The Girl From Whirlpool

Chapter Eleven: A Wedding and a Funeral

Minato wasn't sure how he could have gotten through the next few days without Kushina, and this was perhaps the difference in her that left him most in awe.

Although she offered to let him sleep over at her place initially, Minato sensed the reluctance in her voice and decided not to foist himself on her inconveniently. He guessed she wasn't perfectly at ease around him yet, but once it was decided that he would be renting a room out, she showed herself up to be the human incarnation of organisation. She counted the funds from his father's money box after he'd eventually pulled it out from a cupboard, and had taken him straight to a pub which offered rented rooms that would suit his economic needs perfectly, balancing maximum comfort with affordability. When Minato asked just how she'd come to be so well versed with Konoha's temporary accommodation, she admitted to him that after she'd left the social centre, she had bounced around between hotels and inns for quite a few months before she'd come to an arrangement with Mikoto.

And when Minato had told her that he wasn't sure where he was supposed to start making arrangements for his father, she told him it was not as complicated as he probably thought, and then proceeded to give him the run-down of a set of complicated tasks, most of which he forgot by the time she got to the bottom of the list. He was quite glad she stayed with him to search his house for the will, and was there to drag him off to the village undertaker. Minato mostly stood back and let her wrangle the details out and argue the price of a ceremony with simple trimmings down to something that his money box would cover. If ever the undertaker suspected he was being out-manoeuvred and tried to talk the price back up, Kushina just angry pointed back at Minato and said, "Does he look like he's made of money to you?" before reminding him that Minato was a village hero who had taken down one of the seven swordsman. Although, Minato didn't know if she was telling him this to impress him or implying some kind of threat.

Minato wondered where this confidence in her had come from. He could guess that she had been involved with other funerals, especially if her sensei had not been very together after his wife's death, as her letters had inferred. This forthrightness astonished him. She had always been a little like that, but Minato could see that she could take care of herself better than people three times her age could. Having lost her parents and spent so much time alone, maybe it was a matter of necessity to be so devastatingly competent, because although Minato had managed without his parents all his life, he had always had people to rely on – his sensei, his adoring academy teachers, his adoring friends, his smitten (though sometimes murderous) commanding officers. They told him what to do, where to go, did him favours, offered him food and money and a place to sleep when he had none. He knew that once again he was relying on Kushina the same way he relied on them.

He envied her a little, that she'd learned how to cope with life while he'd grown up on the edge of the world, hiding from it.

Outside the undertaker's office, she handed all the paperwork to him, as if he had even the faintest idea of what it all meant. "That's that," she said with finality. "Remember, the funeral will be the day after tomorrow at ten. You may want to talk to an administrator at the Hokage tower about the will. Looks like your dad didn't update it after you were born, and he's left everything to some distant nephew or whatever. I don't know if you can do anything about that, but maybe there's some legal loophole that will allow you to keep something. Oh, and go to the bank. I saw some statements at your house for an account in your name, so your dad kept some savings aside for you at least, probably from all your missions and your military wages."

"Right." Minato thought he should be writing this down on his hand. All he could really think about was the ceremony in two days time. "Are you... going to come?"

She looked at him evenly. "I shouldn't impose."

"No – you won't," he said quickly. "It's just that I don't think my dad really had many friends – or any friends. So... I'm worried I'll be the only one there."

She tilted her head to side, disbelieving. "Minato, you're the Yellow Flasher-"

"Flash."

"-yes, so, um, I'd be surprised if half the village didn't turn up just for you," she pointed out.

"Ok," he nodded. "But you'll be in that half, right?"

She looked away. "If you want."

"Thank you," he said, and she only looked embarrassed.

"I have stuff to do," Kushina said, edging away from him. The lupins she'd bought were beginning to wilt a little and he realised he'd already taken up most of her day. "I'll see you around, ok?"

He waved as she left, and this was when he noticed even her gait had changed. There was still a little bit of the tomboyish strut to her walk, but it was thrown off somewhat by the side-to-side tilting of her curved hips. If Minato was honest with himself, he would have realised he was just admiring Kushina's rather lovely backside with the natural enthusiasm of any young man for an attractive young woman; but he was not honest, and so told himself that he was just impersonally analysing her strength and balance. She was probably an excellent fighter these days, he said to himself.

He smiled and headed back towards his designated pub, wondering if Kushina was aware of just how much she'd changed. There was a story he'd once heard about an ugly duckling who, in the manner of most fairytales, had the last laugh against his tormentors when he inevitably became beautiful – which was all that ever seemed to matter in such stories. Unfortunately, the simple idealism that formed these moral tales did not inform reality. Kushina was still a little odd, and not at all easy to approach even for someone like him, and a perfect complexion had not made Inoichi respect her any more or caused Ai to hate her any less.

Still... she looked well. Somehow, at some point, she had found a reason to take pride in herself and stop hiding beneath dirt and unwashed overalls, and so Minato was happy for her. He just wondered what had caused her to change so much...

Or who?

Until the funeral, Minato wasn't sure what to do with himself. He wandered like a distracted cat around the village, reacquainted himself with people and places he'd almost forgotten, occasionally remembering to carry out the little errands Kushina had set him. The administrators in the Hokage tower were no help. His father's will was absolute; he'd left Minato nothing, not even the house.

