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This chapter is unbeta'd. I do not own Naruto.
"Do you have any ideas for just how we're going to capture and contain this chakra? An ordinary device won't work on it." Tsunade looked at her old teammate even as she silently began work on the problem herself.
"I was thinking we could modify your chakra retaining crystals," Jiraiya said, fingering a spent one still hanging from his bed. "If we can combine it with the proper seals it could provide temporary storage at least. Then it'd be up to the other Konoha to figure out the rest."
The medic nodded letting out a sigh. "I'll pull out my research notes from when I first created the things. In the mean time, you two try to get some rest as well, we're all going to need it." Then, muttered under her breath as she left the room, "Heaven help us if Minato finds out."
Chapter 21: Once More into the Breach
When Naruto woke, the room was dimmed and he'd been moved to his own cot set up between the two beds. The only light in the room came from a bedside lamp next to Kakashi. The white haired man was hunched over a book, so engrossed in his reading he failed to stir as Naruto climbed up on the bed next to him. Naruto squinted at the spine of the book. Ew, porn. He glanced at the bedside table, eye catching a stack of books, all from the same series. He vaguely wondered if the other Kakashi enjoyed smut as much as this one.
Naruto leaned over to peer at the text, wondering what was so interesting about the book that it had commandeered all of Kakashi's attention.
The motion finally drew Kakashi's notice. He snapped the book close before Naruto could get a look at any of the print. "Oh, Naruto, you're awake." Kakashi pulled open the drawer of the end table and dumped the book inside, quickly sweeping the rest of the collection in behind it.
Nodding, Naruto's eyes lingered on the now closed drawer interest peaked a little. The things adults didn't want kids to look at were usually more interesting…well sometimes. Sometimes the things adults kept hidden were just boring.
"Are you hungry? I could ask the nurse or guard to bring you some ramen," Kakashi said, instantly pulling Naruto's gaze away from the drawer and back to the white haired man.
"Ramen?" Naruto asked, eyes brightening, "Yeah! That's my favorite!"
"I know," Kakashi said with a chuckle. He eased himself out of bed, one leg at a time and shuffled to the door with the frailty of an old man. Opening the door, he murmured to one of the guards just visible in the hall. After a few nods, the door was shut and Kakashi made the slow journey back to the bed.
Naruto frowned at the slow progress, forehead wrinkling in concern and confusion. "Should you really be walking around? You don't seem like you're better yet."
"Actually, I'm doing quite well considering. Usually I wouldn't even be able to move this soon after chakra exhaustion. It's only thanks to Tsunade that I can get out of bed." Despite the reassurance, Kakashi let out a relieved gasp as he partially collapsed back on the bed and dragged his feet back under the covers.
"Doesn't seem like it," Naruto muttered. He didn't intend for Kakashi to hear the comment, but the way the man ruffled his hair a moment later proved him wrong. "Hey," he said, a thought suddenly occurring to him, "How did you know ramen was my favorite?"
Kakashi shifted, then shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest before dropping them to his lap again. "One of my duties before the invasion was to watch over you. You eat too much of the stuff, really you need more vegetables in your diet, but it's been a rough time for both of us, we deserve a treat."
"I don't understand," Naruto said as he eyed Kakashi, the other Kakashi. Well, he supposed this Kakashi was really his Kakashi since they both came from the same world, but he met the Kakashi from the new world first so that Kakashi felt more like his than this one.
Naruto shook his head. Dealing with two worlds was confusing enough without throwing in duplicates of people. It just seemed to get more and more complicated. It was easy to tell the two Kakashis apart. The one sitting in front of him looked so much older than the one from this world, more worn, too, like the white hair belonged to him. The difficult part was trying to separate them when talking about them.
"Why didn't you talk to me before?" Naruto asked refocusing on his original question.
Kakashi sagged a moment, looking down at his hands. The hesitation grew out longer as Kakashi made a few false starts at speaking. He drew in a deep breath and pushed his way through the words. "Your father meant a lot to me. He was my sensei and all I had left besides the village. When he died…" Kakashi fell still, brow furrowed.
