just so you know, gentle readers and o best beloveds - this is the chapter in which Minato decided to entirely change the story idea on me with just one line of dialogue. I thought he was a gentle muse compared to the others but he's tricksy. and - wow, what a lot of new readers and reviewers. Reviews are tasty and keep me warm :) tennisdesi91 - heh, I'm having fun building everyone's relationships. Must be left over from the kid in me that loved playing with legos, building things one block at a time. writing bunny - welcome to the party! As cold as it's been lately in some parts of the world I'll offer both soda and hot cocoa while you get comfortable. And thanks! I was going to go traditional with the story (childhood friends/rivals/whatnot, etc.) but Kushina wanted to be a fox. And I will definitely have to include an epilogue. Just too many loose ends that will need tying ;) mystic 777 - lol, yeah I didn't know about the lion either until Minato mentioned it. You don't get a lot of Minato/Kakashi interaction in the manga - for obvious reasons - but I always got the idea that Minato became a kind of father figure for him. I like building so its fun to build the basis for that relationship. And, I'm trying to stay canon (no one ever SAID Naruto's mom wasn't a kitsune - lol) but I won't deal with the issues I know we'd all like to avoid until the epilogue and even then I hope to leave a good feeling behind. I'll warn you before I do that though. This story is about Minato falling in love though. That's as far as it will go - well, the falling in love and making things right afterward. velo - yes, Minato takes a while to get to a point sometimes but he doesn't waver once he's headed that way. I just don't see him being much of an angsty guy. He seems too practical - and he's had to do too many hard things in his life - to waste a lot of time on that kind of thing. And I'd like to see anyone make Kushina in this angst - lol. Thanks too - I'm not getting to play with it as much as I'd like but I'm enjoying the Minato/Kakashi interaction. I think Minato makes a great teacher and I think he'd make an awesome dad. Kakashi needs both and I think Minato needs to be both even if he doesn't know it. Not much action - ehem - this chapter but I've got a fight brewing next one! by lantern light - :D thanks! it was fun to write. maybe I'll do a couple of teaching one shots for the two of them after I finish this. bukkakenojutsu - wow - possibly highest compliment ever. Welcome to the party and thanks! mc - heh, yeah, Minato's not dead yet but he is starting to live, isn't he? Intentional or not, the fox is a good teacher and you know Minato's a harder student than any of his kids. He's worked his way to some conclusions in this chapter as you already know ;) and small, furry animals in laps are excellent for working away lumps and stress. Most small furry animals. I think Kushina's done the opposite here. darchias - thank you kindly. I shall endeavor to continue. jini - my favorite fact checker! yeah, Minato's a self-analyzer when it comes to his emotions. I'm glad if his struggle is understandable though. Rin, she's sweet to write for. I kind of imagine her being the default speaker for the party considering the boys - lol. The kids are hungry for someone to love and to love them but they're also guarded. I'm glad the trust and affection building is coming through. redfe - welcome and pull up a chair. I'm glad you like my interpretation of Minato. He really won't write any other way for me and instead of being boring, it's turned out to be a lot of fun to write him this way. He's learning how to balance his heart and his head - or perhaps he's finally finding something in his heart worth balancing. annnd - I cannot help but feel as if I've forgotten someone in my replies. man, I hope not. Forgive me if I have and shout it out. I'll do a double reply next chapter for you :D Now, on the Minato muse subversion!

Chapter 14:

The shinobi for the Village Hidden in the Grass showed up at their camp the night after they had crossed over the border. Minato was eating the stew his students had made and he suspected it was Rin's fault it tasted as good as it did. His fox was off chatting happily with several of the caravan drivers – about ox riding as far as he could tell and he was trying very hard not to think about why she would be interested – and the camp was already settled and safe for the night. Kakashi appeared at his shoulder, moonlight shadows arriving early in the dusk.

"Someone's coming, sensei," he murmured and the very edges of Minato's lips twitched upward. The boy was observant even when doing something else.

"Yes," he agreed, voice just as low. His fingers were resting on the ground where he sat in front of one of the large flat stones. "Four of them."

"What do you want us to do?"

"Tell Rin and Obito to disappear. You stay with me."

Of the three of his students, he thought Kakashi was the one with leadership potential. Rin was a medic-nin and would never be able to be on the front lines. Obito was better at support. His heart was too tangled up in things to make calm decisions in the split second they were sometimes needed.

Kakashi turned and a hand gesture had his two teammates vanishing into the grass. Minato was pleased because it meant they had been paying attention to the situation. He also noticed that his little fox's fluttering chatter had disappeared and, stretching out, he could feel her foxy form sliding through grass without disturbing a blade of it off to his right.

She would probably make a bad team member in a group where the captain of the team wanted to control his shinobi like game pieces but for him – he was confident in her abilities and content to know that she would be there when she was needed. Kakashi settled down next to him and folded his legs in imitation. Minato politely set aside his dinner and waited.

One of the hidden shinobi started making his presence known by intentionally rustling the grass long before he was in range and Minato's lips relaxed. It was always better to err on the side of caution when approaching strange nin on a mission. It didn't mean he let his guard down entirely either though. Because it was always better to err on the side of caution when being approached by strange nin on a mission as well.

When the man parted the grass to step out and stand in front of them, Minato dipped his head in acknowledgement and the other man bowed a little in polite response. His forehead protector bore the symbol of the waving grass that surrounded his village. He also looked – to Minato – haggard and the edges of his clothing was frayed.

"Shinobi," Minato greeted him and gestured and the man sat down across from them. Behind them, the caravan continued with their nightly routine, completely unaware there was a visitor.

"I am Namikaze Minato, this is Hatake Kakashi. We were hired from the Village Hidden in the Leaves to escort this caravan to your border."

Most of which could have already been gleaned or was official knowledge but it was polite to offer it. The other man nodded.

"I am Watanabe Hotaka of the Village Hidden in the Grass. I apologize for not coming to greet you sooner but we have been having problems with the Earth Shinobi lately."

"More than usual?" Everyone knew the shinobi for the Village Hidden in the Rocks were… fanatical. It came, he thought, of both environment and leadership. The Grass shinobi nodded but it was a passing thing.

"They flare up like wildfire every few years. It is nothing the Grass cannot handle."

Minato nodded and refrained from smiling at the assertion. The Grass had been handling the Iwa-nin for decades now.

"There is plenty of food. If your team would like to join us, we still have dinner. We can mesh forces tonight and tomorrow we will give the caravan over to your protection."

The other man nodded.

"The Leaf shinobi are always polite to a fault," he commented with a smile and Minato's lips relaxed a little. The other shinobi let out a whistle that sounded like the birds that made their nests out of baskets to hang in the grass here. Three children rose from the grass nearby and came forward. Minato thought they looked a little ragged at the edges as well. He made no comment on it.

"Kakashi, take our guests over to the fire and make sure they all have enough to eat. Ask Rin to make more if you need to."

"Yes, sensei," the silver haired boy was on his feet and guiding the children toward their fire. Minato watched them go and Wantanabe watched him but the man made no comment. It wasn't polite but Minato turned back to the other man and stated mildly:

"They look… young."

Wantanabe would not answer though.

"Grass nin mature quickly."

Minato made a noncommittal sound and gestured as his fox slipped from the grass in her human form.

"My companion, Uzumaki Kushina, from the Land of the Whirlpool."

The other shinobi's gaze moved over her as she trotted over to settle on her heels behind Minato and he made sure to intercept that look as she rested her folded arms on his shoulder and settled her chin there. The other man caught the meaning in his own eyes and he smiled a little and nodded.

"My team will stand watch while yours rests and eats," Minato offered. "Tonight we can set up dual teams to keep watch."

"A kind offer. Thank you." The Grass shinobi rose and, with a nod for the fox, moved over to join his team at the fire.

"Rin and Obito are in place," the fox murmured and then lowered her face to nudge at his throat with her nose. "And what are you doing?"

He made a noise and she nipped lightly at his neck.

"You smell aggressive."

"Then poking at me probably isn't a good idea."

She huffed her amusement at him – and nuzzled against the side of his throat as her arms shifted forward to drape over his shoulders.

"He was looking at me and you didn't like it."

"How do you know he wasn't looking at me?" he asked dryly and she chuffed her laughter, fingers twining against the fabric of his flak vest. Curling close around him, she pressed her nose to the curve of his ear.

"I am yours, Yondaime. Only yours. That is part of our binding." Her voice was soft and it whispered warm against him. "A kitsune only belongs to one man at a time. Never, never more."

He found her slender fingers with his own and his eyes didn't move from the grass he was watching.

"For how long?" there was no emotion in his voice when he asked it.

"For as long as we are together," she answered. And then his ear got a last nudge and she was passed him and into the grass again. He thought he caught a flicker of fox tail before the golden blades swayed back into place to let her disappear entirely.

For a long time, he watched the grass without moving and he didn't trace his little fox's chakra.