After living in a crowded tent for three years, Minato didn't think he cared and tried not to think too hard about why his father had never updated his will to include Minato. Had it just been laziness, or a deliberate snub to a child he must always have known was not his? Did it matter anyway? He was not used to possessing much, and the thought of inheriting any kind of property was overwhelming – he would only need Kushina to come round and tell him what to do with it anyway. So with nary a shrug, he let the matter go. Whatever his father's reasons, he would be taking them to the grave.

This done, he dutifully visited the ice cream parlour belonging to Ai's mother, who gave him a 100% discount on the spot. She said he was too thin and needed feeding up, and he helped himself to three bowls of syrup slavered sorbet before she was satisfied enough to let him go. He did feel better though, as she had promised. After that, he went to the bookstore. He wasn't a big reader, but he'd seen Jiraiya's name in the shop window and an ache of longing had filled him like a kind of grief he could not feel for his father, compelling him into the store to pick up a copy of his sensei's debut novel.

At night he returned once more to his extremely comfortable room behind the pub, lit a fire in the hearth to remind himself of the smoky campfires out on the border, and curled up in bed to read Icha Icha Delight.

He put it down after three pages, face burning hotter than the fire.

It was probably not decent to read such things the night before you buried your father.

The next morning, he went down to the cemetery wearing his uniform sans its green vest – for he didn't own anything else appropriate. He headed to the family tomb where the service would be held and his father's ashes would be placed beside those of his wife and his parents. One day Minato guessed he would end up in the same place, though the only person he was really related to was his mother. He had no idea where her parents lay, or their parents. His family tree started with his mother only, and in ninja circles where the elite clans could trace their ancestors back to the feudal age, this was a very meagre lineage indeed.

At the tomb, he arrived to quite the surprise. When Kushina had said half the village would come to pay their respects, she'd been wrong of course, but thirty people was still more than he had ever expected, and as he stood there and waited, more still arrived.

There was Inoichi, looking unusually sombre and humble when he greeted Minato. Ai's mother, who apologised haltingly that her daughter couldn't make it. Chichi and Chouza, a couple of the Hyuuga and Uchiha, and several more people he hadn't seen since the academy – people who couldn't possibly know who his father was, but had come all the same for Minato if no one else. He felt a little uncomfortable, looking around at so many faces he either didn't know or couldn't remember, until a shimmer of red caught his eye and his heart warmed, because Kushina was there.

She was standing on the other side of the tomb in the same black clothes he'd last seen her in, standing with a very lovely dark-haired girl. It took Minato a moment to recognise Mikoto, although what he noticed first was her uncanny similarity to Kushina – in both the style of her hair and the clothes she wore. This, he supposed, solved the mystery of who had been teaching Kushina about fashion and personal hygiene. They were evidently very close friends, but at that moment, neither girl was speaking to one another and Mikoto was standing far more closely to a tall dark-haired man. Her fiancé? Minato couldn't remember the guy's name, but with that thin and slightly angry face, he looked nothing like the nickname of 'puffer-fish' that Kushina had given him.

So while one friend was standing with her man, Kushina in turn was standing a little closer to someone else too. Once more, it took Minato a moment too long to recognise him, though he would have been forgiven, for Hatake Sakumo had changed a lot in three years, and perhaps the only reason Minato recognised him at all was because of a small white-haired child swinging on his arm in boredom. He'd heard a lot about that little boy, and he really did look like his father. Sakumo, however, had begun to resemble a much older man…

Once the ceremony began, it was swift and brief. Everyone stood around, looking sombre, or placing flowers respectfully around the tomb as the ashes were placed inside it. All that was left of his father now fit into that little urn. Minato had had plenty of time to decide how he would feel at this moment, but he still wasn't sure what the tightness in his chest meant. Sorrow? Anxiety? Relief? Guilt?

He kept looking up, away from his father's grave to Kushina. In this grim little cemetery where everyone came dressed in every shade between black and grey, she was a little dazzling, standing there with her vivid red hair and her rosy cheeks. The expression on her face captivated him far more than it should. Were those upturned eyebrows and downturned mouth because she felt sorrow over his father? Or because she was standing so close to her friend's fiancé who she detested? Or because she was concerned about the boy standing between her and her sensei who was beginning to ask loud, impertinent questions about what was going on.

He looked away from her, unsettled that he could spend more time gazing at his old friend than he could keep his mind on his father. But to be fair, he wasn't the only one. His gaze wandered across to Inoichi who was also staring in Kushina's direction and sighing imperceptibly. The boy really was too obvious.

As the ceremony closed, Minato felt indescribably weary. This wasn't the most physically taxing thing he'd ever done in his life, and all the same, he knew he would have liked to do nothing but crawl into bed and sleep the rest of the day away. But while there were countless people here all wishing to tell him how sorry they were and how they imagined how proud his father would be of him today, there would be no chance of sneaking off. He smiled at his well-wishers and bore it admirably until he found himself faced quite unexpectedly with Mikoto.

"Hello, you," she smiled sweetly. "It's been a long time!"

"Hello Mikoto," he said, smiling back a little more genuinely. "You look great."

"Ha – and you've grown so tall!" she exclaimed. "I feel a little nervous, actually. Speaking to a living legend like this."

"Nah… I've just had some lucky scrapes, that's all," he said. "How've you been? I heard you were living with Kushina now."

"Yes – although not for much longer. I'm getting married soon."

"I heard about that. To Fugu… Fugu… um.."

"Fugaku," she supplied quickly. "Yes."

