In which Minato sets out on a journey with Jiraiya which will undoubtedly include every prostitute across the elemental nations, Lee tries and fails to not corrupt the children, and the English Shinobi comes to a shocking conclusion.
"How long has it been since we've done this?" Minato asked over his bowl of ramen, sitting across from Lee in the booth with Haru beside him.
"Probably a month," Lee said with an indifferent shrug, "It's not like you and I have ever avoided ramen for large periods of time."
"No, not that," Minato said with a wave of his hand before motioning to all the members of team seven sitting together, "The three of us, I mean, team seven all eating together."
"I can't help that," Haru groused, looking in slightly better condition than when he'd left now that he could at least turn the rinnegan off. Still, his eyes were so much darker now than the softer brown they'd once been and against his pale hair they were far more striking and intimidating than they'd ever been, "You guys never invite me."
"You never want to come!" Lee balked, taken somewhat aback at Haru's newly grown spine, as only a month or so ago he'd normally have let Lee walk all over him.
"Why would I want to come?" Haru asked, "All you'd do is call me Dead Last."
"That's your name, Dead Last," Lee said rolling her eyes before giving Minato a rather pointed look, "And Dead Last's right, if he was going to be like this then we shouldn't have invited him in the first place."
"Well, it's hardly team seven without him," Minato said before the two could start hissing at each other, "And for better or worse, this may be one of the last chances we get for a while."
After returning from the chunin exams, promotions had been passed out rather quickly. Within a day of returning everyone was informed that Lee, Minato, Mikoto, and even Kushina were now chunin. A strangely kunoichi heavy group considering, but then, none of it was undeserved either and even the best of jonin and chunin often had to take the exam more than once…
Almost a week later and Minato still wasn't quite used to the weight of his new chunin vest.
And with that Jiraiya had officially taken him as an apprentice, Lee now belonged to Hatake Sakumo, and Haru had supposedly been approached by none other than the nidaime at some point during the week. Just like they had all been told before the exams even started.
By the start of the next week, according to Jiraiya-sensei, he and Minato would be off to see the rest of the elemental nations. Doing all the things Jiraiya had put off due to teaching team seven, with Minato along for the ride, leaving the other two-thirds of team seven behind.
"It's only a few months though," Lee noted between mouthfuls of ramen, "Isn't it?"
Minato nodded quickly, reassuring himself that it really wasn't as long as he made it sound, was as short as Lee herself was suggesting, "That's what sensei said, at the very least, we're expected to check in with Konoha in person every once in a while, so we can't be gone too long."
And yet… Aside from the chunin exams, he'd never left Konoha for that long before. More, he'd never left Konoha without Lee for that long before. Even now, even inside Konoha, he tried to remember if there'd been any time where they'd spent a significant time apart. He didn't think there was, for better or worse, Lee had always been there.
"Yes, not that long," Minato answered with a grin on his face, already read to be there and back again.
Next to him Haru sighed and gave Minato his own look, as if by his dull expression alone Minato should be embarrassed about something, but all Minato could ask was, "What?"
Haru looked at Minato, looked at Lee, then looked back again, finally he said, "You know, I hate to say this, but I think I kind of enjoyed being called Dead Last more than I like being a third wheel."
"Third wheel?!" Minato spluttered but Haru was already putting down a bill and rising from his seat even as he gave them both a rather awkward smile, "I think I'd better go work on my tree walking, the nidaime says if I don't get it by the end of the week then I will be hands down the most untalented ninja he's ever seen in his life."
"Dead Last, you are hands down the most untalented ninja that the nidaime's probably ever seen," Lee corrected Haru, to which she earned a rather miffed look and an entirely insincere, "Thanks, Lee, for clarifying that for me."
And just like that he was walking back into the village, distinctive white hair visible long before he turned the corner towards the training grounds, leaving Minato and Lee to both stare dumbly after him.
"Man, I do not remember Dead Last having this much gumption when we first met," Lee noted, not inaccurately either, as Haru had seemed too terrified of Lee (and even Minato now that Minato thought about it) to say anything one way or another towards them.
Apparently, that awe after the last mission from hell had worn off a bit, and now not only was Haru the voice of reason, he was the voice of very upset reason who was tired of being ignored all the time.
