Konoha Interlude

Because fictionlover21 went on a massive rant, I figured the excessiveness of everyone's reactions ought to be justified.


Shikaku will readily admit that, whenever Minato and Kushina had a fight, an argument, or even just a squabble over the last string of ramen, he was forever on Minato's side. It was his prerogative as his best friend.

He was the best sort of friend too. He never needlessly caused drama, was never too troublesome, always had a calming presence (especially when the day was a hectic one) and he never felt that, if they hadn't seen each other for months due to differing duties and schedules, that it would be awkward or strained to spend the entire day with him or feel obliged and guilty for not spending time with him.

No, there was never a time in Shikaku's lifetime of friendship that Minato had ever caused him even the remotest kind of distress.

Ever.

It was a feat no one has ever accomplished (not even, he would reflect years later in the throes of the fourth shinobi war, not even his son or anyone he'd ever met) and Shikaku loves him in the totally-not-sexual way for it.

He just didn't think his regard for Minato would affect his entire clan's behaviour to such an extent that all the Nara's of Konoha worked together to co-ordinate the village-wide Kushina-ragging.

Oh dear.


ANBU Kitsune and ANBU Tora had worked alongside Minato-taichou when he'd still been one of them. He was a brilliant, efficient and above all, kind-in-the-not-patronising-way. In their hearts, his replacement was nowhere near as good or, indeed, as brilliant, as their Kaeru-taichou.

Unlike most people, they'd seen that it was him that had made her cry and not the other way around. But they'd also heard the conversation and had seen that she hadn't apologised for spreading the worst sort of rumours about their Taichou.

Taichou was brilliant, the kind of man everyone wanted to be and the kind of man people wished they knew better.

The red-haired woman next to him, the one who had made their calm and collected Taichou lose his cool for the first time EVER, would pay.

So maybe it was petty to egg her house.

It was harmless compared to what she ostensibly must have done to their Taichou to make him lose it like that.

Taichou was always calm, always kind and always there for you even if he didn't know you.

Only someone truly terrible could have caused him to be mean.


Han, Souichiro, Rui and Waruno weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, or the most sober, and they didn't much like shinobi either.

Namikaze Minato, of course, being the only exception. As always.

It had to do with an unpaid debt that Minato had helped Rui with (granted, it was a part of his mission, but that didn't mean Minato wasn't helpful and awesome anyway!), a break up that Han had cried on his shoulder for (of course, he was stoned at the time and he'd tried to grope Minato thinking he was a girl, but how's that new eh?), a brawl that took Souichiro and Waruno to the Uchiha station that Minato somehow got involved in (he didn't actually do anything, but his presence alone was enough. Seriously. It was.)

Namikaze-dono was the only shinobi they ever liked, and they weren't the only ones. They didn't even have to meet him: sixty other men and women felt the same.

He'd touched their lives.

All of their lives.

They'd break the bitch that took him for granted.


Chiaki of the Hoseki Family of weavers is proud of her family history. They've been in Konoha for the longest time, one of the Old Civilian Families, and she's deeply grateful for belonging to such a distinguished line. I mean, she thinks to herself, can you imagine what would've happened to me if I'd been born in the Hyuuga Clan?

When Chiaki was very young, there used to be a six year old blond boy that she and her friends Gyushu (who goes onto heading the civilian council), Hitomi (future owner of the entire textile and crafting industry this side of Hi no Kuni) and Barufu (the eventual founder of the Babysitters Brigadeā„¢) used to play with. He was cute and nice, sweet and funny, but most of all he was kind.

Chiaki was worried, once upon a time, that she wouldn't be able to live up to her family's expectations of her. Once, Gyushu thought he would just fade into obscurity because he came from a small unknown family. There used to be a time when Hitomi thought she could never succeed at anything because she had zero confidence in herself. Barufu used to hate kids. That blond boy changed their entire worlds.

He was quiet, listened to their worries (even when Barufu really didn't have any, and Gyushu was too proud to say anything. He listened with his heart.) and inspired them to believe in themselves as much as he believed in them.

Once, Chiaki thought as she swept the excess threads into her wicker basket, she was a child that no one thought would amount to anything. Namikaze Minato changed her life.

So when the grapevine let loose the fact that he'd been seen crying because of a girl, well, she wasn't going to take it.

And neither was anyone else in the neighbourhood.


Kurimi, Satoshi and Jouri were friends, but they hadn't always been. No, they were on the same team and they used to fight all the time, and their sensei and their superiors and even their inferiors thought that they would dissolve.

Then they met a fourteen year old blond teenager with a smile made of sunshine and a heart forged from golden light who, with a few sentences, fixed what everyone thought was broken. Kurimi and Jouri are now married and Satoshi still bugs them constantly. If it weren't for Namikaze Minato, they didn't know what they'd do.

Kurimi heard from her uncle Kei (who Minato and Kakashi had done house repairs for and Minato and he had struck up a nice friendship) that his wife's nephew Gin (whose shop Minato always went to to get his vegetables) had heard from his girlfriend of six months Hotaru (who happened to be indebted to Minato's mother) that a redhead had apparently threatened to castrate Minato in front of his wife.