"Already? I thought you'd wait until you were older… sixteen seems a little young."

She shrugged. "I'm old enough, so why put it off?" she reasoned, though her smile was a little more subdued. Minato searched the crowd and saw her fiancé standing quite a way off, talking to someone else.

"Are you sure?" he wondered.

She sighed in kind exasperation. "You're beginning to sound like Kushina."

"I know she doesn't approve of the match."

"Emphatically," she nodded. "But really, she's just being selfish."

That surprised Minato. It must have shown on his face, because Mikoto quickly explained. "She's a little possessive of her friends; she doesn't like sharing them. I think she'd rather we be spinsters together forever, but… you know. She has to get used to the fact that people grow up and get married eventually. If she wants someone all to herself, maybe she should find herself a guy."

"I thought she already had someone?" Minato hedged uncertainly.

Mikoto frowned at him, confused. "Oh! You mean Sarutobi," she said. "Well… I don't know much about that guy. I think he's still stationed at the Waterfall border, but she doesn't talk much about him, though everyone says…"

"Says?" Minato prompted.

"Mm." Mikoto pressed her lips together. "I don't like to gossip about things I don't really know much about… especially considering what you're probably going through. You don't need me wittering away at you."

He hadn't felt that way at all, but Mikoto was already excusing herself, heading back to her fiancé's side. He looked around, hoping to find Kushina, but all he saw was her Sensei coming towards him purposefully. Minato almost retreated to hide behind some other guests. Sakumo looked harder than ever and he'd never been pleasant to Minato before, so everything inside him screamed to run.

But one had to hold onto one's dignity at a funeral, so Minato valiantly held his ground.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Minato-kun," Sakumo said, as a manner of greeting. "Though it's good to have you back home again."

As if Sakumo had ever missed him. "Thank you…"

"You've made Kushina quite the happy girl," her sensei told him.

Minato's mouth opened, but he didn't know what to say. His brain was still trying to dissect and comprehend the meaning of those words. "Oh," he said intelligently.

"Don't get any ideas," Sakumo said shortly, giving him such a look that a shiver of near-genuine fear rippled down Minato's spine.

"Ok," he squeaked meekly.

"I do hope you stay in the village a while longer," Sakumo went on, as if he hadn't just sent something short of a death threat his way. "I reckon if you stick around the Hokage might like a word with you soon. There's a promotion on the cards, isn't there?"

Which just hastened Minato's resolve to split from this town as soon as possible. "Ah-"

"What are you two talking about?" Kushina popped out from behind her sensei, a little boy swinging like a monkey from her hand. She looked suspiciously at Sakumo while the boy looked obstinately at Minato.

"Nothing," her sensei said quite innocently. His manner was markedly different with her than with Minato, like he suddenly became a much more mellow person. "I was just congratulating your friend on his imminent promotion."

Kushina looked at Minato and then looked back. "And why does he look scared?"

"I have no idea what you mean," Sakumo said, and crouched to scoop up his son who was now pulling faces at Minato, much to Minato's shock. "Come on, Kakashi. We should go or we'll be late for your exams again. Don't do that – if the wind changes, your face will stick like that and you'll have to wear a mask forever."

As her sensei departed with his son, Kushina turned a little anxiously to Minato. "He didn't threaten you, did he?"

"No," Minato said quickly, though had to rethink that. "Yes. Maybe. I'm not really sure…"

She sighed. "Don't mind him. He just thinks you're an arrogant, conceited player with a big-head."

"Oh." This didn't make him feel much better.

"I've tried to tell him you're not, but the more I insist, the more convinced he is that you're no good." She shook her head and looked at the mound of flowers around his family's grave. "I think this turned out quite well, don't you think?"

"Sure…" he said faintly. "But I doubt anyone here even knows who my father is."

"So? I wouldn't mind a bunch of strangers turning up at my funeral. Better than no one. Better than… not even having a grave marker."

Minato sealed his lips. He would not complain, not when he knew Kushina was standing next to him, thinking about her mother's death than went unnoticed by the world and unremarked upon by the living. His father had had a decent ceremony, and that was all that mattered. And the one person he had to thank for that was Kushina. So he said, "Thank you."

"No problem," she said, brushing it off with a self-conscious shrug like her contribution didn't matter. "You'll be alright though, won't you? Did you ask at the administration offices? About the will?"

He told her honestly that he had, though it had been hopeless. "I'll have to find somewhere else to live," he said, "but I don't think I have to worry about it for a while yet. I'm still needed at the border, so who knows when I'll be back in the village on a more permanent basis."

Kushina's eyes narrowed at him, as if he'd said something nonsensical. "But… I thought you were back for good," she said quietly.

"I only came to take care of my father."

"Weren't you… discharged for your health?" she asked.

Now it was his turn to look confused. "Um… no?"

"I must have heard wrong," she said, tapping her lip thoughtfully in a gesture he'd never seen before on her, though he wondered if he'd seen Mikoto doing it. "I could have sworn I heard someone in headquarters saying you had been sequestered pending mental health evaluation because someone had reported problems with you."

"Uh…"

She looked at his brain-dead expression as if it very well could have been true.

"Shikaku," he said.

"Who?" Kushina wrinkled her nose.

"The guy I'm going to kill."

Once the funeral service was over he went without delay, without even changing his clothes, to the jonin headquarters where all decisions pertaining to who went and who stayed were made. If, as he hoped, nothing at all was wrong, he would be able to put in his request for redeployment and within a week could be back at the border to help the final, dribbling war efforts.