Naruto almost wished he hadn't asked. He thought about telling the man he didn't need to talk about it anymore, but a part of Naruto did need to know. It would have been so much less lonely in the village if he'd had just one other person to talk to, to be his friend.
"It was very difficult," the silver haired man drew himself up around the words. "And you've always looked so much like him. It was…painful, to be reminded…"
The explanation didn't make Naruto's hurt at being so alone for so long go away, but it did make it more manageable when dealing with Kakashi.
"I'm sorry, Naruto," Kakashi said, "If I could change how things were I would but as it is…"
"It's alright," Naruto said, plastering a smile on his face that was only partly forced, "I mean, things will be better now and you won't have to miss dad anymore 'cause he's here."
Kakashi frowned eyes shifting away from Naruto. The silence stretched, thin and brittle, and Naruto had the distinct impression he was missing something important…again. He was prevented, or perhaps saved, from asking by Jiraiya hobbling through the door, one arm slung around the shoulders of a very irate Tsunade.
"If you would just use the damn wheel chair this would have been much easier," the Medical expert growled.
"I can't been seen being pushed around in a wheelchair like some old and infirm geezer," Jiraiya said, panting as they moved across the room.
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "People already know you're old. You should be more concerned with healing yourself."
"As if you're one to talk," Jiraiya scoffed as he eased down onto the bed.
"Care to repeat that?" Tsunade's eyes narrowed to slits.
"…No. Why are you being so loud? I'm trying to rest," Jiraiya rolled over or tried to but stopped when he twisted his torso too much. Instead, he settled for draping one arm across his eyes.
"Tch," Tsunade turned away with a roll of her eyes. Her gaze fell onto Kakashi and Naruto sitting on Kakashi's bed. "Awake, then? Did you explain to Naruto what we plan on doing?" she asked Kakashi. Naruto swiveled his head back and forth between the two, curiosity sparking bright.
"What?" Naruto asked, eager for something other than sitting in that room with nothing but the four walls and Kakashi's porn to entertain himself. "What are we doing?"
"No," Kakashi said, speaking over Naruto's head and question. "I hadn't gotten around to it."
Tsunade flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Putting it off doesn't make it any easier."
Kakashi nodded and turned to Naruto.
"What is it?" Naruto asked again, getting up on his knees in his eagerness, fairly bouncing with renewed energy. "What? What? What?"
"Settle down," Kakashi said, rolling his eyes and putting a hand on Naruto's blond head. Naruto ceased his bouncing sitting back on his heels expectantly. "We have a plan that will let you go outside without having to worry about the Kyuubi."
"Really?" Naruto bounced back up to his knees again, voice pitching loud as Jiraiya groaned and pulled a pillow over his head. "How? When can we do it? I'll be able to go outside again? Could we go get ramen from Ichiraku's?"
Kakashi held up his hands, glancing quickly toward the door. "Not so loud! This is something that has to remain between the four of us."
Naruto's smiled curled even wider with a touch of foxy mischief as he bit down on his lip. He was ready to die with boredom and this was even better than pranks to relieve it. "So it's a secret plan, like a mission?"
"Yes," Kakashi nodded, "We're going to trap the extra Kyuubi chakra floating around so it won't affect you anymore."
Naruto tilted his head, "How are we going to do that?" They couldn't even see the chakra, how were they going to catch it?
Kakashi opened his mouth to answer, but clamped it shut when the door opened and Rin stepped through bearing several bowls of ramen on a tray. "The guards told me you wanted some ramen for dinner." She stopped, noticing each head turned to her as the tension doubled. "Am I interrupting?"
"You might as well stay," Tsunade said, crossing to the door and closing it with a reprimand to the guard not to be disturbed again. "I'll feel better about the whole thing to have another medic handy any way."
"Another medic handy for what?" Rin said, setting down the tray on the nightstand and frowning at the rest of the room.