That was not very nice, but then they were shinobi, so that was expected. But apparently, Old lady Furisawa heard it straight from the horses' mouth that Minato didn't have a wife and it was a vicious rumour started by the same redhead.

So when they saw a red-haired female, they made sure everyone around them made her suffer just as she made their Minato suffer.

No it wasn't excessive. Minato changed their lives. Nothing they could do could ever repay him. But no one had the right to make him cry. No one.


Chouza and Minato were very close. Kushina and Chouza were just as close.

But he'd seen first-hand how much Minato suffered because of Kushina.

He didn't care about what else was happening to her (he had no way of knowing actually), but he did think it was about time he expressed his dissatisfaction with her constantly putting him down.

Bravado was something he'd been intimately familiar with his whole life. Kushina was a brilliant person, the first person to accept him as he was with no expectations or mean comments or even, like Minato, utterly coincidentally becoming friends.

She wanted to be his friend because he was himself.

Chouza really didn't think that his one narrowing-of-eyes would spark all the Akimichi into action against her.

Really he hadn't.


Inoichi had been in love. For the first time in his short life, he'd been in love.

And she was dead.

Minato and Kushina were so obviously in love.

It was just Kushina's petty (ostensibly anyway. He didn't actually know what her problem was, but it had to be a girl thing. No other rational explanation really.) insecurities that were keeping them apart.

Didn't they know that there just wasn't enough time for this!?

Oh he glared alright.

They were both lucky he hadn't bashed their heads in with the blunt edge of a meat cleaver yet, but his patience was wearing really thin.

They had five days to make up. Any longer and he couldn't be held responsible for what he did.


Mikoto was tired all the time. A newborn was not an easy thing to handle, coupled with the fact that her Uchiha brethren were breathing down her neck for a spare, coupled with the 'perfect housewife' image she had to maintain in public (thank Kami-sama Fugaku accepted her for who she was or she'd have had to do it at home too) was a lot to handle.

And the fact that Kushina had everything and was blowing it because of something they both knew Minato could never hate her for was just icing on the cake. But she wasn't avoiding Kushina because she was angry with her.

She was avoiding her because she was ashamed.

Ashamed of being jealous of her best friend who had the love of her life love her back, had beauty and brains to go with freedom and charisma.

She hated herself for hating Kushina. And so she avoided her.

She couldn't help it. She'd tried. Kushina was the best thing that had ever happened to her and she'd always been supportive and never made her feel inferior (actually, hanging out with Kushina gave her an ego boost every time) but she just couldn't help it.

If she'd bothered to talk to Kushina (which she eventually does a week later) the entire thing would've been put behind them and she could move on with her life, loving it just because it was hers and learning not to regret the miracles she had.

For now though, she avoided her gaze, never knowing that it was at this time that Kushina needed her the most.

Oops.


Kids on the street, icecream vendors, stall owners, entrepreneurs and paper-pushers alike. Incredibly young, extremely old and all the ages in between. To them, Namikaze Minato was a hero of the war, a caring sensei (his students sang his praise all the time and he even took the poor Hatake-boy in [and don't you remember his father, the White Fang, committing Seppuku?]), a brilliant strategist, a taxing but caring taichou, a talented shinobi, a hardworking teammate, a really funny and down-to-earth god among men, and the best thing that happened to Konoha in years.

They loved him enough to hate a girl they knew nothing about because she made him sad.

Years later, many blatantly ignore the signs and hate, despise, ostracise the boy that killed him, no matter how similar they looked and that Yondaime-sama never made mistakes.

Hate is something only love can inspire.

Absolute hate comes from absolute love.

And Konoha loved their Yondaime, their Yellow Flash, their Minato, absolutely.

Kami-sama save the poor soul that touched a hair on his head.


Retrospective Perspective

There were many candidates that Sarutobi could have chosen from after the Yondaime's death (could've forced/guilt-tripped Jiraiya, could've let Orochimaru do it, Shikaku was a good candidate, could've blackmailed/guilt-tripped Tsunade) but he didn't dare.

The only reason Konoha accepted him after their precious Yondaime was because he'd been a Hokage before. He had to face insubordination for years and even then his power over the masses just wasn't fully there. Even after Tsunade took over, and then Kakashi, it just seriously wasn't the same.

No other candidate would've survived on that chair. The people, civilians and shinobi alike, wouldn't have let them. More than that, no one, not even Orochimaru, wanted the seat after he was dead. No one could do as good a job. No one.

The Uchiha delayed their coup in his memory, Iwa still has that flee on sight order active even though he's been dead for years (they still aren't convinced he's dead. Gods don't die.), the name Namikaze Minato still brings tears to peoples' eyes and no one for the next two generations names their child Minato. Because no one was as Amazing and Bright as him.

Konoha still mourns him, thirty years after his death.

That is the legacy of the Yondaime.