Minato just wished he wouldn't go implying things like… Well… He glanced at Lee, she didn't even seem to realize what Haru had gone implying, that he and Lee were on some kind of a date and Dead Last had been mistakenly invited along.
Which, he guessed he wasn't opposed to dating Lee, but then he'd never really thought about dating anyone period. It just hadn't been anything that crossed his mind, and if he had then there'd been the idle thought that no girl in the village would want to spend as much time with Lee as he did (except for maybe Uzumaki, but chances were Kushina would just use dating Minato as a means to somehow date her true target Lee).
So, it hadn't really been anything he'd considered, but all the same that didn't mean Haru could go around saying things like…
"It's quiet," Lee's voice jarred Minato from his thoughts, she was looking out at the village, at the usual hustle and bustle of this more civilian sector of the village. However, despite all this, Minato could see what she meant.
After the ending of the chunin exams, Lee's forced strange end that seemed to rewrite not simply memories but time itself, it was quiet. An eerie, forced, quiet that even now left him waiting for some unseen consequence waiting out of sight.
He glanced over at Lee, she was looking down now into her bowl, eyes dark an deep as they stared through the table into the past, red hair falling over her face and hiding her expression from view.
"Quiet is good, isn't it?" Minato asked, and she grimaced, looked up and across at him.
"It's…" she paused, trailed off, bit at her lower lip and looked towards the street again before looking back at Minato, "I know that I've done… things before, that no one else is capable of, I know. And I know that it should bother me more than it does but this time… This was different."
"Yes," Minato said slowly, "It was."
She shook her head back and forth, as if Minato was missing the point, "I've never done anything like this before, Minato. Teleportation, clones, genjutsu, all of my jutsus, rising from the dead… That's nothing compared to this."
He considered that, considered everything he'd seen of her, and nodded slightly, "You're right, this was different."
"And it's quiet," Lee added quietly to Minato's answer.
Lee could be at once overt and at times very subtle, she was so complicated at times, and it was because Minato had known her all of his life that he could look at her now and see through those words to their heart. Lee had the power to change the world, to rewrite anything and everything that could go wrong, to bring back the dead, and maybe even more than that. Lee, singlehandedly, could fix everything.
And yet…
"I won't tell them," Minato said, then reaching across the table and taking one of her hands in his, squeezing it, "Don't tell them, Lee."
"Isn't it my job to keep the hokage, Jiraiya at least, informed about things like this?" Lee asked with a too wry smile that hid so much uncertainty.
"No, not about this," Minato said shaking his head, "Just because you can solve our problems, just because you did last time… What would we become, Lee, if we only relied on you? What would you become?"
She opened her mouth but closed it again, clearly not having the words for what she'd become, for what Konoha would force her to become if it became all too clear what she was capable of.
"I want to live in a world where I can work to fix the problems we created, not just to step aside and have you fix them for us," Minato said, "And it shouldn't fall to you to fix everything for us either, because what kind of a life would that end up being? You should be the one deciding when, how, and where to act, not anyone else."
"But what if I choose wrong?" Lee asked, desperately and earnestly, her pale hand still squeezing his. He wondered how many people had accused her of that, Jiraiya, the nidaime, or anyone else who had looked at any one of her disasters and started pointing fingers.
However, Minato was not one of them.
"You won't," Minato answered easily, with all the faith he'd ever had in Lee, "I know you Lee, and whatever you think, whatever choice you make, it won't be the wrong one if it's yours."
Minato would trust her with this, as he'd always trusted her in everything else.
"I am sorry to put this on you, Lee," Sakumo, Sakumo-shishou as of a few days ago, said with a truly apologetic grin as he appeared out of his bedroom dressed in ANBU tactical gear along with a few scrolls no doubt packed with necessary supplies, "But I don't have time to schedule a D-rank, I have no idea how long I'll be gone, and with Jiraiya leaving the country and any of my other friends god knows where…"
"It's alright," Lee said, although sitting in the Hatake's kitchen at their small table, looking across at the bizarrely stoic three-year-old Kakashi, Lee was wondering if a good portion of her future apprentice ship wouldn't be her roped into babysitting for her new master.
Judging by the grateful look on Sakumo's face, and the rather resigned and bitter look on Kakashi's (although it was a bit hard to tell since apparently, since the last time she'd seen him, he'd taken to wearing a cloth mask over his face), this was a somewhat routine thing.
