In which Jiraiya remembers the duty to his students, Lee and the English nin discuss Lee's future, and the former hokages see a small flicker of light in the future.

Minato was almost surprised that, upon knocking on the door, it was only Jiraiya who answered. Then again, Jiraiya never seemed to get many of his kicks from inside the village. He'd spent too many years soiling his own reputation among both the civilian and shinobi populations.

Whatever potential one-night stands he'd had probably dried up five years ago, leaving him only with his sad collection of soft-core self-penned erotica that he someday dreamed of getting published, his jaunts to spy on well-endowed kunoichi in the bath houses, and his many trips outside the village to sleep with large breasted women who weren't aware of exactly where Jiraiya's charms began and ended.

Minato couldn't say he was disappointed.

If there was one thing Minato truly didn't miss from his apprenticeship on the road it was throwing Jiraiya's latest woman out of the inn room when she was missing half her clothes.

"Minato," Jiraiya said with a grin as he opened the door, "Hey, brat, what brings you here? Miss me already?"

Minato smiled, "Something like that."

Minato would have gone to see him when they'd returned from England, but between getting evicted and—No, that was the trouble, he had no idea what he'd been busy with that afternoon. Whatever had truly happened was gone, overwritten by Lee's brand new world where she took the fall for Hatake Sakumo.

All Minato knew was, that for whatever reason, he hadn't come to see Jiraiya until now.

"Couldn't you have come at a better hour?" Jiraiya asked as he ushered Minato in, deactivating the seals on his doors, "Gods, what time is it even?"

"Sorry, I was planning to but—"

Jiraiya then seemed to realize what Minato must be getting at. His smile disappeared and he sighed, "Right."

When they reached the kitchen, he raked a hand through his mane of white hair and noted, "I heard you brats got evicted. I would have offered my place but—"

Jiraiya mentioned to his lonely and pitiful bachelor pad, a one-room apartment that looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in ages.

"We're staying at the Hatake compound," Minato said, "Hatake Sakumo's been good enough to offer us rooms."

Not just a room, but no rent either and very little for board. Really, he and Lee were saving money and he wondered why they hadn't done this as soon as Lee had entered her apprenticeship.

"Well, that's good," Jiraiya said with a relieved sigh, "Hatake's a stand-up guy, always been real protective of Lee even before she was his student, he'll do what he can for both of you."

He frowned down at his table, "You want tea or something? Honestly, not a great time to drop in kid, I haven't been grocery shopping in a week—"

Minato however shook his head, "No, I'm fine. There was something I needed to come and see you about."

Jiraiya sighed again as he took a seat across from Minato, "I figured."

He looked tired, not old, not exactly, but more exhausted than Minato had seen him in a very long time. If, in fact, Minato had ever seen Jiraiya this tired. Team seven had been frustrating and trying, Minato knew that, but they'd met him after the second war was years over and he'd returned from Ame.

They'd never seen him at his worst.

"You know what's happened to Lee, right, Sensei?" Minato asked.

"Yeah, I know," Jiraiya said, and held up a hand in defense, "And I already tried to talk to Sarutobi-sensei. But, kid, there's only so much even I can do, and at some point we all have to live with the consequences of our actions. No matter how shitty and unjust those consequences are."

"Do you really believe that?" Minato asked.

Jiraiya shrugged painfully, "It's not about whether I believe it or not, Minato, it's about what I can do. I said my piece, the hokage and council have said theirs, and that's really all there is to it. There's no easy way to start a war."

At Minato's glare he held up his hands again, "Honest, I tried! I really, truly, tried but I can't make the village forgive her for this. I'm not some magical sensei with magical sensei powers that can make this all just go away."

He then grinned, a strained defensive expression that suited him far too well, "Look, bring her over for dinner sometime. I know I haven't kept in great contact with her, relied too much on you to do it for me, but I didn't just forget her. I'm here and eventually the village will—"

"Stick her in ANBU and hope she dies," Minato finished for him.

Jiraiya's smile faltered then disappeared entirely, "What do you want me to do?"

Minato wasn't normally prone to anger, certainly not prolonged anger. It was such an exhausting emotion, and while he knew he could hold a grudge, the best he could manage in the long term was a kind of dull irritation. That feeling of annoyance whenever Uzumaki opened her mouth or when Lee—

When she insisted on destroying herself and took far too many liberties with the village and Minato to enable it.

He'd never had cause to be this angry with Jiraiya. Annoyed, yes, at his wit's end more than once, but he'd never been angry. How could he be when the man was practically his father? There not only as his genin-sensei but all the years past it as his master, who had taught him everything he knew about being a shinobi as well as a decent human being who could still weild kunai.