But if Kushina was correct…

"I'm afraid you're suspended," said the jonin after calling Minato into her office. "We processed a request two days ago to give you a mental health evaluation - we were just about to give you notice. Apparently some of your fellow comrades have suspicions about your ability to cope with prolonged fighting."

"This is a misunderstanding," Minato insisted, trying to appear as sane as possible. "My superior officer was out to get me and my friend thought I was a lunatic for going on a suicide mission – it wasn't really a big deal."

"Your superior officer is out to get you?" echoed the jonin mildly.

"He… sent a prostitute to kill me," Minato told her.

"I see." She primly straightened some papers on her desk. "Well, if there's nothing to worry about, your assessment will be clean and you'll be permitted to return to duty as soon as possible."

"And how long will the assessment take?" Minato asked in dread.

"A couple of weeks."

Minato sighed loudly.

The jonin looked at him sharply. "You're a young man," she said with a hint of reproach in her tone. "You shouldn't be living for war. Take this opportunity to relax and spend some time with friends, and perhaps when the assessment is over, you won't be so quick to leave all this behind. Besides, troops are already being pulled out. You have to get used to the fact that war ends and life moves on."

This was of little use to Minato, who had the uncomfortable feeling that he didn't actually have a life. He hadn't particularly enjoyed it out on the border, but he'd had a niche, and he'd been good at what he was doing, and suddenly being grounded back in the village left him feeling like a flightless bird. His purpose was gone, for now at least, until he cleared up the mess Shikaku had thrust upon him, and his father had died, irrevocably changing his life here forever. It would take him a while to find his place again.

"Well… thanks anyway," he sighed.

"No problem," said the jonin. "And keep your chin up. You're up for promotion, aren't you?"

"Right."

In resignation he returned to his little room behind the public house, knowing now that this was not to be some temporary jaunt. This was indefinite. Still, he continued to refuse looking too closely at his feelings in fear of discovering this development was upsetting him more than his father's death. In truth he should have been grieving right then, preoccupied by thoughts only about his father, but he was struggling to keep his mind on mortality and off things like the trouble Shikaku had caused and Kushina's skin. And so besides the frustration and confusion that mired him, he also found himself wallowing in shame.

The next few weeks were not easy. Being hauled in for mental health assessment also meant he couldn't even do regular missions until he was given the all clear. And it was a little embarrassing, he had to admit, to be seen going into the psychiatric ward of the village hospital, where some tedious woman who didn't seem to ever blink asked him a lot of deceptively mundane questions and stared at him as he tried to give her the most mundane, sane answers he could think of.

"What's your favourite colour, minato?" she asked.

"Uh… r-red," he said, and watched her scribble something awfully long-winded in her note-book as if he'd just revealed his passion for wearing dresses on weekends and calling himself Minako.

His friends seemed rather understanding, or perhaps just a touch careful not to vex him. Impossibly, he was revered even more so. Heroes with dubious mental health were, as Chichi told him, much more exciting, which was just what Minato needed because she informed him that he had little personality to speak of anyway. Which was kind of her to mention.

Inoichi was always a little subdued around him. If he still told lewd jokes about Kushina – or any girl – he stopped them around Minato, and if ever the conversation turned to Kushina or they crossed paths on the street, he seemed to avoid looking at her. He was apparently trying to make an effort not to give anyone the impression he was interested in her. This was somewhat ruined by the fact that he cornered Kushina one afternoon outside her house and begged her to go out with him. Kushina related the story to Minato in mortification.

"And what did you say?" he asked her.

"I said I was already seeing someone," she whispered. "He looked really desperate."

"You didn't tell him to eat shi-"

"No, I didn't need to," she interrupted. "I don't know why, but he's not as unbearable as he used to be. I told him the girl at the flower stall was interested in him, and that seemed to cheer him up at least."

Kushina, on the other hand, was becoming more unbearable than ever. The date of Mikoto's wedding was approaching and with every day it edged nearer, the more Kushina began to resemble a snapping turtle in her temperament. It was quite easy to see her in the market in the morning, buying flowers or groceries and to call out a cheerful 'Hello!', only to be treated to a foul glare, a biting retort, and/or a string of expletives.

Oddly, this was more like the Kushina he remembered, so he was more than comfortable when she was like this. When she wasn't on a mission, he could usually find her on the market street in the mornings, and from there he could contrive a casual excuse to accompany her to wherever she headed next, which was usually to breakfast at a teahouse or the library. He was more than happy to listen to her talk – or rather rant – about Mikoto and Fugu-face and their wedding.

"I don't know what she sees in him," she said loudly in the library one morning browsing shelves for books – for at some point in his absence she had learned to love them. Unfortunately, they were not of the academic, broaden-your-horizons kind; they were more of the trashy Point-Horror kind. "He's this horrible po-faced smug bastard who thinks he can snap his fingers and everyone should obey his every whim including Mikoto. How can anyone marry someone like that? They should definitely wait another five years – or, you know, at least until she can longer stand him. It'll happen eventually. Even Mikoto's patience has limits."

"Shh!" hissed some unseen busy-body from behind one of the many stacks of books around them.

"SHHH!" hissed back Kushina, much more loudly. "Some people are so rude!" she exclaimed. "Have they invited you to their wedding yet?"

Minato stirred. It had been a long time since she'd invited him to speak, and he'd been staring at this dog-eared copy of 'Unbelievable Ghost Sightings' for so long he'd almost forgotten he existed. "Um… no," he said.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Um, well, I think they were going to," he said, dimly recalling an incident three days ago when the couple in question had approached him unexpectedly in what seemed like an obvious opening to invite the hero of Konoha along to the most important day of their lives. "But then I forgot Fugaku's name, and all that came out of my mouth was… Fugu."

Kushina gave him a proud smile.

"They left quite quickly after that."

"Well, I'm allowed to invite one other person with me if my invite doesn't get revoked by then. You can be my plus one if you like."

He closed his book. "Really? Isn't there someone else you'd rather invite?"

She looked confused. "Everyone else I know already has an invite."

"What about Sarutobi?"

"Saru's still on tour at the Waterfall border," she said dismissively, looking down at her long, pretty fingers. "He won't make it back in time."

"That's a shame," sighed Minato, not missing how she'd shortened his name to just 'monkey' in a way that could have been rudeness or affection.

Kushina pulled a face. "Why?"

"I'd like to meet him, I guess."

"Why?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

She thought about that. "You have enough fans without actively looking for more."

"I just want to meet the people who are important to you, that's all," he said.

"Why?" she repeated, suspicion intensifying on her face.

"I keep hearing about him."

"From who?"

"Well, not from you. You hardly ever mention him."

"Probably because he's none of your business."

"You don't want to talk about him?" he wondered.

Her fingers tapped against the table and her mouth twisted to the side. "No," she said.

"Is he ugly?"

Kushina looked uncomfortable. "Minato, stop it."

"You're a very private person, aren't you?" he observed with a faint smile.

She echoed the smile more uncertainly. "And you didn't used to pry."

"You can't blame me for being curious," he said, watching her get up. Was she about to stalk off in one of her legendary huffs? "Every time I hear his name, yours follows, and vice versa. You're my friend... so I thought you'd want to talk about him."

"Saru is my captain. What else do you want me to say about him?" she said, moving to start aggressively hunting through the books on the shelf behind her so that he couldn't see her face.

"I think you mentioned him in your letters. You said you were becoming friends with him?"

"We're friends. So what?" she demanded.

Her defensiveness only confirmed that they had to be a lot more than just friends, though he didn't know if her caginess was because of fraternization rules between subordinates and superiors, or because she really was as intensely private as she acted. "I'm just glad," he said with a mild shrug. "When I left, you didn't have many friends. Now you have quite a few."

"I have enough," she said curtly. "Unlike some people who make a million friends and forget their faces as soon as they leave the room, my friends mean a lot to me even if they are few." When she turned back to the table with a new book, she witnessed his stupid smile. "What?" she snapped.

"I never forgot you."

"Then why did you stop writing?"

Ah. Minato sat back, surprised. She'd said it with such swift, righteous anger that he realised it was a question she'd been holding in her hand for a long time, waiting to present to him since the moment he first got back. All he could think to say was, "You were the one who stopped."

The old glue in her book's spine cracked audibly as she opened it and proceeded to glare at its pages. Another horror novel. One could glean many strange and interesting ways to kill irritating people from a book like that and he hoped it wasn't giving her ideas. "I never," she said firmly. "But you did, after I sent you that letter about sensei's wife and having to fight Waterfall. You could have at least had the decency to respond."

"I did!" he protested, indignant that he could be so wronged.

She looked at him as if not sure whether to believe him. "I never got another word from you after that. All I heard about you was from the stuff people were saying, and I realised you probably didn't want to be bothered trading letters with some stupid girl anymore."

His mouth dropped open. "What were people saying?"

Unable to concentrate on her book, she clapped it shut again. "You know, everyone knew who you were before you were the Yellow Flasher-"

"Flash."

"- and they said you were the best ninja in the war against the water country and possibly the best ninja of any war of any period. They said you had killed over a hundred people in your first year, that you killed a prostitute in your second, and wiped out a whole mist outpost in your third."

Minato could see his reputation seemed to get bigger the further away from him it got. "None of that's really true."

"Really?" she looked a tiny bit relieved.

"Well, I lost count of how many people I killed by the first year, the prostitute was really an assassin posing as a prostitute, and I only wiped some of the outpost out, not all of it."

Relief turned to a fixed stare that reminded him strongly of his mental health assessor, like she was mulling over the state of his mind in her own before she finally sighed and looked at her hands again. "We're not really the same people we used to be, are we?" she asked quietly. "You've changed so much, I don't really understand you anymore."

"You're the one who changed, Kushina," he stated simply. "Maybe because you've grown so much I look different to your eyes."

She shrugged stiffly. For someone who could articulate so well in anger, she clammed up spectacularly when she was sombre.

"Well, you weren't the only one who heard things," he said. "Aren't there rumours going around that you spent a year at the Waterfall border and didn't kill a single enemy?"

She shook her head, looking dismayed and annoyed. "That's not true," she said, deliberately not looking at him. "I killed one person, and then I decided not to do it anymore."

"How can you just 'decide' like that?" He frowned in confusion. Captains didn't hesitate to give penalties to nin who didn't carry out their orders.

"These were my own people, what was I supposed to do?" she shrugged helplessly. "Waterfall is full of former Whirlpool citizens, and by some flip of a coin I could just as easily have ended up on the other side of that war, fighting a losing battle."

"So you're a pacifist now?" he said incredulously. She really was a long way from the girl who had once tried to convince him that some people deserved to die.

Kushina gave him a frustrated look. "You say that like it's a dirty word. But it's not like I ran away or stopped doing my job. Just because I didn't kill my opponents doesn't make me a coward."

"I never said you were," he said quickly.

"Well, that's what everyone else said. I let them escape. I had to. Our force was too small to take prisoners, so it was either kill them or let them go. So I let them go."

This was incomprehensible to Minato. Sometimes enemies had escaped him, and a few he'd cheerfully let scamper away, but to allow that in every single confrontation? How could a war be won if defeated enemies were allowed to regroup and return to fight another day?

"What did your captain say?" he asked.

"What does it matter what Saru said?" she snapped, which Minato took to mean he wasn't best pleased. "We won the war within the year, so it obviously didn't matter what I did. But maybe at least there are people walking around today who wouldn't be here otherwise."

Minato could not say the same for himself. He could count on one hand the number of people he'd shown mercy to, and because of him there were hundreds of people – mothers, fathers, children, and friends - who were not walking around today.

"And this is why you don't like me?" he asked. "You think I'm some deranged killer now?"

"I never said that. It's impossible for anyone to dislike you," she chided, which seemed like a good way not to answer his question. "You're just… more distant than I remember. You don't talk much anymore."

Was he distant? If he said little it was because he could think of nothing to say, not because he was consciously keeping his distance. He remained silent because she filled that silence with a voice that was soft and ever so slightly husky, which undulated appealingly with the traces of an old Whirlpool accent. Why would he interrupt that? "Or maybe you just talk more these days," he pointed out.

"Sorry," she said contritely.

"No, I like that," he amended quickly. Girls could be a little sensitive to accusations of 'talking too much', he found. "You're interesting."

She grimaced as if she didn't find this even remotely believable. "There are far more interesting people than me to hang out with."

"Yes," he agreed, because she didn't like silly placatory lies. "But you smell better than they do."

Perhaps that had been a little too honest. A puzzled kind of smirk pulled up her lip. "You're so weird." But then she smiled and laughed too, so he could assume that she at least somewhat approved of his weirdness.

The wedding between Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto was held on a beautiful autumn day when the forests were turning red and crisp leaves littered the streets like brown paper stars. It was the talk of the village, naturally, since this marriage would cement Fugaku's place as the head of the Uchiha clan and such a person was always of political interest in Konoha where the Uchiha controlled so many departments. There was no mistaking that this was a marriage of convenience, but there was always a titter of romance about arranged marriages. In these traditional households it was viewed as the beginning of a love story, whereas a marriage between long-time lovers was merely the conclusion.

Kushina insisted this was the beginning of a horror story, regardless of the many rumours that the bride was in love with the groom. She turned up outside his rented room behind the pub on the day of the wedding, dressed alarmingly in black again, and she looked approvingly at his own choice of outfit, as all he owned was black.

"This is the worst day of my life," she lamented passionately, as they made their way down to the Uchiha compound where the ceremony would take place.

"I think Mikoto is quite happy," he tried to remind her.

"But who cares if Kushina is unhappy?" grumped Kushina. She was in an especially bad mood that day, not just because of the imminent wedding, but because yesterday her home had been invaded by a band of Uchiha cousins who had packed all Mikoto's belongings into boxes to take to her new address. This was upsetting at the best of times, Kushina said, but particularly because they had packed Kushina's collection of tropical ferns by mistake.

Minato hadn't known Kushina was the kind of person to keep tropical ferns. He was still learning things about her even now.

"Cheer up," he cajoled. He'd seen happier suicidal people than Kushina.

"I will not. And I will never cheer up again," she declared ardently.

People knew when Kushina had arrived, for she brought with her the most incredible aura of malice and gloom. She might as well have been followed by a little black raincloud wherever she went, and though a few people were brave enough to approach Minato and exchange a few gushing pleasantries and worship, no one quite had the nerve to look Kushina in the eye. If this was a fairytale wedding, she was the evil, jealous witch who had turned up to curse the happy couple, though it was not the groom she coveted, but the bride. Here was everyone dressed in their best and brightest kimonos, and there was Kushina, like an angry ink blot in the midst of a sea of joyful colour.

Because it didn't really feel right to ditch the person who'd invited him along, he was more or less stuck with her. And her gloom was infectious. Anyone who looked over at them would think they'd mistaken this for another funeral, as they skulked together looking equally miserable.

The Uchiha were the kind of people who observed tradition to the letter. Minato had never seen an authentic old-fashioned wedding dress before, complete with its enormous white hood, and Mikoto carried it off beautifully. Perhaps it was because her make-up had been done by artisans and she was glowing with demure happiness, but Minato finally noticed that Mikoto was not just pretty but was in fact stunning. As he watched her proceed to the altar, he saw her soon-to-be-husband was not at all indifferent to his-soon-to-be-wife. An arranged marriage it might have been, yes, but these two were the happiest people in the room.

Minato looked at Kushina and sighed. She was grinding her teeth and looking at Fugaku as if she might be able to make his head explode with the power of her mind alone. She would refuse to be happy for her friend out of principle, but fortunately the couple were too wrapped up in the vows to notice the gremlin in the first row.

And when it came time for the groom to lean in and kiss his beautiful wife, Kushina gave a great jerk which made Minato fear she was about to leap to her feet and push them apart. Just to be safe, he grabbed Kushina's hand and held on tight to prevent her from moving. It seemed to work. Kushina forgot to glare at Fugaku because she was busy blushing and trying to wriggle her hand free from his. By the time he let go, the vows were complete and there was nothing Kushina could do to further interfere. While everyone clapped and cheered and accepted ceremonial sake, the red-headed troll slunk away instead of joining the clamour of congratulations.

Minato worried she would regret it.

The first person who came up to Minato was Inoichi. "What were you doing here with Kushina?" he asked suspiciously. "Are you two dating or something?"

"No," Minato said. "I'm her plus one."

"Tell me that's a euphemism for a sex buddy."

"What do you care who Kushina is with – you're here with the flower girl," Minato pointed out. (Said flower girl was currently speaking to Mikoto, complementing the floral arrangements around the hall in a strained way, for if she had been in charge of said arrangements, she would have gone for peonies to denote a happy marriage, and certainly not the travesty of purple aconitums which everyone knew inferred a foe was nearby. Said flower girl was also unaware of Kushina.)

"You have no shame, Namikaze," Inoichi said coyly. "Don't you have a girl back out on the border?"

"Do I?" Minato wondered.

"Shikaku has told me all about Yoshi."

"Yes, he probably has. He's besotted with her."

"Not his Yoshi. You're Yoshi. The blonde one."

"Oh," said Minato, suddenly remembering he had completely forgotten her. "Yes."

"How come you haven't said anything about her?" Inoichi said suspiciously. "Hoping Kushina won't find out?"

Now he realised why Kushina got so cagey when he pressed her about Sarutobi. Being quizzed on your romances was probably classed as torture in some countries. He shifted uncomfortably and wished there was some brightly coloured ball or toy he could use to distract Inoichi. "I don't think Kushina would really care. I told you, we're not together like that."

"Just as well," said Inoichi, "Sarutobi's coming home soon and he'll probably flay anyone alive who's moved in on his territory."

"Is that so?" Minato murmured, knowing full well that Inoichi would happily have risked such a flaying. "I didn't realise Kushina was a territory."

"And a very fine one, I'd be happy to conquer any time," Inoichi said.

Minato made a gesture like he was reaching for a kunai from the absent holster on his hip; Inoichi flinched impressively. "Relax," he smiled, contriving to appear as if he hadn't intended to scare the other boy. "I wouldn't stab you. Not at a wedding."

"Yes, well..." Not at all comforted, Inoichi peered around furtively and asked, "You haven't seen Kushina around, have you?" Although he may have been looking for back-up against Minato's questionable sanity.

"I'm sure she's around." Like Minato was stupid enough to point the way.

"Probably scrounging around for the bouquet," Inoichi said.

"It's not that kind of wedding," Minato reminded. He couldn't imagine the noble Uchiha partaking in anything as whimsical as flower lobbing. "And I doubt Kushina's that eager to get married."

"Don't be so sure. Sarutobi is a handsome guy, even I'd be tempted." Inoichi spotted the flower girl waving to him and gladly slipped away through the crowd to join her. Minato looked around for familiar faces. There was Hatake Sakumo over there, minus his son, so Minato made sure to move discreetly in the opposite direction to avoid any more awkward confrontations. Did the jonin really regard him as an arrogant, conceited player? Although in a village where most of the population held him in ridiculously high esteem, one or two who judged him negatively shouldn't have mattered. Except it was Kushina's sensei, and for some stupid reason, he'd always sort of hoped that the kind of person she would look up to would also like him.

"There you are!"

So busy avoiding the senior Hatake, he'd almost literally walked into the bride.

"Mikoto," he said, nodding to her pleasantly, and then to her husband. "Fugu-aku."

And if there was one person who hated him even more, it was Uchiha Fugaku. The bride coughed sweetly as a muscle twitched in her groom's cheek. There was no salvaging the wreck of his first impression now, and he could only blame Kushina for planting just a damn memorable nickname into his head. "Uh, congratulations," he forced out, trying to move away from his blunder.

"Thank you," Mikoto said graciously. "Did… Kushina invite you along?"

Because Fugu-face certainly hadn't.

"Yes, she's around somewhere," he said.

"Probably poisoning my wine as we speak," Fugaku said.

"Hush," Mikoto said. As much as she apparently disliked Kushina talking ill about her husband, she didn't like it when he did it either.

"Come on, we have to say hello to your grandparents," Fugaku said, steering his new wife away by the elbow. He was a little domineering, and Minato wondered if in a few years that would begin to chafe against Mikoto's nerves. For now at least, she was still glowing with delight and happiness, even if she looked a little troubled as she turned to call to Minato over her shoulder.

"If you see her, tell her I'm looking for her," she said, before she was soundly whisked back into the clutches of her clan.

Where was Kushina, anyway? Minato wandered from one end of the hall to the other, looking around for the girl who should have been extremely easy to spot, dressed in black and with such vivid red hair. But it seemed she'd snuck out of the room entirely. Perhaps she'd gone back out the front of the building? Something told him that Kushina, who disliked crowds and preferred her little hidey-holes, would have headed the opposite way.

He found a side-door and slipped through it into the quieter confines of the house, down corridors that led to many empty rooms and one bustling kitchen. A door to a private garden was propped open to let the heat of the cooking out. Minato followed the breeze onto a quaint little patio and followed the path down to what looked like the shadiest, weediest part of the garden.

And indeed, that was where he found Kushina, crouched down behind an old shed with tears streaming down her face. She swore when she saw him. "What do you want?"

"Nothing urgent," he promised, shifting awkwardly. There were few things more painful to witness in this world than a crying girl. "Um, I can come back…"

"Just spit it out, Flasher," she said, scrubbing at her face. "What do you want?"

"It's Flash," he corrected patiently, "but it's not really important. Are you ok?"

"I'll live," she croaked, giving a great big shuddering sigh.

"You'll still see her, you know," he said, moving forward to crouched tentatively on the mossy rocks beside her. "It's not like you'll never see her again. She's only moving down the road."

Kushina have him a watery glare. "It won't be the same. It was bad enough before when they spent every other second together. Now they're actually married."

"You could try being happy for them?" he suggested tentatively.

That seemed a little too radical for Kushina. She pulled a face, before burying it in her arms. "I'd rather not," she said. "It would only encourage them."

"Oh, come on, what's so bad about Fugaku?" he wondered. "The guy's a bit stiff, but he honestly seems to love her."

"He's bad, I can feel it," Kushina said simply, lifting her head to glare off into the trees. "He's going to get her into real trouble one of these days."

He smiled at her. "You're too suspicious."

"And you only bother to see the good in people," she retorted. "Fugaku is bad news. I can wait though. He'll pull something one day and I'll be right there with the divorce papers."

Traditionally it was the couple who decided when they should divorce, not their friends, but Kushina was totally convincing. He believed her. "Look on the bright side," he said, spreading his hands. "Mikoto may be marrying a sour-faced pufferfish, but since she's moved out you'll have more room to yourself. Isn't that something?"

"No," she said sullenly. "I hate living by myself… it's way too quiet and I can't afford the rent alone, which means I'll have to find someone else to share with and I hate breaking in new tenants."

He smiled. "Think how I feel. I've got to find a place to live, and people can be pretty picky who they rent out to."

Kushina scoffed indelicately. "You have a legendary title now. You could waltz up to the Hokage himself and demand a room; he'd probably give it you."

"I was thinking of something a little more in price range," he said. "Remind me… what is my price range?" She knew his accounts far better than he did.

She sniffed, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. "There's this bridge that goes over a river that I think you might like."

He laughed sarcastically. "Do I look like a troll?"

"Only sometimes," she replied ruefully, though at least her eyes were beginning to dry and her voice had stopped cracking. "What do you have to worry about, seriously? You could just mooch off your millions of friends for the rest of your life if you like."

"Or I could move in with you?"

Her eyes jumped to his and searched his face. "Steady on," she muttered, turning pick as if he'd suggested she take her clothes off in front of him.

"Well, why not?" he asked. He turned to her more fully, eyes bright with the perfect solution he could see unravelling neatly before them. "You need a tenant and I need a place to live – you don't have to break me in because I'm already broken!"

"Mentally maybe," she remarked, looking away.

Kushina was avoiding an answer. His proposal had clearly made her uncomfortable and she looked as if she was searching for a way to change the subject or turn him down politely, but the trees she was staring so hard at weren't going to give her the answer she was looking for. Anyone would think he'd proposed marriage she way she'd reacted.

He sighed quietly to himself. "It's just a convenient solution," he pointed out.

"Sharing with girls is one thing," she said. "Boys..."

"Just the one boy," he reminded quickly. "And it's not like you don't know me."

"I know, but..." She winced awkwardly, holding her arms about her more tightly. Her eyes still refused to meet his, and Minato felt this was somewhat like trying to stab the hardest pea on the plate with a fork. She would keep skittering away every time he tried to pin her down for a straight answer.

"Is this about Sarutobi?" he guessed. Perhaps she was thinking her boyfriend wouldn't be happy if he returned to find another man in her house.

"Would you stop going on about him," she sighed, exasperated. "What would this have to do with him?"

Minato shrugged at her. He wasn't entirely sure himself anyway.

"I'll think about it," Kushina said evasively, getting to her feet and brushing the soft strands of moss that clung to her lovely backside. It was really quite interesting to watch, and while she was avoiding his eyes, he was free to stare as much as he liked. "If no one else wants the room, I'll consider it."

"Good," he said dryly. "I like being people's last resort."

"Quite the change for you, huh?" She reached out to offer him a hand. "You coming?"

He accepted it dubiously, "Coming where?"

She had extraordinary strength in those lean arms, and she pulled him to his feet as if he wasn't so much taller and had three stones on her. From out of her pocket she pulled a narrow flask that was unmistakably the kind of flask grizzly old alcoholics took swigs from when they were away from a pub. He shot her a look of faint reproach as she twirled the flask around her fingers from its short strap. "This party's a little stiff and traditional, isn't it?" she remarked. "Let's liven it up a little. Where's that punch bowl...?"

Her propensity for pranks hadn't changed much, and later Fugaku, with a bag of ice to his head and the worst hangover of his life, would be able to tell his wife who had scolded him for suggesting Kushina would spike his wine, 'I told you so' in an immensely satisfied way, after spending their wedding night too inebriated to consummate their marriage.

On the plus side, Kushina's mood improved greatly after this, and when she turned up a few days later on Minato's doorstep with an extra key to her apartment cut especially for him and said "Why haven't you packed up yet?", so did Minato's.

TBC