But then, Lee supposed that this was what happened when you were an ANBU captain, particularly one of Hatake Sakumo's caliber. You were called at a moments notice, leaving your apprentice, and toddler, behind.
"Thank you, Lee," Sakumo said moving towards her and hugging her briefly, ignoring how Lee almost instinctively stiffened in his grasp, "He'll be no trouble, I promise."
He then pulled back, searched her face for something, and gave her a reassuring and kind smile, "I promise, when I get back, we'll get to work. I didn't want to give you too much after the chunin exams had just ended. It seems that's backfired a bit, hasn't it?"
Lee rubbed at the back of her head, sipped at the tea that Sakumo had so generously provided, "Well, as Jiraiya-sensei is fond of saying, there's always taijutsu brat."
Sakumo threw back his head and laughed, and Lee couldn't help but notice how Kakashi's eyes widened at the sight of it, but then the man ruffled her hair and said with a grin, "Yes, for you, there's always taijutsu."
He then turned towards his son, at the sight of the mask Sakumo sighed, raised his eyebrows, but then smiled as he moved forward to hug his son, "Be good for Lee, Kashi, I'll be home soon."
And just like that he was out the door, leaving Lee and three-year-old Kakashi behind in the kitchen. The silence, within seconds, was deafening. Lee, tapping her fingers against the wooden table, eventually broke it, "So, Kakashi…"
She then trailed off, trying to remember what she would have wanted to talk about when she was three. Well, she hadn't had much of a social life, or a life period, back then. That had been prime cupboard time back in Surrey, then she'd been four and had barely spoken the local language at all. And then, well, she'd been in the academy and no longer three.
At any rate, Kakashi was years away from going into the academy at this point, so that line of questioning was out which left Lee asking about the weather or his health, and since neither of those were interesting she just blurted something equally mundane and harmless.
"What do you do for fun?"
Kakashi blinked at her, large gray eyes wide and somewhat alarmed, looking as if he wanted to sink even further into his mask and out of her sight. It'd only been a month or so since she'd seen him, but already he was much bigger than before, and apparently just as quiet.
"Right, well, personally I do ninjutsu for fun…" Lee trailed off, trying to think of anything else she did that might constitute a hobby, "I also write a lot of books in English and now translate them into our language, but, well, I guess that's not really a hobby anymore."
Kakashi as perhaps expected, said nothing to this, just stared forward at her. Lee settled herself into staring right back, inwardly wondering exactly how long this was going to take, and if she shouldn't relocate herself and Kakashi back to her own apartment in the meantime. Not that Mianto would be there, given he and Jiraiya were preparing for their journey of self-discovery all over the elemental nations, but then at least Lee would have her books to read or television to watch.
"Ninja don't have fun."
She started, saw Kakashi looking at her, his eyes narrowed somewhat as if he had decided that he was going to judge her.
"Huh?" Lee asked eloquently.
The boy continued, voice high and childish but filled with more confidence than any toddler deserved, "Ninja are very serious, they don't have fun."
"Really?" Lee asked, blinking slightly, "Where on earth did you hear something like that?"
"It's the rules," the boy said, and not with a shrug either, as if these were definitively the rules and Lee was a fool for not knowing them.
"The rules?" Lee couldn't help but ask and with that Kakashi hopped down from the table with determination, moving his stubby little legs into his room and reappearing with a rather thick book for a three-year-old and shoving it towards her.
"The rules," he insisted as he forced her to take it.
On the cover were the words, "The Shinobi Handbook," and flipping through she felt something in her memory pinging, as if this was something she'd seen at some point, probably in the academy, but then had slept through or thrown out or just disregarded completely.
So, she said instead, as she flipped through chapters on stoicism, the seriousness of the shinobi profession, and more, "Ah, those rules."
Kakashi nodded, as if pleased that Lee now had her memory jogged with the rules. However, Lee was not nearly so pleased as she continued flipping through, remembering just why she'd tossed this to the side. Actually, if she was remembering right, pretty much everyone had tossed this book to the side, even Minato who was certainly more about respecting academy teachers than she herself was had disregarded entire chapters of this thing.
Finally, she looked up from the text, and said, "You know these rules of yours are garbage, right?"
