'There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is the willingness to think.'


The water fell from the sky and it burned. I know, I know, water isn't supposed to burn, but the water was boiling. Sa-chan was squirming and would have been screaming if my blistered hand wasn't covering his mouth. There was water all around us, Itachi-touto had a frantic, painful hold of my leg, and I tried, I really really tried but—

I can't swim.

I've never learnt how to swim, in this life or in the previous one. It just…never happened.

I can't water walk, I'm too panicked to even try, and it burns.

It was all I could do to—

We're swallowing too much water, and I can't hold my breath for very much longer.

Think Akito, THINK!

Bubbles erupted from where I'd covered Sa-chan's nose, and he went limp in my arms. I…I should be panicking right now, but all I can think is…

I'm losing oxygen rapidly. My brain is becoming sluggish.

Itachi-touto…I glanced at him, the water strangely still around us. He was looking at me with wide, blood-red eyes, the eerie blue glow of my chakra making him seem like a figment of a dream, and I tried to smile at him.

Sharingan…Kakashi…

Slowly, although I don't know how slowly, I weaved my chakra and pushed it out, covering us with a lattice of pulsating blue chakra, and I swallowed some water, but mostly it was air. Itachi-touto gasped, and spluttered, and…

Sa-chan's still limp, and I'm not sure if he's breathing right now, and I'm too tired to check.

This is taking more out of me than I realised.

I'm sure there's a better way to do this…maybe if I used my chakra to mould the water so it forms an air bubble…isn't that what Zabuza did to Kakashi on that Wave mission?

I tried again, careful not to get rid of the chakra lattice surrounding us itself until I'd managed with the water dome, but every time I tried, it was like—

It's almost as though the water itself was chakra.

My eyes snapped wide open from their half-lidded state.

This isn't a regular water jutsu. This is…this is…

My chakra lattice trembled.

I think I'm dying of chakra exhaustion.

Sa-chan's still not breathing.

Itachi-touto was still staring at me with those scared, blood-red eyes.

Well, at least I technically made it to canon, right? Technically…

My chakra lattice trembled again.

I closed my eyes, and concentrated. Until someone came to help (please, please come and help) I have to keep this structure alive. Itachi-touto would not die on my watch. I'm sure Sa-chan just needs CPR.

I'm pretty sure…

Itachi-touto brushed his small, too young hands across my cheek. Without opening my eyes, I smiled at him.

His hand began trembling, and I'm pretty sure he was crying.

And then a hand grabbed my ankle and pulled.


Minato, Kushina and Rin watched with mounting horror as a huge ocean's worth of water coalesced above the main Konoha gates and hurtled towards the Southern District in one giant ball of glowing blue.

"Minato!" yelled Kushina, and immediately he snapped out of his daze and hiraishin-ed to the gates.

It was dark, and really hard to see, but he could make out a masked figure—another masked figure—raging madly and then, as soon as the giant ball of water hit the Hokage Monument, the man collapsed and fell from the nine feet high gate.

Minato ran to catch him, but before he got there, a person materialised out of the shadows—literally materialised, because Minato knew he hadn't been there before—and grabbed the masked man, who was sobbing incoherently and sounded like he was having a fever dream.

The person that had materialised was…Minato blinked, just to make sure he wasn't seeing things because of the rain obscuring his vision, but it was true. The thing was half white and half black, with green…a Venus flytrap?...cocooning a wiry frame. Messy green hair, sinister yellow eyes and a crazed grin.

Minato catalogued these things in a split second and then shunshin-ed to them and blasted a huge rasengan right where they were.

The rasengan had taken out a sizeable chunk of the masked man's right side, with his torso shredded and skin chunks clinging to the white bones of his ribcage. The plant-person-thing had managed to dodge, but even then, Minato had managed to cause several lacerations on its Venus flytrap casing.

The plant-person-thing hissed and glared at him with yellow eyes, and before Minato could do more than kick and snap the thing's shoulder blade with a crunch, it swallowed the masked man and disappeared into the shadows, its slithering voice whispering insidiously, "You've won this round, but we'll be back, Yondaime."

Minato lunged to where they were disappearing, but even as he did, he knew it was in vain.

He stood there for a moment, regaining his bearings, before hiraishin-ing back to the clearing he'd left his wife, female student, and son.

"Sensei, what was that?" asked Rin with a lot of suppressed fear.

Kushina glared at him and snapped waspishly, "Stop jumping around and stand up!"

Minato chose to ignore that ridiculous command (he was neither jumping nor sitting down, thank you very much, and besides, he didn't even know how to do both at the same time anyway. Sometimes, he wondered about what went through Kushina's mind) and instead answered Rin's question.

"Her accomplice," he indicated to the dead body of the Uchiha woman, "cast a water jutsu of some sort, although I'm not certain of the damage yet."

Rin nodded, and Kushina grit her teeth. "Anybody else see the milk in the sky, or is it just me?"

Minato looked at where she was indicating, but he saw absolutely nothing. That, of course, didn't mean much because Kushina had far better intuition than he did, and her eyesight was a lot better, especially in the rain. "Where is it?"

Rin was squinting at the pouring sky as well, but she saw nothing. Kushina pointed at a tree trunk and said, "Right there, you idiot!"

Minato made a mental note to keep her away from the caffeine for a while.

"Right, of course. Rin-chan, go to the safe house and take care of Biwako-sama. Kushina, take Naruto-chan and go to the other safe house. Don't stop for anything, understood?" he ordered rapidly even as he retrieved his tri-pronged kunai strewn across the clearing.

Rin nodded with an affirmative before handing over Naruto to his mother and running to the safe house as fast as she could.

Kushina's face had grown pale, her soaked clothing clung uncomfortably to her skin, her hair were drenched and stuck to her back and forehead in clumps, and she was holding her baby as close as possible so that he wouldn't feel the harsh drops of rain on his face.

She'd never looked more beautiful to him.

"Where are you going?" she asked quietly.

Minato yanked the last kunai out of a tree and flung it at her. She caught it without looking up, looping it around in her fingers and then bracing it against her forearm in a death grip.

He hiraishin-ed to her and hugged her, pulling his wife closer to him and making sure he didn't squash the baby in her arms. He kissed her softly, and smiled. "Home, Kushina. I'm going to see the damage and root out any other possible masked people."

Although, he didn't for a moment believe that there were more of them. Call it gut instinct, but he was pretty certain that there could have only been two; the second masked man had gone insane when the first one had died—the two were too close for there to have been a third wheel.

Kushina blushed lightly and hit him lightly on the head. "Stay safe, idiot. The rain's boiling."

And it was only then that Minato realised that it wasn't the strength of the raindrops that was causing him pain, but the searing heat of the water. Food for thought.

His skin was already blistering, what with him having been in the rain longer than Kushina and Naruto, who'd been under the cover of trees when the raining had started. "I will."

And with that, he grabbed the dead woman's body and hiraishin-ed to the gates, before sprinting as fast as he could to the Southern District, hoping that there wasn't too much death and destruction waiting for him.

He would be thoroughly disappointed.


Uchiha Mikoto screamed as the deluge of water plunged down onto her children, and then, without thinking about how stupid the idea was, or that she might die, or that she hadn't fully recovered from her most difficult pregnancy yet, or that her stamina was shit…

Precisely eight heartbeats after the water fell, two people dived into the water and began swimming towards the three Uchiha siblings—a panicked mother, and a tsundere Hatake.

Mikoto kept her eyes peeled for any sign of her children, any at all, hoping that they were all together so that it would be easier to find them. Her body and mind began working on autopilot, searching through the searing hot water and coating her eyes with chakra to deter the worst of the sting. Her body was already receiving second-degree burns, but that didn't matter. Her children were down here, and she needed to find them!

A few moments later, an eerie blue glow filled her vision, and she began swimming towards it, hoping and praying that it was her children, and she wasn't disappointed.

Akito was floating, suspended in the middle of a glowing sphere-like lattice, Sasuke held in her arms with his head limp, and Itachi clinging to her right leg with a death grip, frantically shaking her and trying to keep her awake.

Mikoto surged towards them, at the same time that Hatake Kakashi surged towards them, and Mikoto grabbed her daughter's ankle through the lattice and pulled. Kakashi had a firm grip on Itachi, and with Mikoto firmly intertwining her limbs with Akito's so that she didn't float away, she tried to mimic the chakra lattice to surround Sasuke, afraid that he was already dead. Akito, listlessly and without much energy, placed a hand on Sasuke's forehead and created a lattice around them, but she began to lose consciousness in earnest.

Mikoto wasted no more time and swam to the surface with single-minded determination.

The minute her head broke the surface of the water, she inhaled deeply and gasped at the stinging pain her open blisters caused as they touched the cold air, the rain having stopped a few seconds ago.

Kakashi was already on top of a relatively dry building with her middle child, and she urgently tugged her daughter and youngest towards them, trying very hard to ignore the muscle fatigue and the throbbing pain. Akito blinked at her blearily for a moment before mumbling, "Okaa-san…Sa…CPR…"

"Give me a moment, Akito-chan!" yelled Mikoto, the sound of rushing water and screaming preventing her from hearing what Akito was saying.

She reached the building and Kakashi held out a hand to her, Itachi shivering beside him and silently crying, Sharingan-red eyes spinning threateningly. Mikoto hoisted Sasuke above herself, then boosted Akito up, and then climbed up herself with the last of her strength.

And yet, she couldn't rest—not yet.

"Akito-chan, I need you to stay with me! Sasuke-chan isn't breathing, and I don't know what to do," Mikoto said as calmly as she could, shoving her wounded pride in a metal box and sealing it shut—Akito had medical training, Mikoto was panicking, and she was way in over her head.

Kakashi watched silently, his silver hair damp with water and sweat, all his visible skin blistered and his eyes bloodshot.

Akito stirred slowly, then gasped a breath or two, before mouthing something. Itachi stared unseeingly, his mind shutting down from the strain and the damage he'd taken. He collapsed into Kakashi, who winced as the pressure against his side pressed against the largest of the open sores. He shifted slightly and laid the boy down on the rooftop, careful to cushion his head in case the boy had a concussion.

Suddenly, Shisui shunshin-ed right next to Akito, his breath ragged and face streaked with dirt and tears, his face pale and as blistered as the rest of theirs. "Aki-senpai!" he screamed with a wrenched voice.

She grabbed onto his arm feebly and mouthed something again, and he nodded before she collapsed too, just like her brother.

Shisui turned to Mikoto, his hand grabbing onto Akito's form with an almost painfully careful grip. "She said that Sa-chan has water in his lungs; he needs CPR."

Mikoto and Kakashi nodded before Mikoto said, "I don't think I can."

Kakashi moved forward and began the chest compressions, lifting Sasuke's head up to clear the airways. The baby was less than three months old—the likelihood of him surviving the trauma was slim.