Kakashi finally came and settled near him. For a long time the boy didn't speak and Minato let the silence rest. Finally, choosing his words carefully, the silver haired boy stated:

"Sensei… those – Grasslanders…. They are too young. They haven't even gone through their tests yet."

Minato nodded and didn't look away from the swaying grass in front of him.

"I thought so. They're also poorly equipped. How did they eat?"

"As if they haven't in a while."

Minato turned his head to look at the boy next to him.

"Kakashi, I want you and the others to befriend the Grass children. Teach them what you can without being obvious. But I want you to listen too. Something is going on in this region. I would like to know what before I return to the Hokage."

"Yes, sensei."

The boy was gone immediately and it took Minato a long moment to realize… he liked being called 'teacher'.

Focusing back on the immediate, he ran through facts in his mind. It was possible that the group with them now were not in truth Grass shinobi but rather bandits or shinobi from a different nation. However dressing up like nin from somewhere you weren't was a deathly fast way to see you, your family, and possibly your entire village killed. Not to mention, most bandits weren't small children trying to look like adults. To him, their chakra felt a great deal like the chakra from other Grass nin he'd met in the past. So he would go on the assumption that they were who they said they were.

Which meant, either the Grass shinobi were not taking care of their appearance to outsiders – or they were dealing with harder things than frayed sleeve hems.

Watanabe had mentioned trouble with the Iwa-nin. His little fox had indicated the animals, at least the ones that lived underground, were jumpy. Guessing – he would guess that something was going on in the Land of Earth. But guesses were dangerously two edged.

He would still report what he'd gathered – and what his students gathered tonight – to the Hokage when he got back to Konoha. A great deal of making intelligent decisions came from being informed.

That night he let his students take charge of the situation. The only way they would learn to operate on their own was if he gave them the space to do so now while they still had him nearby as their safety net. So he was pleased, as he watched them and didn't interfere, to see the way they brought everything together and covered all the positions that should be. He was, perhaps, even more proud of the way they included the Grass children without leaving them responsible for anything of import. Once he was sure things were in order, he brought Watanabe over to the head of the caravan and introduced the two men, leaving them together to talk about plans and strategy as he went to his usual spot and leaned back against one of the wide, sun warmed stones for the night.

He trusted his students. He still wouldn't be sleeping tonight. Chakra came easily to Minato and there were very few times in his life he'd ever exhausted it temporarily. More than that though, it was the control of it that he prided himself on. Precision was one of his trademarks.

He still had a strong supply even without sleep or the chance to rejuvenate it and so he let it slip down through his fingers and spread out in its usual net, taking the time to attune himself to everything it touched as it spread. At its very edges, he felt his fox's humming chakra and felt her pause as his touched her. Not many people could pick up the brush of his chakra when it was this light and spider web thin but somehow he wasn't surprised that she could.

He wondered if he could use it to manifest as a physical touch, even across the distance between them. His mind immediately suggested trying it, and in a way that would have made his pervert of a teacher proud. Eyes narrowing, he clamped down hard on his control and withdrew, leaving his sensory net spread wide but otherwise alone. When Watanabe joined him shortly after that, he was glad of the other man's company.

"You should be very proud of your students," the man told him. "They're very competent."

It was one of the highest compliments and Minato's lips relaxed a little.

"They're not mine. I'm just teaching them. They lost their sensei."

"Ah. My apologies. They seem quite taken with you. The dark haired one will not refer to you as anything other than a very possessive 'my sensei'."

It made Minato smile, just a little, and he exhaled.

"They are good students. I am very proud of them."

It grew quiet between them for a while and then the Grass shinobi spoke again.

"I've heard of you."

Minato made a noncommittal sound low in his throat.

"You're Konoha's Yellow Flash. They also call you Konoha's Single Man Army."

Again, Minato just made a sound and continued to watch the swaying grass in front of him. Watanabe shifted a little next to him.

"Do you – hire out your services to other countries, Namikaze-san?"

Minato turned his head and looked at the other man for a long minute. Finally, voice inflectionless, he stated:

"If my Hokage decides so, then yes. I have never been asked to before though."

"Your services are probably very expensive, I'd guess."

"Perhaps." Minato looked back at the grass in front of him. The truth of the matter was that ANBU were not often for rent. They were too important, and too rare a rank, to be used for countries that were not their own. He did not tell the man next to him so though. Instead he was hoping that Watanabe would tell him what he thought his country would find so important, and so dangerous, that they would have to hire an outside nin of Minato's reputation to deal with it. "I would expect that would rely on what was being asked of me."