Kakashi bristled, eyebrows furrowing, face flushing, and looking as if he was on the verge of shouting at her that she had no idea what she was talking about.
"I'm not saying the stuff about chakra exercises, making traps, and what not isn't useful," Lee said, "Well, for some people, I never bothered to read it. But this stuff here about friendship and hobbies and everything…"
"What do you know?!" Kakashi asked, jumping with surpising quickness to take the book from Lee's hands, but not quick enough as Lee merely moved it higher and pushed Kakashi back gently with one leg.
"Well, I was just promoted to chunin, and I was hands down the scariest damn genin this village has ever seen," Lee had it on good authority that this last was true, "And I have been at this longer than you've been alive, so I think I know my shit."
Kakashi didn't look like he believed her, face red, eyes dark, and looking on the verge of stomping his feet so Lee decided a demonstration was in order. Without another word she teleported them out to her favorite training field, conveniently empty of other teams for the moment.
"How…" Kakashi asked, gripping her leg, apparently not having been in the know as far as Lee's teleportation was concerned.
"I am the master of ninjutsu," Lee explained, "Which of course, is why I can say on good authority, that your rules are garbage."
Kakashi looked at her with wide eyes, watched as Lee, without moving a muscle or making any handseals whatsoever, created a great inferno that towered over the tallest trees in the village, "See that, guess what's that fueled by?"
"Chakra?" Kakashi asked, very clearly alarmed and still clutching at the fabric of her pants.
"Well, if you want to be technical, then yes, but it's also powered by friendship."
"Friendship?!" Kakashi blurted.
"If it weren't for my overpowering friendship with Minato," Lee said, "Then I probably would still be at the Dursleys in a cupboard doing D-ranks for the rest of my life. So, in a very roundabout sense, all of my awesome jutsus are powered by friendship."
Kakashi didn't look as if he believed that, but didn't say anything against it either, but did open his mouth in a cry of alarm as Lee opened his book and with a pen began to annotate her own rules, "As Sakumo-shishou's beloved son, I am taking it upon myself to improve your education starting with giving you a new set of rules that you will do your best to follow or else face dire consequences. The first, all of your C-rank missions can and will somehow turn into A or S-ranked plant zombie bonanzas where you will either a) have to blow up inns, b) get fatally or near fatally stabbed, or c) have a variety of terrible things happen that you can never talk about because S-ranked secrets Lee."
Kakashi jumped again, trying to grab the book out of her hand, only to be kicked back by Lee into a tree as Lee kept writing and talking, "The second, if anyone asks if you're a god the answer is always yes. Otherwise, you'll be attacked by giant marshmallow men and have no choice but to cross the beams which in turn could destroy reality as we know it."
Groaning and sitting up, Kakashi blinked, then asked, "When will anyone ask if I'm a god?"
Lee dutifully ignored him as she continued with gusto, crossing out the original text here and there and overwriting it with her own wisdom, "The third, make sure that one person on your genin team is the reasonable one, the other is the overpowered one, and maybe try to get a medic-nin somewhere in that situation as without the medic-nin you will end up concussed at some point and still have to drag your ass through a labyrinth while carrying your completely useless (if reasonable) teammate."
Kakashi braced himself and made another move for her, again very quick for someone not even in the academy, but certainly not fast enough for Lee who took the opportunity to jump up into the tree line, "The fourth, all of those things that everyone tells you are irrelevant, like your English books and movies, are secretly very important and understanding them is the key to understanding life itself!"
Kakashi sprinted up the tree next to her, even while Lee jumped back down, "The fifth… I actually don't have a fifth. Wait a minute, yes, I do have a fifth!"
She then pointed at Kakashi and his ridiculous mask, "If you wear a mask, and impersonate batman on a daily basis, people will make fun of you forever and you will never make any friends and be a sad lonely panda of a shinobi for the rest of your life. And nobody wants to be an Orochimaru."
With that as Kakashi jumped after her she let him catch up, then used the opportunity to rip down his mask and then punt him into a small hole, there crossing her arms and closing the book she said, "Thus endeth the lesson."
Man, Lee thought to herself, she was doing great at this babysitting thing, and here Jiraiya had always avoided team seven babysitting D-ranks if only so that Lee and Minato (but mostly Lee) wouldn't corrupt the children.