"We're going to trap the Kyuubi!" Naruto said, fairly shouted in his eagerness to tell the secret.
"Keep it down!" Tsunade scolded, bopping Naruto on the head, "This is still a secret."
Rin looked around the room with wide eyes. "You're serious about this. Have you told Minato?" The silence that answered the question was enough. "You all have a death wish."
"The Kyuubi's chakra floating around outside is too much of a liability." Jiraiya said, pushing himself to a sitting position with a stifle groan. Tsunade wedged another pillow behind him before he eased back again. "You saw what happened before, we can't afford for that situation to occur again, especially with a large audience."
Rin's eyes, drifted down to Naruto for a moment then flashed away as she nodded her head. Naruto hunched into himself specifically trying to not think of the bodies left from the Kyuubi's rage. "How are we gonna do it?" he asked again, desperate to change the subject.
"You see these chakra crystals?" Kakashi pointed up to dimly glowing crystals strung around his bed. Naruto nodded. "They're designed to hold chakra. We're going to make similar crystals that will be able to hold the Kyuubi's chakra."
Narutod nodded, expression serious as if Kakashi was consulting with Naruto what to do rather than explaining what they were going to do. "And you're going to catch it! Then I'll be able to go outside!" He beamed at the idea. Of course, they would think of a way to solve everything. With Kakashi, Jiraiya, Tsunade, and now Rin there wouldn't be any way they could fail. The only thing that could make it better would be if Minato joined their team. He glanced to the windows, brow furrowing. "How are you going to get it all in one place to catch?"
Kakashi smiled a moment, Naruto could see the flash of it under the mask. Then the smile disappeared and seriousness replaced it. "That's where you come in, Naruto."
Naruto cocked his head to one side. He didn't understand how he could possibly help, but he wanted to do whatever he could. "What can I do?"
Kakashi wrapped an arm around Naruto, squeezing him in a half hug for a moment. "The Kyuubi chakra is attracted to you," Kakashi said with only the barest hesitation. "If you were to stand outside, very still, the chakra would gather around you and we'd be able to collect it."
An icy hand wrapped around Naruto's heart and he pulled back away from Kakashi. His head swiveled back and forth at the others in the room, the only one who looked half as horrified as he felt was Rin.
"You can't be serious!" Rin said through clenched teeth. "Think of the risk, to the village and Naruto! How could you even consider this? Using him as bait?"
"We won't do it unless Naruto agrees," Kakashi said, soft and sharp, eyes focused on Naruto. "But there's no other way, not in the time we have."
"But-" Rin began only to be cut off by Tsunade.
"We've calculated the risk. If Naruto agrees, it's the best that we have." Silence fell as every eye turned to Naruto. "Well kid, what's your decision?"
Naruto's voice was completely gone. He wanted to say no, but the word stuck in his throat, jammed in a road block of curses and exclamations at the thought of going outside with that red haze just waiting for him. What if he lost control like last time? What if he hurt someone like those enemy shinobi, only this time it wouldn't be enemies that got hurt it would be Kakashi, Rin, Tsunade, and Jiraiya, his friends and his dad's friends. Minato would hate him if Naruto hurt them.
"What…what if I end up hurting you like I did those other guys?" Naruto finally managed to choke out. He couldn't look at any of them, just kept his gaze hard on the bed, face scrunched up to prevent any tears from coming. This was a mission, his first mission and he couldn't cry at the very beginning.
"You won't hurt us, kid," Kakashi said, landing a hand on top of Naruto's head again. Kakashi forced Naruto's head up, partly ducking to meet his eyes. "All four of us are harder to hurt than that. We'll have safe guards in place and plenty of chakra seals on hand. Besides, you're stronger than the Fox. You won't let him hurt us."
Eyes wide, Naruto thought back to what Minato had said. "I think you're stronger," that's what Minato had said about Naruto and the Kyuubi and now Kakashi was saying the same thing. It couldn't be a coincidence. Kakashi and Minato were two of the strongest, smartest ninjas Naruto had ever known. They wouldn't be wrong about this, not with the village on the line.