Watanabe didn't offer any more information however and after a moment, he shifted subjects yet again.

"I haven't seen Uzumaki-san lately."

Minato made a humming sound and offered nothing else. It was quiet then and Watanabe looked at Minato from the edges of his eyes.

"I suppose asking if she would like to join me for the night would be out of the question."

Voice flat, Minato replied:

"It would be suicidal."

"Ah." Watanabe's intonation said it all. "My apologies, Namikaze-san."

"Now would be a good time to go check on your charges, Watanabe."

"Yes." The other man stood up and with a nod for Minato went back toward the camp. Minato ignored him other than making sure the feel of his chakra didn't double back when coming near him again wouldn't be a wise choice.

Alternately, his charges stopped by to wish him goodnight before they went out on their guard assignments and he locked the signature of their chakra into his mind and traced strong lines out to wherever it stopped. Tonight he would have to watch them without being able to hear the sounds of their sleeping breaths. They were well trained – and he would still stay awake and alert until they were all safely back with him again.

The night wasn't too far along before his little fox came back to him, stepping out of the grass on two human legs instead of the four fox paws he was fairly sure she'd been running around on earlier. If she had been playing games with him, she should have stayed in the camp and flirted with the Grass shinobi. Instead she'd disappeared.

He liked 'disappearing' better.

With a little huff she dropped down onto her heels in front of him, fingers spread between her feet. When she shook her head, her hair swayed.

"Nothing. Except all the squeakers and snakes and burrowing birds are scared."

He leaned forward to wrap his fingers around her hips and pull her into his lap that way.

"I'd go deeper in and see for myself what's going on except I have the children with me. They're not up to a trip all the way into Earth Country without being detected and if things are edgy, it would put Konoha in a bad position if they had to come extract some of their shinobi for being uninvited guests."

She fit herself to him and relaxed against his chest. After a minute she wiggled around a little bit – which did nothing to help him relax – and then she took off her vest before she unzipped his so that she could burrow in closer. He spread his hands over her and pressed to still her once she was settled. She made a soft crooning noise and he felt her body go soft against his.

"I can go," her voice was drowsy and her exhales tickled against his throat. "No one will bother a fox."

He'd already thought of that.

"No," his voice was quiet and low. "You're not an official part of our village yet. If anything happened to you, it wouldn't be our right to interfere."

"Nothing will happen to me. And Konoha would not have to do anything if it did."

Unintended his hand slid down and rubbed slow against her thigh where he knew a pale, toothed scar circled it.

"I would have to do something if it did."

He felt her shiver against him and there was a low whining sound in the back of her throat.

"That's not our bargain, Yondaime." Her teeth nipped at his jaw line, restless, and she squirmed against him. He spread his hands and pushed again to still her but he could still feel the tension in her body. It woke up something in him that usually slept unless he was playing the part of ANBU and he dipped his chin to look down at her.

"What do you know that I don't, little fox?" his voice had a rumble to its edge.

"A great deal," her voice was muffled against his chest and he let his fingers squeeze slightly where they curved on her. She shivered again and didn't lift her head.

"Only that you should not protect me. It is dangerous for you to protect me, Yondaime. That is not part of our deal. Humans are not safe in the places I sometimes walk."

"I don't remember agreeing to our deal because it was safe."

She squirmed again in protest and he locked his arms down across her body in hard bands and spread his fingers wide to press them into her.

"Little fox," his voice was very soft. "If you keep moving like that I am going to find us a bed of grass out of the children's hearing range and I'm not going to stop until I know every inch of your body from familiar repetition and you've lost the ability to make noise anymore."

Possibly for the first time in their acquaintance, she went absolutely frozen and still. He couldn't see her eyes – but he was willing to bet they were huge and unblinking. Despite himself, it shifted the edges of his lips upward. After a minute more, her voice, with a little bit of a squeak to it, asked cautiously:

"Really?"

"Really."

There was another long pause in which she didn't move. After a minute, curious, her voice, muffled against him, asked:

"Would I enjoy it?"

"Yes. A great deal."

The shiver did move through her then and she made a soft, weak noise that had him automatically smoothing his palm down the curve of her back. He didn't do anything else though and after a long moment, she lifted her head enough so that her eyes could peer at him from their tops.

"We're not going to."

"No."

Her exhale whispered out of her.

"Because you don't trust me."

He threaded his fingers through her long hair and knotted it around his fist. Very gently, he gave it a light tug and, finding her gold eyes with his, he answered:

"No. Because I'm going to make you fall in love with me first."