Kakashi's face was bright red, and he certainly wasn't wearing an expression of gratitude as he struggled there, but all the same Lee took pity and quickly released him back from his hole and handed him his book with a grin.
"You ruined my book," Kakashi said flatly, staring at the altered pages with a rather intense frown for a boy his age.
"I fixed your book," Lee said, grin growing wider, "And the words you're looking for are, 'You're welcome, Lee, I'm so glad you've given me all the helpful hints you would have wanted before I get skewered by plant zombies on my first mission."
"Those aren't the words I'm looking for," Kakashi said with a pout even as he tucked the book under one arm.
Still, Lee's eyes softened as they landed on Kakashi's silver hair, so like his father's, "You know, even Orochimaru has friends, I mean, sometimes… No one is an emotionless husk, we can't afford to be, those are the ones that die the quickest."
Kakashi flushed slightly, but seemed to relent somewhat as well, allowing his posture to soften ever so slightly as he watched Lee fix the training field with a wave of her hand. Then grabbing his, she prepared to teleport back to the Hatake compound but was interrupted by a voice.
"Lee!"
Lee looked up, there across from her, looking pale and almost alarmed at the sight of her was Uchiha Mikoto in her new chunin vest.
"Ah," Lee started, not quite sure how to start a conversation given that the last time she'd seen Mikoto was in the fight that had become far too vicious far too quickly, "Hello."
"I have the training field reserved so I…" Mikoto started, explaining her own presence and then stopped herself. She bowed slightly, face red, "I'm sorry."
"Oh, that's…" Lee started but Mikoto didn't even give her a chance to get a word in edgewise.
"I went too far and we both know it and I am very sorry," Mikoto then straightened, dark eyes burning, "And I'm glad you're alright."
"Well," Lee's hands wandered to her ribs, healed after a day in the hospital as well as Lee's own use of ninjutsu, "It was a pretty nasty cut."
Mikoto grimaced, glanced at Kakashi, then stepped forward, "I know, and like I said I am sorry but I… I wasn't thinking about you, or I knew that if I was going to win… I had to go much further than I should."
Mikoto then laughed bitterly, "And even then, I didn't win, even after all of that."
"Well, you came closer than anyone else did," Lee gave Mikoto, but close apparently wasn't good enough. Lee wondered, for a moment, if Mikoto remembered what had happened. Nobody but Minato had, but Lee had wondered if Mikoto's sharingan which seemed so much more powerful than any other iteration…
But if Mikoto knew she didn't say anything, just sighed and looked past Lee towards the hokage monument, and then finally said, "I thought, that if I could beat Fugaku, if I could beat you, then the clan might nominate me as clan-heir."
Oh, clan politics, Lee probably should have guessed as everything Mikoto did seemed to revolve around the politics of her clan, but even so Lee couldn't imagine being so invested the way Mikoto clearly was. As the orphan daughter of foreign civilians, Lee had never had these kinds of issues.
"They didn't, of course, even when I'm a chunin and have the… Well, even after everything, it's still not enough. I'm still even engaged to Fugaku, though I imagine if he doesn't pass the next chunin exams they may give that particular honor to someone else," she laughed again and then looked down at her vest, "Still, at least I'm a chunin, and that's further than anyone ever thought I would get."
Lee supposed she should be upset, and a part of her was, that Mikoto had gone as far as a plant zombie had, but all she could say was, "Well, if you try the same thing in the jonin exams I can't promise to be lenient."
Then, as Mikoto smiled with relief as well as those seeds of friendship that Kakashi so dutifully disregarded, Lee took his hand and pulled him past her, "Come on Kakashi, I think it's a great day for you and I to play a bit of shogi and try to contemplate the meaning of life."
There was a summer thunderstorm, the day of Uzumaki Mito's funeral, but few were in attendance and it had been a very private thing, Aunt Mito's wish told to Kushina as well as Uncle Hashirama and Tobirama.
The hokage, the shodaime, nidaime, Kushina, Tsunade, and then the few remaining friends that Mito had had among the living had shown up and now it was only Kushina and the former hokages who remained. Kushina, dressed in her chunin vest and mission clothing just like Mito had asked for, could only stare flatly at the grave resting among the many other Senju graves.
No other Uzumaki though, not here, and not anywhere else either. In Uzushio, there had been no one left to bury the dead.