Naruto glanced back to the window, imagining the swirl of red mist he'd seen in his dreams and the iron grip of it he'd felt the first time the Kyuubi had shown itself. Somewhere in the back of his mind that same itch sat, that thought that he was supposed to be somewhere else doing something. Maybe this was the thing he was supposed to be doing.
"Ok," Naruto said with a nod and feeling more like a real ninja than he ever had before in his life, "I'll do it."
XXXXX
Konan hung limp in her restraints, panting, heaving for air. She had long since stopped attempting to lift her head and now focused only on remaining conscious. Her interrogators had paused for a moment, conferring on the next stage in quiet voices somewhere across the room. The initial questioning stage had been short, a few demands for information that Konan responded to with silence before they moved on to more…rigorous forms of questioning.
Flicking her eyes up to the soft murmurs on the other end of the room, Konan forced some of her concentration away from breathing and focused on the papers she'd imbued with her chakra. They were in the room, she could feel them close by even if she couldn't focus enough to pinpoint their exact location. The pain flared in her wrists as she fought against the chakra restraints. She didn't need to make any new chakra to spy through the paper she'd already infused so it should still be possible even in the restraints. It was simply extremely painful as her body strained to create the chakra out of habit and the restraints forced the power away. Eyes growing unfocused in the effort, she managed to catch just a portion of the conversation relayed through the papers like a radio.
"-not working, we can't go back to the Hokage without any answers!"
"Forget Hokage-sama, I don't want to go to Ibiki and tell him we didn't get anything. He might decide we need to relearn the basics of interrogation all over again. Any word yet on when Inoichi will be healed enough to come in and try his jutsu?"
"Last I heard was probably tomorrow maybe the day after. This is our final chance to get anything from her before we lose her."
"Perhaps if we-"
The conversation faded as Konan's concentration stuttered. She doubted she would be able to withstand a direct attack to her mind as was Inoichi's specialty. She'd have enough reserves to protect some of her information, but the chances were they would eventually get something from her, willingly or not. It would entirely depend on what tactic they used to work their way into her memories.
It really boiled down to two choices: Konan would need to escape before then, or render herself incapable of betraying Nagato. She would not betray the trust of her only remaining friend and family. Konan wracked her brain, thinking of any possible way to tip the scales in her favor. The biggest problem was her inability to use jutsu, her lack of chakra. That had to be the first thing she remedied.
"Day dreaming?" the voice of her interrogator drew Konan from her thoughts. "Unless you answer our questions truthfully, that's going to be the only way you get out of here, understand? Now, where were we?"
Clenching her jaw, Konan braced herself.
XXXXX
"This isn't good enough." Minato said with a shake of his head as he looked up from the report just delivered to him. "I want the medical facilities double stocked with as much supplies as possible in the short notice. Move the civilian and walking wounded from the attack to the farthest reaching facilities away from the Hokage tower."
"Hai, Hokage-sama," the chūnin said then placed one final folder on the desk. "The recent information we have from the autopsy division."
"Thank you," Minato and dismissed the chūnin with a wave of his hand. The young shinobi departed with a bow.
Shikaku stepped forward to fill the space in front of Minato's desk when the door to Minato's office closed and they were alone. His eye rove over the seal diagrams scattered across the surface with a marked lack of reaction. "So you're going to do this?"
"Yes," Minato said, not bothering to look up from the diagrams after he dropped the medical status report to the floor and set the autopsy report to the side on the desk. "It's the best course of action we can take."
"We could just destroy the mirror," Shikaku said, shrugging away the issue. "If they did discover how to rebuild it, it would potentially take years, and we would be more than ready for them. You'll be able to keep your son, and the village won't have to worry about an attack."
Minato shifted, looking up from his seal work. "There are other matters playing into the decision."
"May I ask what they are?"
Minato sat back, letting the brush he was using to sketch out seal designs and formula fall to the table. For a moment, he simply looked at Shikaku and considered how open he should be. The man was loyal and trustworthy, on that Minato would stake his life, but the situation was delicate.