Yet he couldn't help the rising feeling even if he wanted to, "Hatake and I have decided to stage a protest outside the hokage tower. We demand Lee is reinstated, everyone showing up, and if she isn't then Hatake, I, and his son will return to England with her until the village changes its mind."

Jiraiya laughed, he threw his head back and howled, "Oh, damn, I forgot how funny you were sometimes—"

"I'm not joking," Minato said quietly, "I'm doing it and I'm convincing everyone I can to do it too. Uzumaki Kushina is my next stop, and you know she won't say no."

In fact, Minato was almost surprised that she somehow hadn't come up with the idea first.

"Minato, that's—" Jiraiya cut himself off, cringing as he looked at his own apprentice, "That's insane. You're talking about refusing missions, not just refusing missions, but refusing missions in war."

"That's right," Minato said.

"Forget about Lee," Jiraiya said, "They'll take you off the roster and every time there's a whisper of conspiracy your name will be on the short list."

"Isn't it already?" Minato asked, "Just by sheer proximity to Eru Lee?"

Jiraiya slammed his hand on the table, causing it to shake and creak under the force of the blow. Minato did not flinch.

"You want a great way to guarantee you never become hokage?" Jiraiya asked, "Then trust me, you're talking about stepping board on the express train. Do this and you'll never make jonin, you'll never have students, and you will never become hokage."

Minato said nothing, didn't budge, and so Jiraiya just leaned closer over the table, "Minato, listen to me, think about your friends. I'm not talking about Lee, I'm talking about everyone else. You have tremendous talent, you know it, I know it, the whole village knows it. Are you going to abandon everyone to the battlefield when you and I both know you might be the shinobi who makes a difference? Would you let them die just out of pride?"

"Isn't Lee that shinobi?" Minato asked.

"That's not the point!" Jiraiya said, "You can't help her! This, whatever you think might happen, it won't help her! It's my job to look out for you, as my student, and I swear to god I will knock you out and restrain you if I think that you're—"

"Wasn't she also your student?!" Minato asked, his voice finally rising, "Did you just forget about her because she's inconvenient? Because she's too troublesome and powerful for you to even bother with? Would you write me off this easily if I was in her place?"

Jiraiya didn't have to answer, Minato already knew. He smiled to himself, laughed bitterly, and stood from the table.

"Your least favorite student," Minato said mockingly, "You know, I always thought that was a clever joke, your way of showing affection for a student who drove you up the wall."

Jiraiya flinched, unable to look away from Minato staring down at him.

"I suppose I'm just a fool," Minato finished, "I didn't realize you were simply letting us know your priorities."

He walked away from the table, leaving Jiraiya to sit there and stew in his own guilt and self-loathing. For a moment, Minato stood I the doorway, debating saying goodbye. There was a war on, Jiraiya would be sent out soon to gather information or else into the field with Tsunade and Orochimaru.

As for Minato, well, who knew what would happen to him.

Should things go poorly, Minato would never see him again, and this would be the last thing they ever said to one another.

He turned from the doorway, looked back at his teacher still sitting in a daze at the table, "Sensei, good luck out there. Try and write if you can."

And then Minato walked out the door, breathing in the cold early winter air, and making his way towards his next stop. At least Uzumaki, he knew, would never say no to this, the bounds of her loyalty stretched much further than his own sensei's.

Lee knocked loudly on the apartment door in front of her.

It was an early morning for Jiraiya when he was off duty but desperate times called for desperate measures and if Minato was going to go to anyone first then it was probably good old Jiraiya-sensei.

Which meant Lee had to get to him before Minato did.

Jiraiya opened the door, gave a long suffering, and miserable sigh as soon as he saw her there, "If you're looking for Minato, you just missed him."

"Goddammit!" Lee cursed, pounding her fist on the doorframe.

She knew she should have paid better attention to where Jiraiya lived! She'd never actually visited his apartment before, there'd never been a reason to. After the chunin exams he'd returned to mostly wandering the elemental nations with Minato in tow and was rarely if ever in the village. More, when he was, Minato always left some ominous warning of Lee not liking whatever she might find in Jiraiya's apartment.

Usually Lee just hunted him down in the streets when she wanted to catch up with him. Even then, she'd never had an issue tracking him down before, didn't today either for that matter.

She'd just gotten a little held up wondering if she'd given Kakashi brain damage.

And here she was, late, and she still had no idea what she'd managed to do to Kakashi except that some trauma transcended memories.

"Yeah, me too, kid," Jiraiya said with another, very worn sounding sigh.