Still, Kakashi continued the chest compressions as Shisui shunshin-ed away with Itachi first, then Akito, then Mikoto. Kakashi didn't know how long it took, but it couldn't have been long before the baby underneath him finally started coughing, the water spurting out almost uncontrollably. The baby didn't even cry—he was in too much pain.

Kakashi quickly made his way to the hospital, where the patient build-up and the lack of crowd control had turned the area into a stampede. He narrowed his eyes in annoyance. This baby is going to die if he isn't treated for his damaged airways, and he isn't going to survive long enough for this crowd to let us through!

"Kakashi-san!" called a voice to his far right, and Kakashi glanced in that direction before getting an idea. Maito Gai, with his green spandex, blistered face, obnoxious eyebrows and broad nose, had a pair of lungs on him like no other. It was time to exploit that.

"Gai-san, get the crowd under control," Kakashi ordered without any preamble. Gai snapped to attention and whistled loudly for most people's attentions. Most of the people furthest away from them hadn't heard a thing, but that was alright with Kakashi. One section of the crowd organised was better than nothing.

"Everyone, please form three lines! One for adults in critical condition! Here in the middle for children in critical condition! Everybody else, over there!" yelled Gai in his booming voice, getting most of the adults to start shuffling around. Konoha was a military village—they were born following orders.

Several Chuunin and Jounin began organising the crowd as well, but Kakashi simply jumped to the front of the queue for children in critical condition.

Soon, he could hand over this child to a nurse, and then he could go find Minato-sensei, Obito and Rin. The restless snake in his chest was writhing frantically as he worried about his family.

His family.

The queue moved forward.


Komoto Togari was panicking.

She had been on her evening shift when the sky-splitting scream had sounded and the unnatural rain had started falling, so she'd been safe from the worst of it. The hospital wasn't close enough to the majorly damaged areas, so they didn't even get hit by the water bullet that, by preliminary estimates, had killed at least seventy people, with the casualty figures somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.

That wasn't counting the death toll from the boiling rain itself, nor was it accounting for the stampede deaths or the ninken and pregnant women and miscarriages.

Togari was panicking, because she'd never seen so many patients before, and all of them had open sores on their faces and any exposed skin, with some of them having opened their mouths and exposed the burns in their throats and tracheae.

Togari was not prepared to deal with this. Togari wanted to go home.

Her dark pink eyes swam with unshed tears, her small mouth trembled in fear, and she was two breaths away from a mental breakdown—the patient influx was too much, the hospital death rates were weighing her down, and breathing was becoming very difficult.

What really made her flip out though, almost completely, was the sight of Uchiha Akito lying on one of the makeshift stretchers with her face so heavily disfigured that, were it not for her unmistakable hair, she would have been unrecognisable.

"I…Akito…chan?" she whispered in abject horror, her eyes widening, deranged and despairing, her breath coming out in gasps and whimpers. "Oh Kami-sama…what…"

She started yanking on her blonde hair and began crying, breaking down in the middle of the hall at the sight of the strongest person she knew, the most invincible person in Konoha, just lying there, like as if it wasn't destroying some unspoken law of the universe, that the world wasn't being turned inside out, that it was okay that Uchiha Akito looked half-dead—

"Calm down, Komoto-sensei," said someone with an iron voice, gently releasing her hands' grip on her hair and sitting her down against the wall of the corridor. "Take deep breaths, that's it. In…out…in…out…in…"

Slowly, slowly, Togari's breathing regularised, and she looked up to see the green hair of her mentor, his unflinching purple eyes not judging her in the slightest, even though she expected him to, more than anyone else in the world. "Hagane-sensei…?"

He nodded brusquely, saying in a measured voice. "I need you to hold on to your sanity just a little bit longer. You're incompetent and weak-willed, but you have the skill when you put your mind to it. The patients need you to keep your shit together, understand?"

The last vestiges of her control latched onto the measured, blunt words and painfully brought her back to the land of the sane. "I'm…I'm not cut out for this…" she whispered, her voice trembling.

Hagane-sensei's face softened, and Togari felt like crying, sobbing into his shirt and never letting go. "Yes, you are. We all flip out sometimes. Now, ready to get back up?"

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before opening them with a look of forced determination on her face, an attempted veneer of calm forming on her face. She nodded.

It was only then that Togari realised that Hagane-sensei was still holding her hands, and when she looked at their clasped hands, her soft pale ones against his callused tanned ones, she felt a sense of unadulterated rightness washing over her.

The moment disappeared as he dropped her hands, as though having been stung. "Let's go," he said, his voice clipped and professional, with a hint of the usual cynical undertone.

Togari sighed. Back to normal again.

Hagane-sensei's next patient, it must be noted with a hint of irony, was Uchiha Akito.

It's ironic, because he nearly had a mental breakdown too, and he wasn't prone to such fanciful indulgences.

Komoto Togari was clearly a bad influence.

It had absolutely nothing to do with having seen the little girl grow up right before him, or her persistent pestering, or their cavalier, uncle-niece-like relationship.

Nope, none of those things at all.


Uchiha Teyaki held his daughter tightly in his arms as he moved through the watery rubble that had once been the proud home of the residents of the Southern District.

The people in the evacuation shelters had been protected from the devastating boiling rain and the water bullet, and Teyaki was grateful for that mercy. Ine was crying in his arms, squirming and whining for all she was worth, and Teyaki tried in vain to shush her up.

"What was that thing!?" exclaimed a Yamanaka as the evacuees milled through the smashed buildings and decimated streets.

Someone tutted, and Teyaki felt the aggression coming from the Yamanaka in waves. "You didn't see?" sniffed a Hyuuga in disdain. "There was someone standing on the gate. Clearly, someone cast a water jutsu."

A fearful civilian woman with her six year old trembling son gripped tightly in a hug cried, "One person did all of this!?"

Several other people became agitated at this exclamation, with several wondering if there was a conspiracy going on. "If you ask me, I'll bet it was the Uchi—"

Uchiha Fugaku ran onto the scene, his breath harsh and ragged, his face worn out and terribly blistered. "Teyaki, have you seen Akito-chan? Or Itachi-kun, or Sasuke-chan, or Mikoto? I can't—I can't find them anywhere!"

Teyaki braced the man who was as close to him as a brother and calmly instructed him to breathe. "What happened, Fugaku?"

The evacuees were quiet, eager to learn of any details pertaining to the attack, several of them aware of exactly who Uchiha Akito was. Fugaku brought his trembling under control, but his eyes were still wider than normal, and he looked so afraid, more afraid than Teyaki had ever seen him before.

"The water bullet…it hit them directly, and Mikoto went in after them, and they could be dead, Teyaki!"

Teyaki paled, almost certain that no one could have survived that—if the rain was boiling, then the smouldering buildings implied that the water bullet must have been searing. "If Mikoto had any sense, she'd have taken them to the hospital. You won't find them here, Fugaku. Come on—you look like you could use something for shock."

But Fugaku seemed to have calmed down by now, and he was staring strangely at Ine. "No, no I don't think that's the best idea at this point. We need to organise the evacuees, get Konoha under control again, and find Hokage-sama."

The head of the Konoha Military Police Force seemed to don a fortified mask and straightened up. "Teyaki, if you find any KMPF members, send them to the Hokage Tower. We'll use it as the centre of operations."

Teyaki's heart stopped beating rapidly—with Fugaku back under his own control, his job was done and he didn't have to worry anymore. "Will do, Fugaku-sama."

The man left, his Sharingan active as he looked for KMPF members and began organising the evacuees streaming into the Southern District.

"You know," a Nara said in a carrying voice, "it's quite telling that the ones most devastated by the attack are the Uchiha…their heiress is in critical condition, none of their homes were spared…almost as though they were specifically targeted…"

Whispers and theories broke out among the people, and the seed of doubt would take root firmly, and the tide against the Uchiha would turn, and the incident that would come to be known for generations to come as 'The Night of Boiling Rain' would mark a national holiday in Hi no Kuni, even though no one was quite sure who or what had caused the devastation.

And Teyaki knew that the Uchiha owed their debt to a lackadaisical, completely ordinary, unremarkable Nara.

And he would remember this debt, even if no one else did.


I blinked into awareness, and immediately wished I'd stayed unconscious.

The pain was unbelievable, and the ouchies were extreme. It took me a whole two minutes just to be able to figure out how to breathe without flinching, and even then I only managed seventy percent of the time.

"Aneki?" Itachi-touto croaked from beside me, and slowly I turned around to meet a heavily bandaged baby brother, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

I tried for a smile, and I'm pretty sure I succeeded because he calmed down considerably. "It's been five hours since."

I'm glad he answered that question without me having to ask it. The sky outside was pitch-black, and something was…hmmm, something was moving outside, but my eyes were too sluggish to figure out what it was. It was definitely a person though.

I cleared my throat, just to see if I could, and realised that this? This hurt.

"What's the extent of the damage?" I asked, and I realised that my voice was croaking too, just not as badly as Itachi-touto.

Itachi-touto shook his head, and some of his forehead peaked through the bandages. The pain I was in was immediately ignored as I got out of bed as fast as I could and ran towards him.

His eyes widened. "A-aneki?"

I forced a small pool of green chakra to cover my fingertips as I brushed it against his forehead, and his moan of relief really hit me—just how much pain was he in? Itachi-touto was sometimes even more stoical than Otou-san, and this breach in stoicism was unnatural!

I soothed the rest of the charred white skin on his forehead and gently coaxed the skin to heal itself, stimulating the nerve ending as I went along and trying to just fix my Otouto's pain.

Clearly, the hospital was understaffed.

"Broken bones?"

"No," he said slowly, testing his body to see if it was the truth, "just sore."

"Sa-chan?" I asked, the fear and the eerie blue water returning to my mind with a sharp crack.

Itachi-touto bit his lip, and that was enough answer for me—he had no idea and no one had told him anything.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked instead, and he mumbled slightly before saying clearly, "Twenty minutes."

I thinned my lips. "No one's come in yet?"

"No."

The hospital must be really understaffed. And now that I'm thinking about it, it isn't all that surprising. I'm surprised we weren't dead.

I hope Sa-chan isn't dead.

I don't know how long we'd been submerged, or how long Sa-chan hadn't been breathing, but he was a baby, not even properly three months old yet.

I gnawed on my lower lip as I moved onto his cheeks, the skin there looking irritated, peeling off beneath the bandages. I got to work.

"Stop that."

I turned around to see who had spoken, and Shisui-chan stood there, looking for all the world as though he hadn't been hovering outside the window for the last five minutes.

Che, I knew someone was floating around outside.

"Stop what?" I asked, still healing the peeling cheek skin.

Shisui-chan looked like he was struggling to formulate the words, but then he said, "The medics were pretty sure you were going to die of chakra exhaustion, Aki-senpai. Stop using it."

And so I stopped, because only when he said it did I realise my vision had gotten more sluggish, not because I was sleepy, but because I was getting fatigued.

Yes, there is a difference.

"What else can you tell me?" I asked.

Shisui-chan chuckled lightly before coming over to me, re-bandaging the wound I'd opened on Itachi-touto's face as well as he could, and gently lifting me to my hospital bed.

He began speaking, and it was all I could do to concentrate on what he was saying.

"All three of you swallowed some of the water, and so your insides are what the medics worked on the longest to fix up. It was touch and go for Sasu-chan, but he's going to be fine. He'll be staying at the hospital for a while, though for you two, it's been recommended that the minute you can walk without feeling like you're concussed, you should leave—they need all the beds they can get. The blisters…well, hopefully there won't be any permanent scarring, but none of us know for sure."

He scowled a bit, before forcing his expression to clear up. "Literally, all I'm hearing wherever I go is 'oh, I hope it doesn't scar! My beautiful skin!' Stupid Emiko-chan…"

I giggled. "Typical Emiko-chan!"

He reluctantly smiled, but then his face grew grim as he looked at Itachi-touto. "You need to stop panicking, Itachi-chama. This wasn't your fault."

My head snapped towards him, and it was only then that I registered the tears streaming down his face. He was even sniffling. Sniffling.

"Otouto, why would you think this was your fault?" I asked, even as my mind supplied me with the reason.

He gulped, and then said in a hoarse thin voice, "If I wasn't so slow and weak…"

I gave Shisui-chan a look, and he winked in affirmative. He moved over to Itachi-touto and gently gave him a hug, seeing as how the room was threatening to start spinning if I got up to do the same.

"Idiot Otouto…if you're going to blame yourself for every time I do something stupid in the name of sisterly love, you're going to go bald!" I said, a grin firmly on my face, even though my facial muscles were in agonising pain. This was more important.

Itachi-touto started crying even worse, and Shisui-chan looked at me in panic. I just smiled at the sight the two made with unbridled affection.

You see this? This is what made all the worrying, pain and guilt worth it.

Because Itachi-touto was allowed to cry tears of relief, and Shisui-chan was panicking like a normal seven year old when confronted with a crying child, and nothing else in the world mattered.

This, is home.

In the most metaphorical way possible.


I'd blinked out of consciousness for a while, and the next time I opened my eyes, Minato-sama was shaking me awake.

"I don't think you should do that, Minato-sama," called Shisui-chan's voice, and I opened my eyes groggily.

"I'm sorry to disturb your recovery, Akito-chan," said Minato-sama, and he really did look guilty about it. So I gave him a hug and told him not to worry about it.

Yup, the pain was duller this time. A medic must have been through here. I looked to my left and Itachi-touto and Shisui-chan were there, one in the hospital bed and the other on a visitor's chair. This was the first time my vision wasn't swimming, so I actually got a proper look at Shisui-chan, and seriously, I hope the blisters don't leave scars.

If that was him, I couldn't imagine what kind of pockmarked lobster I looked like.

Yes, this is vanity. No, I'm not going to apologise for having it—I'm human and I like looking pretty, thank you very much.

"Was there something you wanted, Minato-sama?" I asked, staring at him discerningly. He looked tired, but nothing a good night's sleep wouldn't be able to fix. He only had a few healing scalds on the visible parts of his face and hands, but nothing that wouldn't heal properly by the looks of it.

"Several things, but we'll begin with the most immediate concern—are you and your brothers alright?" he asked, not beating around the bush and with major concern written all over his face.

My heart sort of, kind of, definitely melted.

"I don't know completely. I feel less sore, and Shisui-chan says Sa-chan is fine, and Itachi-touto could be worse…" I don't like the vagueness of my knowledge. "I'll ask a medic when I see one."

"Okay," he said, accepting my answer at face value, 'the next thing I wanted to ask you—you got hit by the water bullet directly, and you," he looked at Shisui, "saw it directly. I wasn't at ground zero at the time, and I need you to tell me anything you can about the jutsu," asked Minato-sama, getting straight to the next point now that the pleasantries were over.

"Aren't there people far more qualified at jutsu identification than we are?" asked Itachi-touto stoically.

Minato-sama quirked his lips wryly. "You three Uchiha siblings are the only ones to survive direct impact from the water bullet. Everyone else is dead. I'd like to know how you survived, and what exactly that jutsu was, from the people that were actually hit by it. Not only do I have no one else to ask," he said, and then took a deep breath, "but there're also very few other people I'd rather ask than you."

I may or may not have blushed at the compliment.

And also, what? Everyone else that got hit by the water-ocean-drowning-ball-of-boiling-heat died and three under-ten-year-olds survived!?

Heck, I'll try and accept that Itachi-touto and I survived—we'd been training for years now, so maybe our chakra passively saved our lives, but Sa-chan? The bloody kid is seventy nine days old exactly! Or eighty if you want to count today, which you don't, obviously, because it's—

"What's the time?"

They looked at me weirdly before Shisui-chan answered. "Two thirty in the morning."

'Thanks.'

Yes, so the kid is eighty days old. This is a serious case of Protagonist Protection Power©, and I'm calling bullshit on this right now!

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm happy he's alive; he's my brother, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with LAW DEFIANCE!

How did that—

"How in Kami-sama's name did we survive something no one else did?!"

Itachi-touto cleared his throat, and we all turned to look at him. "We've thought about it."

Shisui-chan elaborated. "While you were asleep, we started discussing the jutsu and exactly how you guys didn't suffer worse damage."

Itachi-touto shifted a bit in his seat as Minato-sama pulled up a chair and sat down on it, prompting him to continue. "We'd…Aneki, can I ask you a few questions, just to clarify some things?"

I nodded, as curious as Minato-sama to see where the two greatest geniuses of my generation had figured out about a jutsu that I was fairly certain wasn't canon, and had definitely not happened during the Kyuubi Attack.

Also, what in the world happened!?

Minato-sama is alive, the Kyuubi never attacked, Obito-kun and Rin-chan are, as far as I'm aware because Shisui-chan hadn't said anything to the contrary, alive, and—

"Wait, before we begin," I said, turning to Minato-sama. "How're Kushina-ba-chan, Bump and whoever else went with you?"

Minato-sama's lips twitched into a small smile. "Oh you're Kushina's goddaughter alright…Bump…they're all fine. Perfectly healthy, no physical complications to my knowledge…Rin-chan might need medical attention, and Biwako-sama is currently in the hospital with a major concussion, but other than that, everything's fine."

I'm sensing a story here, but I'll ask after this. For now, it's enough to know that I haven't killed the protagonist, because that would have been bad.

"Okay," I said, turning back to my little brother and best friend. "Go for it."

Itachi-touto took a moment to gather his thoughts before he asked, "Aneki, what was that thing you made around us?"

It was my turn to gather my thoughts. Difference between Itachi-touto and me though, is that I work things out better out loud, especially when the details are fuzzy. This doesn't bode well for future scheming, that much I can tell you.

"I…I don't think I really registered the heat at the time. I just knew that Sa-chan needed air, because he's a baby right? And while I could try my hand at breathing under water, and believe that you could as well, I knew Sa-chan couldn't, so I sort of…expelled my chakra and created a…chakra bubble around us? Like, a lattice, but more like a partially permeable membrane, where air could come in, but water couldn't. So that, you know, we could breathe."

I think that answered the question, but I honestly don't think I could replicate it now, now that I'm not half-panicked and drowning.

I guess now's a good a time as any to learn how to swim, and then I can work on the chakra lattice along with that.

"Wait," Minato-sama said. "Okay, I'll say it too—not that I'm not grateful, but how are you not dead? Chakra enough to maintain a partially permeable lattice around three people with the chakra reserves of a seven year old…"

Shisui-chan grinned and said with a light blush, "Aki-senpai is awesome."

I grinned right back at him, before turning to Minato-sama. "I don't really think I maintained it for that long, and I'm very good at not wasting chakra, Minato-sama."

After all, medic training freaking means awesome chakra manipulation and output. Otherwise, as Hagane-sensei put it, "Our patients would be roasted ducks with a side helping of expensive law suits."

He also went onto threatening to kill Togari-chan if she so much as looked at the patient wrongly, but I was on his side with that one—Togari-chan was particularly accident prone that day.

Minato-sama mumbled something about women defying laws of the known universe, and I grinned wider, even though the scalds on my cheeks were beginning to burn.

"Plus," I said solemnly, "I'm a freaking Uchiha."

"Ah," he said amiably. "That explains everything."

I laughed.

Itachi-touto spoke up again. "Okay, but why chakra? Why not use the water itself? It's less chakra intensive that way…and I think you did try that, didn't you?" he ended up looking adorably confused, and by the time I registered his question, we were both adorably confused.

"Well, to tell you the truth, my first thought was to use chakra. I didn't think about moulding the water until you made me realise I was going to die before help arrived for you if I kept it up."

I took a deep breath, trying to remember my sluggish thought process at the time.

I looked up at them staring at me. "Don't worry, I don't really have a death wish—I was just fairly certain I wasn't going to live through that, that's all. I did conserve my chakra right? So stop looking at me like that Shisui-chan, Minato-sama, Otouto. Saving you was the only thing that kept me focussed, and that's what I did."

Minato-sama looked convinced (which is why I love him), Shisui-chan was a bit sceptical but sighed and let it slide, and Otouto started gnawing on his lower lip. I think this might turn into a bad habit.

"So what happened when you tried to use the water? Because Itachi-chama here says that the chakra bubble was still active when you were rescued," said Shisui-chan, bringing us all back on track.

I thought about this and then said, "I tried but…the best way to describe it is that the water was chakra. Like as though…"

"That water was suffused with so much chakra, it wasn't yours to manipulate?" said Itachi-touto knowingly, and Shisui-chan and he shared a grim look at my nod.

"I tried doing what you were doing to the water too, but I couldn't," said Itachi-touto, a thin sliver of self-loathing flitting in his tone.

I gave Shisui-chan a look, and my best friend happily complied and gave Itachi-touto a whack upside the head. "Statistically, girls are naturally better at chakra manipulation, and your chakra was being drained by the sharingan. So stop guilt-tripping. Or so Aki-senpai says," he said dutifully, before giving me an expectant smile.

I laughed and patted the air in front of me, as though patting his head for a job well done.

Itachi-touto blushed, embarrassed that we'd caught on to his thought process so easily. "Silly Otouto," I said with a fond smile.

"So the water was saturated with chakra?" Minato-sama asked to pull us back to the matter at hand.

Shisui-chan nodded. "It's a jutsu that can't be replicated, and I think it was incomplete, but we'll get to that later. For now…"

He looked at Itachi-touto, and he nodded before saying in a factual voice, "The water was super-heated, but because you used your chakra to act as a barrier against it, we survived the heat and force of the water. That, I think, is the reason Otouto survived that ordeal. But more than that, the fact that you couldn't manipulate the chakra means that someone had that much chakra…"

Super-heated water…hang on…

"But people came to save us, right? If the water was super-heated, how on earth did they…? It can't have been that hot," I concluded.