"The boy's a jinchuriki, isn't he?" Shikaku said when Minato didn't speak. "That's why you're concerned the other Konoha will come looking for him. Those burns on your arms, the injuries on the enemy soldiers that tried to take him…Naruto's the Kyuubi jinchuriki."
"I should know better by now than to underestimate you analytical skills," Minato chuckled, the stress of the situation coming up in the moment. "Yes, he is the Kyuubi's container. It's the reason he was targeted." Minato hesitated only a moment before continuing. "The Kakashi from the other Konoha also came through the mirror during the attack. I cannot cut him off from his village without his permission and knowing Kakashi, I don't think he would give up on his village easily."
"No, he wouldn't," Shikaku agreed and pursed his lips. "How do you want to defend the village during the counter attack? When you open that portal we'll be as vulnerable to attack as they will be."
Minato's mouth twitched in a smile before flattening out again. He could always count on Shikaku. "You're going to be in charge of defense while I'm gone. I'll be taking our Kakashi, Itachi, and several ANBU with me when I go into the other world." Minato shuffled the scrolls and papers around on his desk till he found his map of the city. "I want you to set up concentric barriers moving out from the Hokage tower. Have reaction forces standing by in case the barriers are broken. We'll want to contain whatever fallout we can in the smallest section of the village as possible. I'll be going through the mirror after dark when everything's shut down for the night so that should reduce the vast majority of civilians in the area. Keep others from wandering into the area as well."
Shikaku nodded, looking over the layered defense Minato had sketched out on the map. "We should strength the side of the barrier that borders the residential and civilian sectors."
"Very well, if you see any improvements make them. I want to move as soon as possible. If anyone asks, this is a training exercise. If everything goes well, there will be no spill over and the general population will be none the wiser." Minato handed the map over to the ANBU leader and turned back to his seal diagrams. He was close to the right formula, he could feel it.
"Hai, Hokage-sama," Shikaku bowed, recognizing the dismissal. "I'll send over the best ANBU agents I have for you invasion force after back briefing them." He turned to leave but paused before stepping away from the desk. Turning to peer over his shoulder he broke protocol, harkening back to when they were both Jounin. "Be careful, Minato. I know what it's like to be a father and want to do everything to protect your child, but you're also the Hokage and your first duty must be to the village."
Minato stopped his writing and squeezed his eyes shut before looking up to face Shikaku. "Thank you, but I'm very well aware of my duty to the village and that includes that future generations that will inherit it. My son is a part of that future. What kind of village would we be, what would we teach him if we sacrificed him and the Kakashi from his own world simply because it was easier and safer? This is the right thing to do."
The hint of a smile tugged at Shikaku's mouth before it fell back to his normal bored expression. He nodded and turned, disappearing through the door and leaving Minato to his seals.
XXXXX
"You'll like it here," Naruto rambled to the side, making a good if unconscious effort to distract Kakashi from the scroll we was studying. "It's just like the old village but better and we'll be able to spend time together and you can teach me Jutsu and learn from dad again and you'll be able to be twins with the other Kakashi. It's going to be great!"
"Naruto, you're supposed to be molding chakra to prepare for fighting the Kyuubi," Kakashi reminded the boy. He glanced up at the door, hoping Tsunade would come back soon. They had a test chakra crystal they thought could hold the Kyuubi's power, but it would be difficult to test in earnest until they got out with an actual concentration to contain.
Naruto grumbled a few choice words under his breath before fading silent as he closed his eyes. The silence helped Kakashi focus on the readings they had from the new crystal but more importantly it helped him ignore the one thing they hadn't yet told Naruto, namely that Kakashi himself would not be staying in this world if all went well. The thought of staying was both tempting and painful and Kakashi was tired of hearing Naruto babble on about the subject.
The silence lasted for several minutes before Tsunade came in through the door, a whirl of blonde pony tails and green jacket. Rin followed closely behind carrying a bundle of cloth. Kakashi focused his gaze on Tsunade, trying his best to accept the ghost from his past.
"We have it," Tsunade said, gesturing to Rin to put the bundle down on the bed. Shaking Jiraiya awake, Tsunade continued. "It's not perfect but it will do so long as we have enough of them and are careful to keep the chakra flow steady."
Rin pulled back the cloth revealing several heavy, pale yellow crystals. Kakashi picked one up testing the weight in his hand. From the other bed he could hear Jiraiya sputtering about being woken from actual sleep but he ignored the bickering between the two Sannin. If Tsunade and Rin were right, these crystals could save both Naruto and his Konoha. Unable to resist, he scraped together some of the little chakra he'd managed to gather with help of Tsunade's treatment and gave a gentle push toward the crystal in his hand. The reaction was immediate as the crystal latched onto the chakra and absorbed it as surely as a rock to the bottom of a pool. The small effort left him dizzy and slightly nauseous.
"What are you doing?!" Rin cried, snatching the crystal back. "These are designed to absurd an extremely large quantity of high density chakra. It could suck you dry if you give it the chance."
"Being in a warzone has made you reckless," Tsunade said as she abandoned her argument with Jiraiya and turned to Kakashi's bed. "I can appreciate your need to see for yourself if they'll work, but try and set a good example for the children. There's no need to give either Naruto or Jiraiya any bad ideas."
Naruto didn't seem to heed the mention of his name, instead reaching out to touch one of the crystals himself only to have Rin pull them away from his grasp. "So those things are going to trap the Kyuubi?"
"They're going to trap the Kyuubi's chakra," Tsunade corrected. "The chakra outside doesn't quite have a complete conscious yet, that's why it's drawn to you."
"What do we do with it then?" Naruto asked as he settled down on the edge of the bed.
Tsunade shrugged, holding one of the crystals to the light to inspect its flawless interior. "Then Kakashi will take it back to his own world when he goes home."
Kakashi flinched. He hadn't meant to tell Naruto that until absolutely necessary. Glancing over he found Naruto's astonished gaze pinned on him. "It's the only way," he said in an attempt to head off any arguments. "The village is going to need every shinobi they can get to win the war and then afterwards to avoid invasion. I can't just abandon them."
Naruto shook his head with fierce denial. "Why can't Kakashi-jiji stay here, too?" Naruto asked, looking at Jiraiya and completely ignoring Kakashi himself.
"I'm not old," Kakashi said, nose scrunching up underneath his mask. "I'm the same age as the Kakashi in this world. There's no reason to call me 'jiji'. I'm not old at all!"
"Eh," Jiraiya said, squinting at Kakashi's face and hair. "You do have gray hair like an old man."
"I had this same hair color when I was eight." Kakashi's one visible eye couldn't decide whether it was confused, exasperated, or annoyed.
"Yes, but now you have the wrinkles to match it, old man," Jiraiya said, delight lighting up his tone, "older than me, even!"
"You do look worn," Rin said in a subdued voice where she stood to the side adding in a lowered voice, "Didn't help that you wasted some of your chakra testing the crystal."
Kakashi shook his head, renewing some of the dizziness but it passed a moment after he stopped. "Listen Naruto," he said pulling the blond down in front of him. He cast about for a moment, trying to find some way to explain it to the eight year old. It'd been so long since he had related to someone Naruto's age he wasn't sure if he could anymore, if he'd ever been able to even when he was Naruto's age. He'd deliberately avoided taking students by going into the ANBU and now he floundered. He promised himself when he got back to his own world and the war was won he'd cut back on the ANBU mission and take some students, make some attempt to rejoin the world.
"We all have to give up something," Kakashi began more for something to say than anything else as he focused on that blue gaze peering up at him. "For me, that's going to be the chance to be here with you, Rin, and Minato. For you…that's going to be the chance to see the Sandaime again, but we're ninja. We never stop trying and we endure what we must to make sure everyone we care about is safe. Do you understand?"