He didn't look too good, not necessarily physically exhausted, but emotionally drained in a way he hadn't been even after witnessing Lee's resurrection.

"What happened to you?" Lee asked.

Jiraiya cringed, "Nothing, just… Hey, how are you doing, really?"

"Me?" Lee asked in some confusion, "I'm fine."

Jiraiya just gave her the look, as if he knew very well she wasn't fine, and that Lee couldn't fool him.

"You just got evicted, you're off the missions roster, and everyone hates you," Jiraiya summarized for her, "You're not fine."

Goddammit, Minato! Oh, he'd probably shown up here first thing, told Jiraiya all about how terrible everything was, and now Jiraiya was going to show up with all his giant frog friends to sit outside the hokage tower with Minato until the hokage did something.

"It's fine," Lee said with a grin, "I'm fine. Please, you think I can't handle this? My relatives hated me for years and I turned into the well-adjusted individual you see today."

Both Kakashi and Jiraiya stared at Lee in all her well-adjusted glory and then turned to look at each other.

"Seriously," Lee insisted, "I am fine. This doesn't bother me, and if it does, then good. It's my own damn fault and I have to face the consequences of my actions sometime."

If you thought about it that way, Lee had been wriggling out of the worst of her consequences for years. The clones, the third war, her own death, some would say it was about damn time that Lee stopped running.

Jiraiya looked as if she'd just slapped him across the face.

Oh no, what had she just said? Lee carefully tried to backtrack, "I mean, sure, it's unpleasant but that doesn't mean you can do anything about it. Joining Minato's protest or whatever would just be stupid and it's not like that'll work anyway. So, there's nothing really that you should—"

"What kind of a sensei do you think I am?!" Jiraiya bellowed.

"What?" Lee asked but he didn't even seem to hear her.

Instead he pointed a finger down at her, "Do you really think I'd leave you to rot like this?!"

"Rot is a strong term," Lee said diplomatically. Honestly though, she kind of did expect that from him.

Sure, Minato might be able to whip Jiraiya up into action, but the man wasn't stupid. He knew what he could and couldn't get away with and he knew even better than Lee that there was nothing he could do this time around. He might feel bad about it, but he wasn't about to risk his own head to save Lee from her own stupidity.

He might do something if it had been Minato, instead of Lee, but that was the benefit that came with Minato being Jiraiya's apprentice. They were just a little closer than Lee and Jiraiya were.

Kakashi, glancing over at Lee, looked at Jiraiya and noted drily, "That means yes."

"Kakashi!" Lee said, turning and grabbing him by his tiny shoulders, "You're supposed to be helping me!"

"I am helping you," Kakashi said, blinking large innocent gray eyes, "Since you seem incapable of helping yourself."

What happened to Kakashi's lifelong dream of both surpassing Lee and never seeing her again? Lee had liked that dream, that dream was a nice one that would never have Kakashi trying to help Lee by doing the opposite of helping.

Was this some new phase where he both enjoyed her suffering but could also tolerate her presence enough to see it through?

"God, you really do think that, don't you?" Jiraiya asked, his rage disappearing and leaving only horrified shock in its wake.

"No," Lee insisted, raising her hands in defense, "No, of course not, you're a great sensei who fulfilled all his sensei responsibilities ages ago. I'm a chunin, remember? I'm no longer your problem—"

"You will always be my problem child, you stupid brat!"

The shock disappeared, replaced by a fiery determination as he raged down at her, "And just so you know! I am joining Minato's stupid protest, I'm bringing Tsunade and Oro with me, and there's nothing you can do about it because I still care dammit!"

Oro?! As in Orochimaru?! As in somehow he planned to spread this not only to Senju Tsunade but also Orochimaru who had despised Lee since practically the dawn of time?!

"No!" Lee said, "Jiraiya-sensei, don't—"

It was too late, as he said with a grin, "And if you even think about stopping me, I swear to all the gods, you will regret the day you ever graduated from the academy and told me all about your crazy hopes and dreams!"

Then he slammed the door in Lee and Kakashi's stunned faces.

Kakashi looked over at Lee, a stupid smile on his adorable face, "That was impressive, I think that only took five minutes."

Lee wanted to scream.

(Minato – 1, Lee – 0)

Uzumaki, as Minato had suspected, was easy.

"Are you kidding? Of course I'm in," Uzumaki Kushina said with a grin.

Minato smiled in turn, dutifully passing her a second bowl of ramen for breakfast. He didn't think he'd had to bribe her, but as he was trying to get on Uzumaki's good side for this it certainly didn't hurt things. Besides, ramen was cheap.