Shisui-chan shook his head grimly. "By the time Mikoto-sama and Kakashi-san jumped into the water to save you three, I estimate that the water had cooled down by at least 200°c. They were scalded but only got some second-degree burns and blistering."

I paled dramatically, and Minato-sama's lips thinned in grim contemplation.

"B-but…that would mean the water was approximately 200°c…I mean, how…"

I'm supposed to be dead. Itachi-touto and Sa-chan are supposed to be dead.

Shisui-chan continued. "Luckily, the normal human body can survive fifty two degrees, and that a child can handle fifty four degrees, and because you both got second degree burns, I'm going to go ahead and assume that the temperature of the water was somewhere around 250°."

Minato-sama and Itachi-touto nodded, but all I could do was think, what? The heat pain threshold of a normal adult is forty six degrees, and that's when they start burning badly. We were submerged in two hundred and fifty degrees of burning hot water, and he's giving me these figures that make no sense—

Hang on…

"Um, Shisui-chan, I thought babies handled heat worse than adults."

He gave me a blank, confused look, and so did the other two men in the room. I looked at my bandaged hands, and mumbled, "Please excuse me while I contemplate my life."

They accepted my request and waited for me to get over the fact that shinobi babies were more resilient than adult shinobi, and that even civilians in this world trumped my old world in terms of durability.

Chakra is such a hack…

And I thought the sharingan was bad…this is ridiculous! I mean, in my old world, I'm positive normal humans survived internal temperatures of 36.3°c - 37.3°c, and that they burned at an external temperature of forty six. Babies had it worse. But here, the limits are far above that, and I just…

Wow. Just, wow.

It's official. My world view has been shattered. Everything I know from my old world is a lie. This also explains how Uchiha Sasuke could breathe fire. And I'm betting because we're Uchiha, we have a higher heat threshold than the regular shinobi, just because.

Mind. Blown.

Moving on now.

"But that's still 250°c," I pointed out. "We were exposed to that temperature for a while before I managed to think about creating the lattice."

Itachi-touto looked at me funnily. "Aneki, it took you exactly two seconds to create the lattice. Why do you think we aren't dead?"

"B-but…it felt like it was a lot longer than that!" I exclaimed. I mean, wow, does my brain really go through ideas that fast?

I…I feel distinctly awesome right now.

"But it wasn't," said Itachi-touto firmly, and I had to accept his declaration—he was far better at time-keeping than me.

"Okay, continue," I said, motioning for Shisui-chan to go ahead.

"That's also why I think the jutsu was incomplete," he said seriously. "The water lost its super-heat affect, and the water bullet lost cohesion before it hit the evacuation shelters, which is what I'm assuming whoever or whatever cast the jutsu was aiming for. Meaning that whatever the jutsu was, it is not only chakra intensive, it can't be replicated, and it's incomplete."

Minato-sama nodded. "It does seem that way. And you're right, it was the first time he'd used the jutsu—he collapsed afterwards, after all…"

The last bit seemed like he hadn't meant to say it out loud. "Minato-sama, you saw who cast the jutsu?" I asked as unobtrusively as possible, hoping against hope that he would share the events of the supposed Kyuubi Attack with us.

He blinked, coming out of his thoughts, before nodding slowly, as though weighing the pros and cons of letting us know even that much as he did it.

"Out of curiosity though, do you have any idea how the water got that super-heated? Because the rain was hot, but not as hot as previously assumed, considering only a few people received third-degree burns, so the chakra...what did he do with it to make it that heated?"

We all sat and thought about this for a minute, and I sat down and thought about everything that I knew about water.

And by everything, I mean everything.

Delving back into memories of chemistry lessons and displayed formulae, chirality and optical isomerism, bonding and enthalpy, catalysts and polymerisation, entropy and pH gradients, buffer solutions and rate order calculations, the bittersweet triumph at understanding absolutely everything only after the exam was over…

"Hydrogen bonds…" I whispered in awe.

My eyes were wide as memories flooded back, where we had the most tangential chemistry lesson ever because the smartest human I'd ever known had gotten bored and asked what would happen if the hydrogen bonds between water molecules could be replaced by something else. Also, something about Coulomb's law.

He'd been a fellow Naruto fan, so we'd actually discussed replacing intermolecular forces and hydrogen bonds with chakra, and…

Gah, I can't remember all of it anymore! Something about the distance between the bonds shortening, which may or may not create a pocket dimension (I think that was the tangent part…), depending on …epsilon zero? Something or other, and that would cause the water to superheat to a massive extent.

"Shisui-chan's right," I said soberly. "It isn't complete. If it was, the temperatures could easily reach over a thousand degrees."

Minato-sama gave me a short stare that basically told me to start elaborating. I took a deep breath.

"My best guess is that chakra was used to replace the electrostatic forces between the water molecules, which would theoretically increase the force between the water molecules, and that would increase the temperature. Then, the chakra holding the sphere in place would dissipate, causing an implosion of sorts…Basically, the forces between the water molecules caused the superheating, and if it was done correctly, and if a smaller sphere was used, it's likely that the temperatures could reach astronomical levels. It might actually be able to suck things into it due to the backlash of the chakra dissipating and the rapidly decreasing force between the water molecules."

Itachi-touto and Shisui-chan looked confused, and I suddenly realised that maybe they have no idea what electrostatic forces means.

But then I looked at Minato-sama, and he seemed to be looking at me with something akin to pride.

Phew, I'm in the clear!

Also, yay for tangential conversations with people I'll never ever see again…!

…I make myself sad sometimes.

"That sounds like the most plausible theory," said Minato-sama, and I beamed at him.

"I…don't think we need to know, Itachi-chama," Shisui-chan finally said. Itachi-touto nodded and I giggled at his dazed expression.

Minato-sama smiled brightly, before his eyes dimmed. 'And that brings me on to the third and final reason I'm here.'

We all straightened up a bit, because the mood had suddenly gotten extremely tense.

"I would have gone to Obito-kun for this, but I wasn't sure he'd be able to help, and I want to keep this as low key as possible for now…Akito-chan, I'd like you to identify someone for me," he said grimly.

I looked him in the eye, wondering what on earth was going on. Why couldn't he just ask whoever it was about their identity?

Oh wait…

"You want me to identify a corpse," I said flatly.

He nodded with a regretful grimace. I sighed. "Does this person have anything to do with the reason why Rin-chan is in the hospital?"

He nodded, as though having expected me to put two and two together.

Shisui-chan and I shared a look, before I nodded, indicating that I would help with the corpse's identification, already suspecting it to be Uchiha Madara, because who else could it be?

But when he unsealed the body from a scroll and I got a good look at the body…

"Who is that?" asked Itachi-touto in mild confusion. I absentmindedly noted that he'd gotten that desensitized to death that this didn't even faze him.

But I was a little more preoccupied trying to figure out what was wrong with my eyes, because that can't be…

"Ureshi-nee-chan?"

I looked at Shisui-chan for confirmation, and he nodded, just as shocked as I was.

"Tell me everything you know about her," Minato-sama ordered, and I readily complied.

"Uchiha Ureshi, twenty one years old, Jounin, poison specialist. She's a bit sadistic, but nothing out of the ordinary, she wasn't ambitious, she took pride in her work, she made the best omurice, and she was labelled KIA nearly five months ago, a few weeks after the Great Backstabbing. She…she was dead. We held her funeral and everything. She's…she's not a frontline fighter, and she never wanted to be," I said, firmly at the end.

Shisui-chan nodded, letting me know that I'd gotten all of the facts right. It's nice to have a walking talking fact checker.

Minato-sama hummed in contemplation. "Anything else you'd like to tell me?" he asked.

I looked at Shisui-chan in askance, and he looked back at me with a look of equanimity. The only thing that came to mind was Uchiha Inabi and the fact that they were lovers. But…if I'm wrong, I'll have led the one man that can make the most difference astray, and I didn't want that.

"It would be helpful if you told us the whole story, and it would be easier to work out any details I may have forgotten," I said.

He looked at me with an unreadable expression, and then said, "I wasn't really going to tell anyone about this…but you…"

Shisui-chan got up and helped Itachi-touto up. "I take it you would like us to leave, Minato-sama?"

Minato-sama ran a hand through his messy blond hair and nodded. "That would be very helpful, thank you."

"Otouto, you're recovering! You shouldn't be moving about! Here," I said, trying to sit up with great difficulty. "I'll go."

Shisui-chan and Itachi-touto both yelled "No!" in sync, and is it weird that I feel strangely proud of that?

Itachi-touto brushed his chin-length hair out of his face. "You're far more injured than me, Aneki. Please, we'll go."

He looked so constipatedly serious that I simply didn't have the heart to argue. "Can't argue with that face, can I?" I said with a grin, and they both left before I could change my mind.

Shisui-chan closed the door behind him, and Minato-sama moved to the door and placed a seal on it.

I'm assuming it's a sort of secret-secret seal, but then he placed one on the window, the ceiling, all four walls and even the ceiling.

"Isn't that a little too overboard?" I asked conversationally, and he just came up to me and ruffled my hair. Which looked like a bird's nest I might add, and in need of major detangling.

He sat down and I couldn't help but say, "You can trust them, you know. Shisui-chan and Otouto."

He gave me a smile and said, "It isn't that I don't trust them. Also, I'm not telling you just because I trust you. In fact, I'm not even…no, the reason I'm telling you is because I actually want to discuss this with someone who doesn't have any ulterior motives, invested interests, or any sort of reason to kiss up to me. In short, I need a proper sounding board."

"Harsh Minato-sama, harsh," I said with a fake wince, and he grinned and apologised in a ridiculously woebegone manner. "Sound away, then."

"Nothing major happened until after Naruto was born, where Uchiha Ureshi, who was wearing a purple mask—here, look at it," he said, taking out another scroll and, with a puff, there appeared a mask not dissimilar to the one Tobi started wearing after the orange one. I held it carefully, almost reverently, because I'd almost forgotten that this had once been a story.

Almost.

"She took Naruto and ran, absolutely no confrontation. I sent Rin-chan after her, and I…was otherwise pre-occupied," he stopped here for a second, as though unsure of how to justify not having gone after his son without revealing that he was resealing the Kyuubi into his wife, but I'm not an idiot, so I just gave him a firm nod and silently asked him to proceed.

"After I was…done with my business, I used my hiraishin to reach Rin-chan, who was holding Naruto and fending off senbon from the masked—I mean, Ureshi. It didn't take me very long to kill her, and she didn't reveal anything about herself. But, I thought her mannerisms were familiar, and after I took off the mask and realised she was an Uchiha, I knew why."

He looked at me evenly. "She moved like a cat; like you."

I nearly started giggling. "Maa, Minato-sama, all us Uchiha are catty. Don't worry about offending me," I said with an unassuming smile.

His posture relaxed minutely, and it was then that I was able to tell that it had actually worried him that I might take offense to him likening me to someone who had kidnapped his son.