For a moment, Kakashi thought his words had made no impact. Naruto's eyes dropped down and away and his brow furrowed for a long, silent moment. Then he nodded. "Yeah, I understand."
"Good." Tsunade said. "Get back to molding chakra then. Someone will be in to replace your chakra crystals in a little bit. Minato's going to finish his preparations in another day or two. We're going to need more than this if we're going to try this when he launches his offensive through the mirror. Rin and I have to get back to making more of these, a lot more if we even hope to succeed."
XXXXX
Minato glanced to the two others on either side of him. Itachi and Kakashi stood with generic ANBU masks already in place and facing the Mirror as they wait for Minato to open the portal. Then, he flicked his gaze to the four ANBU standing behind them. Seeing their Hokage's glance each nodded signaling that they were ready. Minato looked back to the Mirror, pulling his own mask down over his face.
The Mirror looked worse for the wear after everything it had gone through. The cracks had splintered out distorting the once glass smooth surface and fracturing the reflections of the room around it. A few of the cracks had worsened when Minato ran through his own tests after finding the foreign chakra present in the object, but some of the smaller cracks had receded, almost disappeared from the slow and constant input of chakra into the crystal. Minato had also lined the outer edges with seals to help hold the crystal together when he reopened the doorway and during the inevitable battle that would follow.
Two ANBU skilled in seals and chakra control stood behind the invasion force. Hopefully, the two would be able to maintain the integrity of the Mirror during the battle. The possibility of something happening to the one and only connection to their own world in the soon-to-be battle weighed heavy in Minato's calculations. The risk, piled on with every other logical argument, was almost enough to make Mintao destroy the mirror as he had been tempted to do since the beginning of the whole affair. It was worth the risk, though, to be sure that Naruto wouldn't have to worry about some mad man finding a way into their world as well as helping that other Konoha and giving Kakashi the chance to go home if he chose.
Minato also couldn't help but put himself in the Sandaime's shoes, fighting a possibly losing battle for the village with no end or aide in sight. If Minato was in the same position, he'd hope the Sandaime would find it in his heart to at least attempt some kind of help. If all went according to plan, Kakashi and Itachi would distract Nagato while Minato destroyed any information concerning the Mirror with two of the ANBU. The remaining two ANBU would guard their escape route. Depending on the state of the Tower in the other world it could just be easier to destroy the entire build and bury and information of the Mirror along with whatever Ame forces were there, but Minato would make that determination when he saw the place.
None of their party had any delusion that they would simply find all material on the Mirror located in one easily destroyed location. Even if they did find it all they would have to be concerned with anyone who had seen and remembered the information. Still, one of the easiest ways to limit the danger of the Mirror was limit the people who had knowledge and understanding of it. The primary mission was damage control for the Mirror as well as stopping Nagato from ever returning or sending anyone else to their world, and they would do whatever it took to accomplish those tasks.
Glaring at the Mirror, Minato gave one last reminder for the shinobi going with him. "Remember, from what we've learned each version of Pein has a different ability. We don't know how many there are but they will likely have red hair and piercings. At least one remaining on the other side has the ability to push and pull objects toward or away from himself with extremely short recovery time between each attack. The latest autopsy results indicated the piercings had the ability to receive chakra. We still don't know the exact purpose for them but it may be an avenue to counteract their abilities. Be careful and stay at least in pairs at all times."
A round of "Hai, Hokage-sama," answered his instructions.
Taking one last even breath in, Minato flashed through the signs. The Mirror sputtered, blinking a bright powerful flash before the light rushed across its surface and a reluctant image of a different world appeared. Nagato knelt before the Mirror on the other side, eyes a little widened from surprise as Minato pushed his arm through the glass making cracks appear at the strain and threw several of his specialized kunai into the room.
TBC…
A/N: Well it's been too long, but if it makes you feel better I was working on this chapter and the next chapter at the same time. Let me know what you think and predict. I take suggestions seriously and have used recommendations/ideas from reviewers on more than one occasion in this story. I'd love to hear what you have to say so please R&R.