In her stomach, Kushina felt the demon fox bristle, fire licking at her own chakra. A hand fell on her shoulder, she looked up to see Hashirama staring down at her, rain pouring down his face that could so easily be mixed in with his own tears.
He must have known, he must have known that Mito was waiting for Kushina to take the exams and become a chunin. He must have known that it was so very unlikely for Mito, tethered to the fox for so many years, would survive the transfer. He'd never said anything, not once, and even now he didn't say anything to Kushina.
Just looked at her, with that sad, soft smile.
Kushina gritted her teeth, trying to choke down a sob, trying not to think that it was because of her that Tsuande-sama was now drinking in a bar again thinking of her dead grandmother, that the nidaime's face was so dark and stoic as he stared forward at the grave, that the shodaime was…
"She was very tired," Hashirama said, so much quieter than he usually said anything, "And she was glad to see me and Tobi again, glad to teach you, but she was… Mito was very tired."
"Does that make it better?" Kushina asked, voice hitching.
"No," Tobirama said, "But at the very least, perhaps in the pure world, it means that she will see the Uzumaki again."
The Uzumaki, Kushina's own family, now gone from this world with no one but Kushina to remember them… Still, Kushina shook her head, "I wish…"
"I know," Hashirama said quietly, and it struck Kushina then that he must feel so much worse than her, because to her Mito had been the last of her family, her mentor, but she was Hashirama's wife.
Lee looked towards the grave, this flat gray stone with her name written on it, looking so different than the vibrant Mito had in real life. Then, slowly, Kushina felt the words she hadn't wanted to say but needed to say tumble out of her mouth, "You could ask Lee, we could as Lee and I'm sure…"
Hashirama cut her off, and Kushina realized that he'd thought of this himself, probably long before Kushina herself had, "I wouldn't take Mito from her family and I can't ask something like that from Lee. It was nice, to see Mito and the village again, to see Tobi again, but Mito let go of me and I have no right to not do the same."
Still, Kushina wondered, how much of the water rolling down his cheeks was from the rain, and how much of it was his own tears.
"I came to drop off some of Minato's translations," Lee announced as she walked into the Senju compound, arms filled with Minato's final translating efforts in the week since they'd been back, "He didn't think he'd have much time to get the rest done, what with him and Jiraiya-sensei leaving."
The nidaime simply nodded wordlessly, took the books from her, and Lee then noted his rather somber expression, and more, wearing clothing that signified a period of grieving.
"Mito died," he said, his voice slightly raw at the edges, and Lee felt her eyes widen as she realized that the woman's chakra was conspiculous absent (although, oddly enough, that heavy, ever-present feeling of rage that was the fox tumor, remained.)
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't…"
"It was a small funeral," the nidaime interjected with a soft smile, "She hated large overly grand affairs."
"Still," Lee said, grimacing and wishing she had brought something or had something more to say, "I'm sorry."
"She was ready," the nidaime said, an amused quirk to his lips, as if even now he found Lee's antics entertaining despite himself, "She had more than prepared herself, and I think… I think she was ready."
Lee had nothing to say to that, would not ask if Senju Tobirama had been ready or his brother had, or if he wished that Mito hadn't been ready. She wondered, instead, if he would ask her to bring her back… He didn't, they both knew he could, and that perhaps Lee would and should but… But he didn't.
Lee nodded, bowed, was about to exit when the man stopped her, "Your English nin would like a word."
Lee felt her eyebrows raised as the nidaime shrugged, "The man becomes unbearably obnoxious when denied for too long."
"Did he say why?" Lee asked and here the nidaime's reluctant and derisive smile grew.
"Oh, I imagine he'll try to use you to get back to his own village. He has already piqued my brother's interest, and I can't say that I'm unaffected either."
Lee grimaced at the words, as England was the last thing she wanted anyone interested, but none the less offered the nidaime another shorter bow and then let herself be led into the compound's tea-room where, looking as local as anyone in traditional clothing that must have been purchased for him at some point, was none other than her friend the English shinobi.
At her entrance his eyes flicked up, that startling burning blue that was rather like Minato's eye color if she thought about it, and his lips twisted upwards into an almost Orochimaru-esque smirk.
Lee sighed, spared a glance for the nidaime, who merely settled himself down at the table with her apparently willing to listen to her and the foreigner blather in English with half an ear.