Which, now that I think about it, is something normal people get offended about…oh well. I never said I was normal.

"And then Kushina came upon us, being her lovely irrational self," he said with a wry fondness that made me squee in fangirl glee, "accusing me of adultery and necrophilia, among other things. Then it started raining. I went to check out what was happening, and there was another masked person standing on the main gates, and it was like he had started the rain, which I'm inclined to believe he did, even though it's ridiculously farfetched. He created that water bullet and just—just flung it outwards, like a child throwing a temper tantrum…" Minato-sama trailed off, his mind trying to work out a puzzle that he didn't have all the pieces to.

Mine on the other hand, was already trying to give itself an early concussion with how much I was beating myself up about this.

"Anyway," continued Minato-sama. 'The minute he released the jutsu, he collapsed and…this plant-person-thing materialised out of the ground and tried to take him away. I managed to hit both of them with a Rasengan, but I don't think either one of them is dead. They got away before I could get a close look under the broken mask."

With his story concluded, I bet he expected me to say something. I would like to have obliged, but I was still digesting the fact that ZETSU had been within spitting distance of Namikaze Minato, and yet he was still here, with me, and not six feet under or being used as a mind slave.

"Minato-sama, I'm so glad you're alive," I said, my voice heavy with an emotion that I couldn't identify until a little later—relief. Sheer, bone-numbing relief that he was alive, because I never expected him to be.

I mean, I never set about trying to change the Kyuubi Attack. And here I was sat, having done it anyway.

Kami-sama, I'm so ridiculously glad he's alive!

He moved over to me and gave me a hug. "It's okay, Akito-chan," he said soothingly. "I'm here."

I didn't cry, but I did let out a watery chuckle. Then, I said, "It sounds like a distraction."

Minato-sama moved away, and I saw his eyes flash in comprehension. "That would explain why she didn't confront—she just ran—she lured me away, didn't she? That was her main purpose, because as you said, she wasn't a frontline fighter. Anyone with half a brain could tell that she was going to lose the battle from the start. She just needed to get me away. But why?"

I sat there, letting him work out that the target would have to be someone that was guaranteed to be there, ruling out Biwako-sama, Rin-chan or even Naruto because there was no guarantee that it wouldn't be a miscarriage.

Well, no guarantee for them at any rate.

"Kushina…" he whispered in dawning dread. "But she seems fine. Absolutely fine. She's at home right now with Naruto-chan, and Jiraiya-sensei is with them as well."

"Wait," I said. "Nothing out of the ordinary?"

He nodded. "Yes, absolutely nothing. She's her usual crazy self, with a bit more of the 'touch my baby and you die, you pervy sannin!' and a bit less of the 'Minato, I want chamomile flowers for dessert!'"

I couldn't help but laugh at his Kushina impressions, and I love this couple so much!

"I didn't know chamomile flowers were a delicacy," I said innocently.

"They're not," he said exasperatedly. "But Kushina doesn't like listening to reason at four o'clock in the morning. Or any o'clock for that matter."

I chuckled. "So if she's fine, what was the distraction for?"

Minato-sama thought about this for a second. "The water jutsu?"

It was my turn to think about this for a second. Is that possible? But… "No, that scream of pain was raw, Minato-sama, and everyone heard it. Not to mention, Shisui-chan is right; the jutsu wasn't complete, and that reeks of spur-of-the-moment."

Minato-sama nodded, agreeing with my assessment. "You know who the second masked person is."

It wasn't a question, and I suppose it was kind of obvious that I would know. I nodded, before sighing and saying, "Uchiha Ureshi had a lover—Uchiha Inabi."

Minato-sama blinked. "Wait, you mean the Uchiha that died in the Great Backstabbing? The one we had an actual body for?"

I nodded. "It seems farfetched, but I can't think of anyone else. Not to mention…well, the Great Backstabbing happened for a reason.

"So he flipped out, killed three high-ranking Jounin and, what? Decided to run off and fake his girlfriend's death and try to kill my wife and son?"

When put like that, it sounds like the most retarded thing ever. But, the thing is, Madara must have needed a recruit, the more Uchiha the better. He didn't have Obito-kun as a puppet anymore, and so he must have needed to fill in the gap. If Ureshi-nee-chan—no, just Ureshi—hadn't been right in front of me, I wouldn't have been able to figure out who the other masked person was. But someone who would go into a rage-fit if she died, and who had the Sharingan? I mean, sure, another Uchiha could have been taken more discreetly, and it was possible to fall madly in love with someone in five months, give or take a few weeks, but…

The image of Uchiha Inabi's dead body surfaced to my mind, and the feeling that something was just…off about it.

It could have been a White Zetsu clone, because it was an exact replica. Call it a gut instinct, but that body just didn't feel right. I'd brushed it off before, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the correct answer.

Uchiha Inabi was the new Tobi.

"No. He must have been specifically targeted, because he could never have beaten all three of them with his skill level. I mean, he was a member of the KMPF, so he was strong, but he wasn't that strong. Not enough to beat Akimichi-sama, especially when it would be three against one."

"So you think that someone wanted Uchiha Inabi, and so they killed the other three as collateral damage? Chouza-kun's death was collateral damage?" Minato-sama nearly growled, and it hurt all over again to know I'd made it happen.

"That's my theory."

"That plant-person-thing would have been sneaky enough to manage it, I suppose," Minato-sama mused after taking a few deep breaths. "And so one mystery has been solved, potentially. Now the question is, what's their end game?"

Minato-sama and I both sunk into deep thought, and for a while, we stayed like that, going over everything we'd learned.

Then, he got up and unsealed the door, opening it and calling Shisui-chan and Itachi-touto in. It dawned on me that he'd put so many secret-secret seals in place so that Zetsu wouldn't be able to spy on us. Minato-sama is just awesome like that.

They came in with a packet of raspberry juice for me, and I thanked them for it happily.

"Well, I'll leave you three for now," said Minato-sama, getting up to leave.

Shisui-chan narrowed his eyes for a second, and then asked, "What are you going to do with the body?"

I tensed instantly. What was he going to do with the body?

Minato-sama sighed. "It seems I have no choice but to turn it over to T&I, even though I know everything I need to know. The reason for this disaster…well, it was her, wasn't it?"

Shisui-chan's eyes blanked, and a split second before he did it, I knew what he was planning on doing.

And I didn't stop him.

He rapidly went through the hand seals for a mini Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu, and then released a concentrated stream of fire, burning Ureshi's face into an unrecognisable charred mess.

Minato-sama could have stopped him too. He hadn't.

Shisui-chan then went about ripping any and all of the Uchiha clan symbols from the corpse, hacking them off with the standard academy kunai.

Itachi-touto looked horrified, in his understated way. "Why did you…?"

Shisui-chan looked at Minato-sama sharply, something adult and ancient lighting up his eyes. "The perpetrator was not an Uchiha."

Minato-sama gazed at him evenly.

"We're not going to go back to the way it was before just because of one person," Shisui-chan almost snarled. Almost. "This was not done by an Uchiha."

Minato-sama continued gazing at him evenly, before taking out a piece of coal from his kunai pouch.

Shisui-chan and I both tensed, he in case he needed to dodge, and me in case I needed to intervene to protect him. Instead, Minato-sama began drawing symbols on Ureshi's body, and they glowed chakra blue before seeping into her skin.

"The perpetrator was caught, but just before she died, she must have used the last bit of her strength to activate a seal that not only burnt her own face and made her impossible to recognise," said Minato-sama nonchalantly, "But it also caused all the blood to dry up in her body and make it impossible for any sort of dental work or marrow sample to identify her, only revealing the information that she was human and a female. How…unfortunate."

Shisui-chan nodded. "Very unfortunate."

With that, Minato-sama resealed the body and the mask, before taking his leave, ruffling my hair and squeezing Itachi-touto's shoulder. He also shook Shisui-chan's hands, as though sealing a promise.

"We're going to lie," said Itachi-touto.

"Yes, yes we are," I replied.

"So does that mean that, as long as lying is justifiable, it is acceptable?" he asked, and I knew I had to tread carefully. The boy was five, and he was impressionable and vulnerable to what I said.

"No, we're not covering up a truth, Otouto. We're simply neglecting to inform anyone that Minato-sama knows who the perpetrator is," I said, hoping it was the right answer.

"So if it's to cover up the truth for a good cause, it's acceptable to lie," he stated.

Shisui-chan then said, "It's not, technically speaking, a lie. I mean, Uchiha Ureshi was declared KIA nearly five months ago. She no longer counts as an Uchiha. She technically wasn't an Uchiha, because to be an Uchiha means to be accountable to the whole clan. She wasn't acting very accountably, in my opinion."

Itachi-touto looked grim. "So lying is alright if it's not technically lying, just choosing to ignore facts?"

I sighed at this, accepting that there was no nice way to say this. "We're not lying to ourselves, Otouto, and we're not lying to our Hokage. We're not lying to people we trust to keep the secret. And as long as we do that, I don't think protecting our family from being treated like criminals by association is a bad thing."

Itachi-touto's expression cleared up. I hope it cleared up for the right reasons and I hadn't mucked him up completely. "There are still so many intricacies that I have to learn…so many different types of acceptables…I still have so much to learn about being human," he said, almost to himself.

Shisui-chan grinned. "We all have a lot to learn, especially this one here!" he exclaimed cheekily, pointing at me with his thumb. "Fire user and didn't even know the temperature threshold!"

I pouted mockingly. "I'll have you know that I'd been blending in with the humans almost seamlessly until you showed up!"

Shisui-chan stuck his tongue out at me, and I stuck mine out right back at him. We both burst out laughing, and Itachi-touto joined in.

And we had blistering burns that really needed immediate medical attention, but whatever right?, and the issues our world faces haven't gone away, and we've got a lot of work ahead of us.

But one step at a time right?

This secret, this lie…it was the first true sin I ever committed since being reborn into this world.

I never regretted it.


In the middle of the night, Kushina squirmed in her bed, her crimson hair fanning across the pillow she rested upon as sweat beaded down her face. Her breath came out in harsh huffs, and her eyelids fluttered with every mindless hallucination she saw.

Through her blood, the purple liquid throbbed and bubbled, latching onto cell receptors and blocking them, diffusing through her brain and addling it.

Uchiha Ureshi had been very good at creating new poisons, but this one was a stroke of sheer brilliance.

Concentrated manganese with trace other compounds to allow it to dissolve into the system, and Ureshi had given the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi manganism. And the best part about it was that no one would pick up on it, not until it was too late.

And by the time it was too late, Black Zetsu or her partner would dispose of the red-haired Uzumaki Jounin with no one any the wiser.

It was so easy to misdiagnose manganism, so easy to overlook the disease because Uzumaki Kushina would never have inhaled any manganese fumes, which was the only known way of getting the disease after all.

The hallucinations would get worse, her irrationality would increase along with her paranoia, and then the tremors and jerky movement would start, and by then it would be irreversible.

