked. "Since he will forget you anyway."

"Yes," she said without any hint of hesitation. "Yes, but please hurry."

Minato wasn't called Konoha's Yellow Flash for nothing. But even with his speed, Mikazuki was fading quickly. All he could do was pray that he made it in time.