"So," Lee started, deciding to cut straight to the point, "You wanted to talk?"
He smiled, a charming thing, and said, "I believe congratulations are in order, I hear you passed your exam."
Lee nodded, it'd after all never really been in doubt, well except for that final round that had spiraled out of control, but Lee was really trying not to think about that too much. Something about Lee's blasé attitude seemed to irk the man, but he said nothing, and soon enough he was all smiles again.
"I just thought I'd ask, since we didn't get much of a chance to talk last time, about England again."
"I figured as much," Lee said, and not without bitterness either, as it really was the last thing she'd want to spend her time talking about.
"I just wondered, you said you're an orphan?" except something about the way he asked made Lee think that he knew she was an orphan, knew very well, and hadn't simply been told by Lee or anyone else either, "I'm rather familiar with the English clans and I was wondering who raised you before you came to Konoha."
"Clans?" Lee asked with raised eyebrows, "I don't know who you've been talking to but there aren't anything like clans in England, at least not any that I've seen."
"Of course there are…" the man started, looking somewhat insulted that Lee was brushing off the existence of clans, let alone shinobi, in England.
"Look, I was there for four years, and I never saw a single shinobi in Surrey," she said, "And if you're talking about my relatives, my clan, then they were as civilian as civilian come. In fact, they were so in love with being civilians that the very idea of magic or ninjutsu terrified the living hell out of them."
The very word, magic, had in fact been forbidden for as long as Lee could remember.
However, judging by the shocked look on Ren the ninja's face, Lee had just handed him a very important, and very surprising, piece of information, "Oh my god, they left you with muggles."
"That… is not the word I would have used for civilian," Lee finished lamely, wondering why he felt the need to make up words when civilian by itself was a perfectly good one in English, "Either way, I really don't care about England and…"
He leaned forward and cut her off, "Why are you so insistent on believing that England will never come into your life again? Trust me, you are… Far more important than you think, and one way or another, our tiny dark island of a nation will come for you."
Lee burst into laughter, pounding on the table in hysterics under the nidaime's raised eyebrows and the insulted look on Ren's face, "Oh, oh god, that… The very idea. Oh man, that'll be the day. Me having to go to England, you're hilarious."
And with that she drained the last of the tea, stood and gave a final bow to the nidaime even as she still grinned and stifled chuckles, "With that, I think I've had about as much of the mother country as I can handle. Thanks for the tea, nidaime-sama."
Lee, Jiraiya, and Minato stood by the gates to the village. Jiraiya politely looking out towards the horizon as Lee and Minato said goodbye.
"So, this is it then?" Lee asked, looking out onto the road which lead out of Konoha and the rest of fire country.
"Just for now," Minato said before smiling and adding, "Not that long at all, if you think about it."
"You'll have to tell me about all the hookers sensei brings back to the hotel rooms," Lee said, motioning towards Jiraiya, who only winked and grinned at them, not even having the decency to look the least bit ashamed.
Suddenly, Minato realized he'd be seeing a lot of prostitutes in the coming months.
"Well, I'll probably leave out some details," Minato said, flushing, and then smiling as Lee laughed at his face.
"And I'll tell you about everything here and all the missions that go terribly wrong," Lee said with her own too wide grin.
"Oh, now why do you say that?" Minato asked, "Just because all our missions so far have ended in disaster doesn't mean your next will."
Lee didn't answer, didn't need to, just pulled him forward and hugged him for a moment before releasing him, then grinning and waiving towards Jiraiya-sensei. Then, just like that, with Lee waiving even with their backs turned, Jiraiya and Minato walked out of the village and into the great unknown.
Author's Note: You know what, to hell with it, next chapter starts the England arc, so sayeth the author. We don't need filler that slowly develops characters, we can do that and England at the same time! Be excited, I'm excited.
New in the world of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" is another short chapter of "The Trees are Greener" which focuses on Lee and Obito dealing with that canon Akatsuki garbage, sort of, "Eru Lee and the Sundance Kid" which starts at the same place as "Finishing the Hat" where an older Lee and her apprentice Obito explore the world of "The Lord of the Rings" with terrible consequences and misunderstandings everywhere, and "Reports of Izuna's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated" where Lee and Tobirama travel back in time and cause a paradox.
Thanks to readers and reviewers, you are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto