Really Grey

11.

Trippy was writing very quickly. "Slow down," he told himself, pausing at intervals. "Get it right. Oh Kami-sama," he swallowed, "Oh God…"

Minato kept an eye on both the paper and Trippy's arch-nemesis, who was swaying back and forth leisurely, waiting to be reunited with his wife.

"I can't figure out this symbol!" said Trippy at last, pointing, "There! Is that cat, or rat? Or a dragonfly…no, maybe usagi…"

"Looks like…" Minato suddenly didn't know. It could have been anything. "Maybe it's nothing," said Trippy.

Minato looked at him strangely.

"What if it's an ink blot? And nothing?"

"Are you sure it doesn't look like your ass?"

Trippy swore very loudly at him.

Minato eased the atmosphere, "Calm now, calm…think."

"Yes…think…" said the ninja. He stared at the blob for a while (as much as he could afford). "My ass? Or an ink blot?" asked Trippy to the hokage suddenly. "It's not a symbol."

"Oh good. I was thinking…" Minato suddenly chose not to finish that sentence.

"Right," Trippy continued feverishly with his writing, copying some symbols.

"Time's running out…"

Minato put a hand on Trippy's shoulder, urging him to ignore his arch-nemesis' taunts. The current hokage stood, and folded his arms over the old man's form. "Don't you feel any remorse?"

"It won't work hokage, just keep him quiet," said the formerly masked ninja, still writing, "You're wasting your time."

The older man chuckled. "About what? I just want my family back."

Minato shook his head.

"Hokage. This symbol. Another ink blot?"

Minato turned, and looked it over where Trippy pointed. "Um…yeah."

"Be sure they're ink blots…"

"Grrr!" Trippy turned, "When I activate this, I am heading straight for this godforsaken shack, and you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna…"

The older man chuckled.

Trippy swore.

"What?" said Minato, lost.

"I didn't account for you box."

"Hee hee hee, HA HA HA!"

Trippy growled.

Minato knelt down—"What?"

"This counter seal that I have created."

"…Yes…?"

"It's set…hopefully…to take us back to the moment before you activated your…Flying Thundergod technique, and my Flying Dragon technique."

"Yeah…so…?"

"He has that box. I don't know if…No. It can't. Our jutsu collided," Trippy recounted, gesturing with his fingers. "That box acted as a temporary stabilizer. No I'm right. I can't second-guess myself…Oh dear Kami-sama; I am so going to this house and kicking your sorry ass."

"So wait—we'll remember this?"

"Of course we'll remember this."

"But Kushina won't—my wife?"

"No. We," he waggled his pointer finger between the two of them, "will be brought back to the moment in time where we were about to activate our seals. I won't. You won't. I'll go to his house and kick his ass. Then you'll wait for me, via a seal I am putting on you now—" He slapped his Flying Dragon seal on Minato's shoulder. "Got it?"

"Ok," Minato nodded, admiring his new tattoo.

Trippy wrote another symbol.

"How will we know if it…truly works?"

"That everybody's back where they should be?"

"Yeah."

"Well…we can't know. I don't even know if this will work…" the ninja moaned.

"…That's okay!" Minato smiled nervously.

"No it's not…I can't give you even sixty percent for sure. It's more like fifty-fifty at this point."

Minato's smile dropped. "…Those…are…our odds?"

"Hee hee hee, HA HA HA!"

"Yes, I'm very sorry those are our odds. I have never messed with time before."

Minato chewed the bottom of his lip.

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. This is all my fault anyway. I placed the seal on your butt. I knocked down the ceiling fan."

Trippy thought, "Well, I suppose."

Minato deadpanned.

"Ready?"

"It's done?"

Trippy looked down, and added one more symbol. "Yep. Now it is. Oh. Wait, write your traveling seal. And write it for…wherever the heck you had been going. The one that was on my ass. Then write inside of it, your destination of home."

"…Huh…?"

"Like this," he showed on a large piece of scroll he'd torn off for scratch paper.

"…HUH…?"

Trippy deadpanned. "Do the best you can."

Minato was handed the ink pen, and all of a sudden, held it, shaking, in mid-air.

"Not so easy is it," offered the man sitting in the middle of the room. "Hee hee hee, ha ha ha, hee…"

"Bug off," said Trippy. "Well, come on. Just like I showed you."

"I'm…afraid…" Minato admitted.

"It has to be your writing. I can't do it…Ah, come on," said Trippy, "I believe in you. We're one of a kind you and I, remember?"

Minato shut his eyes. Kushina looked in the fridge, "MINNAAATOOOO!"

Minato started writing.

"Very good," Trippy took the ink, and wrote three concluding symbols to all the aforementioned, "My seal, your seal, and a whole slew of symbols, we're ready. Doggy-chan, watch your master, make sure he doesn't do anything, we're going outside."

The older man looked at the two, sweating a little now alongside his cheeks, curious over their attempt.

Trippy opened the door, and out poured the sunshine. "Put your hand on the scroll, yes, here—" "IT WON'T WORK! YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO REVERSE WHAT'S COMING!" "I put my hand HERE."

"IT WON'T WORK, TIME'S UP!"

"…Activate you jutsu in 1, 2, 3, 4…..NOW…!"

"FLYING THUNDERGOD!"—

"FLYING DRAGON!"—

BOOM.

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