The purple liquid throbbed and bubbled, latching onto cell receptors and blocking them, diffusing through her brain—

And bringing her closer and closer to death.

The clock on the side table ticked.


It was early morning, and a medic had clearly been in to check on us because all that was left of the damage I'd sustained was the scarring.

I'd finally gotten the details about our injuries, and I'd even been able to go see Sa-chan, who looked like he'd been rubbed raw and then bathed in salt. It was a miracle none of us got any infections. Apparently, all three of us had had superficial dermal burns as well as quite a few deep dermal burns. And was it ridiculously unlucky that the only person of the three of us that got a third-degree burn that would leave a permanent scar was the not-even-three-months-old-yet baby brother of mine?

That literally sucks, but at least he doesn't have charred skin like Itachi-touto seems to have acquired on his back, or the swelling and severe blistering I seemed to have gained. All three of our eyes were miraculously safe—and by miraculous, I genuinely mean miraculous—freaking ridiculous, these chakra hacks…

I was holding a clump of my sweaty hair in my hands and pouting at it, the task of fixing it becoming more and more daunting. See, this is why Okaa-san and I shouldn't be having this…whatever this is. I'd call it a fight, except it isn't really.

She always combed my hair, always managed to tame the Medusa beast that was the growths from my scalp, and make them look almost shampoo advertisement level beautiful.

Itachi-touto had been discharged an hour ago, but I was still here because my chakra exhaustion really was nothing to sneeze it. Among other things, that was one of the first reasons I would have died.

I was thinking of what exactly I should say to Okaa-san (she saved my life, didn't she? She jumped into scalding water without a thought and yanked me with her, and she didn't have to, so she must love me, right? I mean, she can't hate me at the very least…) when lo and behold, Okaa-san gracefully swam into the room, an angry red scar scabbing over on her face.

In her hands, she had a pot of goopy white cream, and she looked startled at seeing me awake.

"Good morning," I said, unsure of how to proceed.

It seems I wasn't the only one. It had now been an official three days since we hadn't spoken to each other, which wasn't actually all that long, especially considering that one of those days was October the tenth.

"Good morning. Are you feeling better?" she asked carefully.

I nodded, having nothing else to say.

Was it always this hard to talk to Okaa-san?

Because I remember hours of conversations about meaningless and meaningful things as she oiled and combed my hair, and as she taught me how to cook, how to dance, how to throw multiple shuriken at moving targets (through a trial and error method, but still!), how to write, how to read, and how to be a lady and still kick ass.

I mean…Okaa-san has taught me practically every skill I use in this universe. I would be a sitting duck without her, and I never knew it would be so hard to look at her face and not see the twisted expression on it as she said she wished I'd never been born.

She hovered near my footrest uncertainly, before moving to the side-table and placing the pot of goopy cream on it casually.

"Apply that to your face every six hours—it'll get rid of the scarring like as if it was never there," she said, and it almost felt like nothing had happened at all.

The pause extended, becoming painful.

"Can we talk?" I asked quietly, the question hovering over us like the grim reaper on this almost rage-inducingly bright day.

"Later," she said, and it was a promise.

She left the room, but the day didn't seem all that dreadful anymore.


Minato looked at the rubble around them.

Itachi looked at the rubble around them.

Shisui looked at the minion army behind them.

"Alright! Let's get as much of this cleared up as possible! Divide into groups of four! Itachi-chama has the equipment! The quicker we get this done, the quicker we can have an Akito-Field-Trip!"

The crowd cheered.

They set to work.

Minato gave himself a pat on the back for coming up with this easy method of finding volunteers.

But what surprised him was the naturally commanding ease with which Shisui ordered the children around.

Hmmm…must come with the premise of being Akito's best friend.

An ANBU with a blank mask hovered in the background, before taking his mask off and casting a low level henge and blending in with the crowd, helping them clear the rubble.

Later, he would go to the Orphanage in disguise and help too.

As long as Danzou-sama didn't call him, he would be himself—the Kabuto that just wanted to help his family.

He'd reassured himself that Akito would be fine, and only then had he gone to clear up, rueful that he had been sent out on a mission that very day by Danzou-sama (he hadn't expected that, so he'd promised to bring Akito some sweets—something she'd remember too, annoyingly enough).

Minato hiraishin-ed away.

Shisui picked up a shovel and went to the disguised Kabuto. They worked quietly side-by-side, both happily aware of exactly who the other was, and how much the other knew.

That was, after all, the way their friendship worked.


A day after the Night of Boiling Rain—which had really been evening, if people were going to be technical about it—Minato headed towards the Council Room in his Hokage hat and robes, ready for the onslaught of abuse he was going to be getting, as was the usual case whenever there was a Council Meeting to decide anything.

He opened the door, arranging his face into a neutral-engaged expression that had served him well in his professional life, and stepped into the room filled with clan heads and council elders.

He barely glanced at the standing men and women, internally analysing the positions of everyone in the room and gauging the tensions between the clans, already predicting how this meeting was going to go.

That was perfectly alright—he'd prepared notes.

"Let the meeting commence," he said as he sat down.

The other people in the room bowed and followed suit. He clocked everyone's new positions, noting with satisfaction that none of their expressions were too closed off or aggressive. This boded well.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was present, along with the Elder Council (Danzou-sama's expression was as passive as ever, Minato noted dispassionately), two thirds of the Ino-Shika-Chou Clan Heads (it was a stab in the gut every time he was reminded that Chouza-kun no longer existed), Akimichi Kimi, Uchiha Fugaku, Hyuuga Hiashi, Inuzuka Tsume, Aburame Shibi, Yūhi Mirai, Orochimaru…

With all the nineteen people accounted for, Minato began the proceedings.

"Personnel report, if you please, Mitokado-sama," he said calmly.

The old man cleared his throat and spoke clearly, "The fatality figures are still unknown. However, it is an estimated two hundred, with a four-fifth approximation of civilian fatalities. Casualty rates are mounting as we speak, with the rough figure standing at well over one thousand and counting, ranging from superficial to critical. Property damage is extensive with almost all roofs in the village requiring repairs, especially as there is a chance of a sudden freak shower occurring again. The Southern District has no usable shelters, with the whole housing and sewage network requiring repair work – estimated time required: eight months, at a steady output. The infrastructure is damaged beyond belief, Hokage-sama, and in my humble opinion, we are ripe for an attack as we speak."

With his bit said, Mitokado Homura sat back down, adjusting his glasses with a practised finger.

"That's a ridiculously high casualty rate," observed Nara Shikaku coolly.

Inuzuka Tsume growled in affirmation. "The hospital can't cope with those kinds of numbers!"

Akimichi Kimi added her two cents. "The medics are overworked as it is, after all."

"Then they will push through, as we all will, because that is their job," intoned Shimura Danzou, with several nods of assent from the room.

Minato spoke up as well. "It isn't an ideal situation, however there really isn't much we can do—people require treatment, the medics give the treatment, and there aren't all that many medics. These are all facts that can't be denied. With that said, the hospital budget—"

They spent a further ten minutes discussing the huge increase required in the hospital budget and exactly where the money was going to come from. The missions output was also discussed, because with such a high fatality and casualty rate, it might not be sustainable to continue sending shinobi out for missions.

"In the end, there are enough shinobi with superficial injuries that there doesn't seem to be a reason to reject too many missions, Yondaime-sama," concluded Shikaku, looking over the papers in front of him.

Several nods from around the table indicated that the topic was closed for now. "Very well. I will personally regulate the mission assignments for the next few months, before a priority list can be drawn up. If you would, please send an able-bodied personnel list to my office, Inoichi-san," said Minato, closing the topic for now.

Yamanaka Inoichi nodded dutifully, already jotting down notes on one of the sheets of paper in front of him—he was in charge of T&I after all, and would be the highest ranking person to have access to the medical files without having to go through too much red tape.

"If I may ask," Orochimaru cut the relatively amiable silence, "it has been bothering me slightly that the evacuation alarm was sounded so early. Who began the evacuation process?"

Minato was also curious about this, and so turned to Uchiha Fugaku. "I believe the KMPF began the evacuation process?"

Fugaku looked as stoic as ever, however there was something very guarded in his expression that made Minato think a private meeting was necessary to receive the truth. "Yes Yondaime-sama, the KMPF began the evacuation process due to an anonymous tip off."

Yūhi Mirai scoffed. "An anonymous tip off. What nonsense! And the Uchiha listened without checking any of the sources?"

Minato sat back and watched the verbal showdown, eager to glean more about the dynamics between the different clans—he was civilian-raised after all, and had had to learn the way the clan system functioned the hard way.

"Did you not feel the sense of foreboding Mirai-san? I had a half mind to begin the evacuation process without that tip off, but I didn't think it prudent to base it on just my gut feeling—clearly, I wasn't the only one who felt the same."

"If you ask me," said Mirai, righteous fury in his face, "the Uchiha have far too much control over the village, and they don't deserve it."

Fugaku bristled in indignation, while the rest of the clans remained neutral. "I don't think anyone did ask you, but if I ever have a burning need for retarded statements, Mirai-san, I'll be sure to do so," Fugaku said with an even tone.

"That won't be too far into the future, I suspect," muttered Hyuuga Hiashi in a carrying voice.

"Enough," said Shikaku dryly, when Fugaku opened his mouth for a retort. "We've got a destroyed village, war threats looming over our heads and a non-existent budget. We'll have time for childish bickering later, I'm sure."

It was silent for a beat, before Minato nodded his assent. "We will discuss this further later, Fugaku-san. For now, we must move on to more pressing matters, as Shikaku-san said. Namely, the infrastructural damage and fallout."

A map of Konoha was brought to the table and several people pored over it. Uchiha Fugaku was given a red pen to circle the areas of the village with the worst impacted infrastructure, and then a blue pen to highlight the ones that needed immediate attention.

When he was done, there was a sizeable portion of the village covered in red and blue; it was a daunting prospect that the shinobi in the room had to force themselves to comprehend—nothing at this massive scale of damage had occurred since the founding of Konoha.

"There's so much…" muttered Akimichi Kimi.

Utatane Koharu and Sarutobi Hiruzen exchanged a glance. "Conscription will be required for this, Minato-kun," said Hiruzen.

Minato nodded. "It's already begun. For now though, we'll focus on where we should get the supplies."

Another twenty minutes of task-delegation and arguing later, Shimura Danzou brought up the topic he was most eager to discuss, and which Minato had prepared for very carefully, having foreseen this turn of events.

"Where will the homeless be situated?" asked Danzou after the last argument—something about Inuzuka Tsume's grandmother and brick-laying, although no one was quite sure what Hiashi was insinuating except for Hiashi, not even Tsume.

Several mutterings began, with the first to speak up being Orochimaru. "We haven't tested the extent of the long-term effects yet. The aquifer or the soil itself could be a potential hazard because of the Boiling Rain."

Shikaku confirmed this with a grunt of affirmation. "In the meantime, the evacuation shelters aren't built for keeping so many people in them for more than five days. This problem needs to be addressed quickly."

Hagane Mitabi, who had arrived to the meeting late because he'd been in the middle of an operation and had only spoken up during the hospital budget debate, decided that his opinion might actually be listened to at least this time, because Kami-sama knows he'd been trying to get this order pushed for years now.

"I propose an expansion," he said, and several people around the room groaned—this was an oft-heard precursor to a pointless debate that had been argued to death. Hagane-sensei glared petulantly.

Minato, on the other hand, had decided that this was actually the first time the idea might be a feasible endeavour. "Let's hear the basics—basics only, please, Hagane-sensei—of the expansion you have in mind."

Shikaku, Danzou, Orochimaru and Hiruzen all sat up in their seats, visibly flustered for the first time during this meeting. "Yondaime-sama…" began Shikaku.

"The budget we have is stretched as it is, Minato-kun. We can't afford to expand the village!" Hiruzen half-yelled, the argument that had usually shut down the idea for the expansion immediately previously, but it was even more prudent this time, seeing as how they really didn't have any money to work with.

Minato tilted his head forward in acknowledgement, but motioned for Hagane-sensei to speak anyway.

He stood up and cleared his throat uncomfortably, unsure of what to do now that it seemed the Hokage was on his side. "The hospital hasn't been able to keep pace with the population boom, and certainly not the predicted figures. There aren't enough beds, nor enough operating tables, nor enough rooms to put the beds and operating tables. The equipment, as we've kept going on about for the last twelve years at least, isn't up-to-date, and there aren't enough places to train the potential medics, even though there aren't many of them to begin with."

He took a breath, having gone slightly off topic—he was excused by the majority, seeing as how he looked to not have slept at all in the last 48 hours, which wasn't far from the truth; the hospital staff was literally being treated like rubber balloons, they were that stretched thin.

"The Hospital League has been pushing for a hospital expansion, which has recently been amended to a demand for village expansion as well, when the predicted population increase is taken into account," he concluded, his head spinning from the standing up he'd had to do while addressing the Council.

He sent a pulse of green chakra through his body, and popped a soldier pill (his third one, and he knew that in a few hours, he was going to crash so hard) into his mouth. In a few blinks, his vision cleared up. Minato looked at the gathered Council. "In light of the fact that we have to invest in infrastructural rebuilding anyway, I propose we go ahead with the village expansion—there's enough of a clearing on the other side of the Eastern District wall, and I believe that would be the best place to situate another district, and another hospital building."

Cries of indignation rang out around the room, and Hagane-sensei may have been the loudest. "Hokage-sama, we don't have the manpower for TWO hospitals!"

Minato raised a hand to silence them all. Reluctantly, they did so.

"I understand that it isn't going to be easy on the hospital staff or the academy funding," he began, well aware of exactly how much effort it took for the academy to get the new trainees even remotely interested in the Medical Corps—they failed most of the time, but the academy had to fund the further education of the medic trainees, largely because the hospital couldn't afford it. He read a letter of complaint about the state of affairs nearly every day after all. "But there isn't any room to manoeuvre around Konoha Hospital, Hagane-sensei, and despite the civilians belief that we are magicians, we don't actually have the ability to delocalise an entire unaffected district because the hospital needs an expansion, no matter how much of an urgency the endeavour begets."

Minato mentally patted himself on the back for getting all those words out in a coherent order—he himself had only had about three hours of sleep since four o'clock in the morning on October the tenth. Some people tittered at his lame joke, which confirmed his suspicion that the majority of the Council was only in slightly better shape than he was.

However, no one was going to deny that Hagane-sensei had had the least amount of sleep, and had the most strenuous job—they weren't idiots, after all.

"Additionally, with an expansion in the Eastern District, the Konoha Hospital won't be close enough—and it's more closely linked to the Southern and Western Districts anyway, so this needed to be done—so another hospital seems like the only viable option. It will take time—"

"Too long, Yondaime-sama," Danzou cut in. "Konoha can't afford to invest in something now that won't bear fruit until it is too late."

Minato quirked an eyebrow at him, some clan heads cluing into the fact that this was something their Hokage had been waiting for, and everyone in the room understanding that Shimura Danzou had outright disrespected the Hokage by cutting him off mid-sentence, and he didn't appreciate it.

"Are you insinuating Konoha won't last another ten years, Danzou-sama?" he asked politely, even adding an innocent head tilt in for good measure.

Kami-sama he needed sleep…

Danzou's face was impassive as ever. "That was never my intention, Yondaime-sama. I was merely stating that the expenses to build and equip an entire hospital at the scale you're suggesting is impractical and unfeasible, if you'll pardon the insinuation."

Shikaku coughed, practically hearing Danzou's implication that Minato wasn't fit to make such a huge decision because he didn't have the brain capacity to think things through. This is going to be soooo awkward…he thought, before blinking in surprise. Huh. He really needed to get some sleep…

All Inoichi could think was, oh snap! He did not just go there!

This, unfortunately, was the normal thinking process of the Yamanaka Clan Head, so he didn't bother to blame lack of sleep for his addled thoughts.

Minato's smile became slightly savage in how perfectly put-together it was.

"But it isn't, Danzou-sama, because I've already done all the calculations, and while it will be hard, I didn't say anything about it having to be immediately up and running for the one thousand plus wounded at this current point in time. But of course, senescence does make one miss some details…if you'll pardon the insinuation," he said calmly, as perfectly polite as ever.

Tsume grinned. Only Minato could stab someone in the gut with a blunted knife and still politely apologise for staining the victim's rug, and make it seem like the normal thing to do. See this? This is why she'd thrown a party when Minato had become Hokage.

Danzou didn't even blink, but Hiruzen, having known him since they were children, could instantly tell that Minato had struck a festering nerve.

"As long as Yondaime-sama seems to have it under control, I will withhold my opinions on the matter," Danzou said diplomatically, realising that he'd crossed some invisible line.

But Minato wasn't quite through with him yet—he could play the long game too, after all. I mean, it took me nine years to get Kushina to go on a date with me. Nine. Whole. Years. This is child's play in comparison.

He tilted his head forward, arranging his expression into a more naturally polite expression. 'The question does remain, however, as to how long it will take to get the Eastern District wall to come down.'

Minato was pretty sure he'd just worded that weirdly, but when people nodded in acknowledgement of his statement, he figured only Hyuuga Hiashi noticed it, being a stickler for practically everything as he was.

"I will look into it, Yondaime-sama," volunteered Aburame Shibi, and did it make Minato a bad Hokage that he'd forgotten Shibi-san was even there?

I swear, Kushina's rubbing off on me a bit too much…

"Thank you, Shibi-san," he said, mentally slamming his head against a metaphorical wall repeatedly to try and stay awake.

It wasn't helping.

He took a sip of his caffeinated beverage, the origins of which didn't really matter because he needed the stimulant.

Hiashi brought up the point that Minato had been hoping Danzou would bring up. "Who will the permanent residents of the New Eastern District be? I'm assuming it needs to be an expedited endeavour."

Shikaku nodded his support to that question and assumption. 'There will need to be temporary residents as well, seeing as how the Southern District especially is a mess. Completely uninhabitable until some clearing work is done. The sooner we begin the building, the better.'

"Make-shift tents?" suggested Mirai, and with that idea accepted, it came down to who would be the permanent residents, and who would be the temporary residents.

Fugaku picked up a list of the homeless families, his ego somewhat bruised that his name was also on that list, and a headache forming when he truly saw actual proof that not a single Uchiha had a place of residence, with the only exception, his mind pointed out, being Uchiha Obito and his grandmother, because they were listed as second residents of Ha no Hiroba, Apartment Block F, number 7.

I still don't approve of that relationship, he thought not unkindly, but at least that's one less headache. Thank Kami-sama for Nohara Rin.

Why did he know these things? His daughter talked a mile a minute, and it was his Kami-appointed fatherly duty to listen.

"There are…more Uchiha on this list than any other family, clan or clanless," he said, trying very hard not to simply outright say 'You'd better give us first priority on that land dammit! I want a proper shower!'

Hiashi quirked his lips, his quiet smugness at the Uchiha Clan Head's humiliation almost tangible. All that was missing was thunder in the background and a Mandark laugh.

Danzou said, "Then it is settled. The Uchiha will be relegated to the New Eastern District. The rest of the families affected will remain in the make-shift shelter until the Southern District is cleared out, and then they will move back in."

Fugaku blinked. "Just for clarification, Shimura-sama, but it almost sounded as though you were saying that the Uchiha are to be the permanent residents of the New Eastern District."

Danzou gazed at him steadily. "Is there a problem, Uchiha-san? With the new hospital, the spacious training grounds available in the Eastern District and the water reservoir, it seems the ideal location for the Uchiha."

The other seventeen candidates of the Council saw no problem with this, and Minato, had he not had a feeling about the end game that Danzou was planning—pushing them into a literal corner and then killing them all off 'naturally'—he wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with this suggestion. In fact, he might even have just thought that Fugaku was being too resistant to change, and that was the only reason he felt uncomfortable about the idea of changing districts.

But then, well, Akito existed, and that changed things, didn't it?

Because Minato did have an idea as to what Danzou was planning, Minato did know how important it was to the Uchiha to be a central part of the village their ancestors helped founded, Minato did understand that Fugaku wasn't resistant to change simply because he was a "conservative tosser" but because the entire clan liked mingling with the people they worked with, and had been mingling for the last eighty odd years, and Minato did know that shutting the Uchiha into a remote corner of the village was a bad idea, of the apocalyptical variety.

Fugaku retorted with, "The location is too far away for the KMPF to be able to take action if a crisis occurs!" because it went without saying that the KMPF Headquarters, which had been reduced to rubble, would also have to be rebuilt, and it would be rebuilt where the Uchiha stayed.

Danzou evenly said, "The ANBU is more than capable of dealing with any crises that occur."

The clipped sentence left Fugaku spluttering, unable to formulate words at the rage caused by the dismissive tone of Danzou's voice. "Th-that's..!"

Minato felt a surge of triumph at Danzou's words. "Domestic crises are not under the jurisdiction of the ANBU, Danzou-sama. Surely you knew that?"

Inoichi, for some inexplicable reason, was feeling giddy. This is going to be so much fun! So much sass! Tension! Fuck, maybe I do need sleep! He discreetly slammed his head against the table. Akimichi Kimi stared at him with a barely hidden 'what the heck?!' expression.

Her son never did inherit that look…

Danzou passively stared at the smiling Yondaime, seething internally. With an even voice he said, "Of course, but they are far more qualified to deal with situations more efficiently."'

"That is still not their purpose, Danzou-sama, no matter what you might think. The KMPF is trained to specifically deal with domestic issues—the ANBU is, emphatically, not. You're not honestly suggesting we put more on their plates, are you? Not to mention, the KMPF itself…there will be so much paperwork involved to promote several of them to Jounin status, and they're so much better suited to handle things that you—I mean, we, excuse the slip, don't understand. Am I right, Fugaku-san?" said Minato, eyes not leaving Danzou, polite smile still firmly fixed, eyes razor sharp in their intensity.

Minato was on a roll.

Fugaku gaped, but recovered quickly. "Y-yes, that is correct Hokage-sama. We put our members through a specific type of training that lasts six weeks minimum, and then they work for a month under supervision. The affairs dealt with by the ANBU and the affairs dealt with by the KMPF are vastly different."

Danzou's jaw imperceptibly clenched, and Minato felt like giggling in glee. Maybe caffeine isn't supposed to substitute for ramen for a reason…he thought absentmindedly.

"Ah, but unfortunately, Uchiha-san, the village doesn't truly trust the Uchiha, and even you can't deny that," he said, and the ring of truth in his voice made Fugaku despair in a way he had refused to allow himself to do.

He really needed some beddy-bye time…his emotions were all over the place!

Minato swooped into the rescue. "Actually Danzou-sama, you would be surprised. The level of trust for the Uchiha has been steadily increasing ever since the Ten Minute Riot, so I don't think it's a valid point to make anymore."

Minato felt distinctly naughty for hyperbolising that, but the twitch in Danzou's eye totally made up for it.

…Minato decided to visit the local exorcist before he went home, just in case Kushina had possessed him or something. That thought did not sound like him.

Danzou replied, not letting his emotions through. "That does not negate the fact that there have been several complaints against the heavy-handed mismanagement of the KMPF, and several are dissatisfied with the way things are run. With the ANBU, there is no such worry about bias, which the Military Police Force seems rife with."

Minato couldn't actually deny this point. It was completely valid, it was a veritable fact, but that didn't mean he hadn't reached that sleep-deprived stage where even being asked to jump into boiling hot lava received a rudimentary 'fuck it and hope for the best'. Yes, that stage of sleep-deprived-ness.

"A brilliant point, Danzou-sama!" he said, and even Danzou looked startled.

"It is…? I mean, of course it is," he said, momentarily losing his detached persona.

Minato had that wide grin on his face that looked just a shade shy of psychopathic, and Hyuuga Hiashi had the most awkward boner. Ever.

Hiashi needed to get some sleep too…

"Austerity has indeed been a long-standing problem for the KMPF. And it will be fixed, won't it, Fugaku-san?" he asked, his voice as impeccably polite as ever. Fugaku didn't have the gall to do anything but nod in affirmative.

Shikaku smirked. Minato-sama wins. A good way to end this meeting.

Minato then gave Danzou a polite pointed stare. "The KMPF's job will be done by the KMPF, and the ANBU will do the job they're supposed to do. I hope that suits your agend—I mean, your sensibilities, Danzou-sama."

And if it doesn't, it went without saying, well, sucks to be you.

Danzou felt a growl building up, but he calmed his anger and nodded in gracious defeat.

Minato grinned. "With that settled…Shikaku-san, what would be the most viable option in terms of the residential statuses of those delocalised?"

Shikaku hummed in thought, before saying, "It would be best if those in the Southern District got first priority for the make-shift tents, but last priority in terms of rebuilding. Volunteers are fine, but the other, less damaged districts should get first priority repair work. The Southern District is going to take a while."

Minato nodded in acceptance. "Any objections?"

Hagane-sensei was still in a daze, Hiashi still had that awkward boner, Inoichi still felt only slightly sugar-high, and Hiruzen was berating himself for not having interfered with the argument, even though he agreed with Minato on this one. It was the principle of the thing.

In the end, however, no matter what personal issues the Council had, the fact was that they were ruthless, efficient killers and decision makers. They knew a good plan when they heard one. And if they didn't like it, well. The Hokage had accepted the decision, the Jounin Leader had made the suggestion, and the Elders hadn't spoken against it. What did they have to complain about?

"I'll start setting it up immediately, Hokage-sama," said Fugaku dutifully, ready to pull another all-nighter so that his family had a roof over their heads that wasn't the evacuation shelter.

With nineteen affirmatives for the decision, Minato stood up. "Meeting adjourned. Thank you for your time and patience," he said with a friendly smile that looked far more natural on his face than the confrontational polite mask he'd had in place for the duration of the end of the meeting.

The rest of the Council stood up, bowed, and filed out of the room, moving to fulfil their tasks and then get some well-deserved sleep.

Utatane Koharu stayed behind for a second, and Minato was obliged to wait, as per etiquette, until everyone had left the room. When it was just the two of them, he faced her politely. "Is there anything I can do for you, Utatane-sama?"

Utatane Koharu stared at the face of the boy that had taken over the Hokage seat, and who had seemed like a competent, if a little green, candidate for the position.

"Tread wisely, Minato-sama. This is a dangerous game you're playing."

With that, she bowed, and left.

Minato let himself indulge in a small sigh of relief. Utatane Koharu had called him Minato-sama.

That was one person on his side, at the very least.

Koharu had made her decision. She liked the blond boy who looked about ready to fix every mess the previous generation had made. After all, Koharu wasn't blind—the boy had power. It seemed that Danzou had kind of, sort of, definitely forgotten that.

Oh well, she thought, by the looks of things, Minato-sama is going to replace us soon anyway. Might as well side with the side I want to win, whether it's right or not.

This attitude, as previously discussed, is called the 'fuck it' level of sleep-deprivation.


No more drama. I've about had it with drama in my life. This whole year has been filled with nothing but drama, and I'm not having it anymore. I'm done! I'm nope-ing out of this whole 'situational crisis after situational crisis'.

The world can handle itself for a little while. I'm just going to be a good Uchiha heiress, study hard (or, you know, study the night before and ace the test, which is what I've been doing ever since joining the academy), train hard, and play with my friends.

No more worrying about civil war and anarchy until I'm fifteen! I'm having my eight year reprieve, do you hear me!?

"No more drama!"

Shisui-chan looked at me and nodded supportively. "Okay."

"I'm done, do you hear me?! Done!"

He nodded again, as cool as a cucumber. "Yes, Aki-senpai. Pass me the shovel?"

"No one can make me deal with their ish anymore!" I passed him the shovel.

"Uh huh," he said, nodding once more.

I nodded to myself. Yes. We're done dealing with quandaries. Let the grownups handle it from now on.

"Aki-senpai," began Shisui-chan, with the same tone he'd been using for the last dozen or so exclamations I'd made. "Do you think that maybe it's time to start working? Now that you've made your annual resolutions and everything."

He said it like as if he just knew nothing was going to change.

I deflated, looking at the damage in the house we were fixing up with the help of seven other volunteers. He was probably right too.

Stupid Akito.

Making resolutions you know you can't keep.

But still, now that the year of the war ending, the Great Backstabbing happening, the 'Kyuubi Attack that wasn't really the Kyuubi attack' occurring, the Inuzuka Incident and assorted assassination attempts arising and the ROOT crisis (let's not even go into the ROOT crisis!) is nearly over, I can genuinely say that I've just about had it.

Sa-chan, wherever he currently is, agrees.

Also, ironically, in the most literal and least metaphorical way possible, winter is coming.


OMAKE (for TheJoker96Italia)

In an alternate universe, where Minato may or may not have been talked into drinking too much one late night by his no-good shouldn't-be-in-charge-of-minors sensei while they were on a politically sensitive mission in Iwagakure no Sato, Minato was having a post-life crisis.

Naruto, his twelve year old son, and Deidara, his please-Kushina-I-didn't-mean-to-we-weren't-even-dating-you-can't-kill-me-I'm-already-dead-I'm-sorry-I-love-you illegitimate fifteen year old son, met for the first time.

Now, of course, Kushina wasn't happy with these turn of events, and Deidara would not only have had a surprise lobotomy within the first few seconds of meeting, but he would also have lost his entire sock collection and have acquired an irrational fear of penguins for no adequately explained reason. Kushina defied logic like that.

But because Kushina was, as the plot would have it, dead, she couldn't very well do much except Death Glare™ Minato and make him feel uncomfortable (no strangulation, unfortunately. She'd tried, it just never seemed to work. The only downside to the afterlife, besides the whole 'being dead' thing.)

"Hey, you look really familiar…" said Deidara, his eyes narrowing.

Naruto, who had happened upon this strange guy while on a mission where he had accidentally-not-on-purpose-I-swear-Kakashi-sensei-don't-put-me-on-a-leash got lost, narrowed his own eyes at the sunny blond, blue-eyed individual.

"Yeah, I know what you mean dattebayo!" Naruto grinned excitedly, pointing quite rudely into his elder half-brother's face. "But we've never met before!"

Deidara hummed in agreement, scratching his chin in contemplation. "Something about your face reminds me of a mirror, yeah…is your name Kagami?"

Naruto tilted his head in exaggerated confusion. "No, is your name Kagami? Cause I get what you mean about the mirror thing."

Deidara eyed the sunny blond hair, the bright blue eyes, and mentally went through the list of people he'd even remotely glanced at, nothing coming up.

"This is stupid, yeah! How many people have your shade of blond hair anyway!? This should be easy to figure out!" he yelled in frustration.

"Yeah, you're the only one I know who has the same hair colour as me dattebayo," Naruto nodded sagely. Deidara looked at him searchingly.

"Not even your parents?"

"Never knew 'em," Naruto shrugged carelessly.

Deidara felt something clicking in his head with an ominous snick. "Hey, you a Konoha brat?"

Naruto proudly pointed at his god-Deidara-how-did-you-not-notice-that-before-are-you-blind-you-moron forehead protector. "Yup!"

Deidara looked at the kid again, more closely, and the resemblance was uncanny. Then he decided, you know what? He didn't need to be dealing with his elusive father's other seed spawns; he had enough to deal with having defected from one of the five great Shinobi villages and not finding decent lodgings.

Screw messed up family trees.

"Let's hope I never see you again, yeah," he snapped ominously, abruptly turning heel and heading to the temple he thought might be appropriate for staying at for a couple of days, where he would encounter the Uchiha and Akatsuki, and have his life changed irrevocably.

Naruto yelled at him angrily, and then grumbled when the guy didn't turn around. "Stupid nii-san!" he screamed, sticking his tongue out at the retreating figure.

Minato decided that, you know what? Maybe he needed to file for an afterlife-divorce, because Kushina's glare was getting so much worse.

*Notes – Kagami means mirror. Naruto calls him nii-san (older brother) as common courtesy—Asian culture thing where you refer to people as brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, aunt or uncle even when they're not related to you.


Thoughts on this chapter?

I also have a poll on my profile, and it would be nice if you looked at it. Thanks to those who've already voted! All the science in this chapter…it's actually true though…I mean, theoretically anyway. I hope I didn't disappoint anyone's expectations for the conclusion of the cliffhanger! Also, I know there isn't all that much Sasuke in this, but this is already nearly 19,000 words long so...next time?

Also, 1000 followers!? Guys, I love you!

Edited 3/03/2017