"Seriously," Kushina said with her mouth full, "What the hell else would I be doing?"

"Well—"

"I'm in," Kushina cut him off, "And I mean all the way in. If she's not on the roster by the time your—what the hell is this thing again—is over then I'm all the way back to England in. Me and my little bundle of joy."

"Can you not call it that?" Minato asked, cringing slightly at the constant reminder that Kushina was carrying more than just herself in there. She was carrying the bane of the land of fire and what had almost once been the destruction of Konoha.

"I call it what I want," Kushina dismissed, "Believe it."

Yes, Minato always did.

"But seriously," Kushina asked, "What even is a protest anyway?"

"Well," Minato said slowly, "I believe the idea is we surround the hokage tower and let them know we're displeased."

"That's it?" Kushina asked, and then her eyes narrowed, "It's not a coup? Because, bastard, I'll do a lot for Lee but even I think a coup is a bit—"

"No, no, it's most definitely not a coup," Minato said, "We just let them know that we don't like it, that some of us are willing to stop working for it, and that hopefully a lot of people higher up don't like it."

"Hm," Kushina considered that for a moment, "Who have we got so far?"

"Hatake Sakumo," Minato said with a small sigh.

"That's it?!" Kushina gawked, nearly spilling her ramen.

"You're only the second I've talked to," Minato protested, "The former hokages will probably join to. I'm visiting them next."

"What about your sensei, the pervey sage?" Kushina asked, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

"He said no," Minato said quietly.

Kushina whistled, "Ouch. Seriously though, you asked, and he just said no? Did you tell him that they're trying to make her a chunin forever? That they practically want her to become a missing nin and run off to England?"

No, but then, Minato hadn't been able to get that far. He'd thought… Well, he'd thought that Jiraiya would be easy. He'd thought Jiraiya would understand what was at stake, not just for Minato or even Lee, but for the village itself. Hatake Sakumo had so easily been able to see what this meant for the village as a whole, how far they'd drifted from the will of fire if they let this happen.

Instead Jiraiya had just thrown his hands in the air and said it wasn't worth his time. More, that it wasn't worth Minato's time.

"He made his opinion quite clear," Minato said.

"What a dick," Kushina summarized, Minato couldn't help but laugh. Ordinarily, he'd defend Jiraiya, and even now he was a good man he just had… He had limits.

"You want me to talk to him?" Kushina asked with a dangerous smile, "Nobody talks like an Uzumaki, believe it!"

Minato laughed, "I don't know, maybe later, for now… He's made up his mind, I won't force him to make the better choice."

"That's because you're weak," Kushina said with a sniff, "If it was me, I'd tear his head off until he stopped being such a jackass."

"No," Minato said, still smiling despite himself, "But there is something I need you to do for me, for Lee."

"Sure," Uzumaki said brightly, "What is it?"

"Can you talk to the Uchiha?" Minato asked, "Specifically, can you talk to Mikoto?"

Kushina grit her teeth and let out a long breath, "Oh you play hardball, don't you?"

She rubbed the back of her head, "I know, I know, I'm the best person for that job. I'll try my best, but—Let's just say that even Mikoto's not on the greatest of terms with her family, let alone me. Uchiha politics are crazy."

"I know," Minato said but Kushina just shook her head.

"No, you don't," she insisted, "You're an orphan, trust me, when I say that Uchiha clan politics is bat-shit insane, believe it! I mean they are like—"

"You mean that they'd gleefully use Lee's unstable and suicidal clones as a grossly unqualified babysitters to traumatize their children into obtaining absurdly powerful blood limits at the cost of their sanity. You mean that they're that kind of crazy," Minato finished for her.

Kushina paused, blinked at him and then said, "Yeah, that kind of crazy."

She coughed, rubbed the back of her head, "Well, I'll try my best. Just don't be too surprised if I get thrown out of the compound by the Uchiha elders."

"Thank you, Uzumaki," Minato said with a smile.

"Eh, don't mention it," she responded, "Seriously, if you hadn't finally gotten off your ass and done something, I might have gone through with my plans to run off with Lee, rebuild Uzushio, and become Uzukage."

Minato said nothing for one second, then two, and then said, "Tell me you weren't really planning that."

Kushina stood, grinned down at him, and said, "Well, blondie, you go big, go home, or if you want to be really stylish, you do both."

(Minato – 2, Lee – 0)

Thankfully, Senju Hashirama did look surprised to see her and Kakashi on his doorstep. Lee was going to take this as a divine sign that Minato hadn't stopped by yet. Unlike Jiraiya, Lee still had a chance here.

"What have you done this time?" Tobirama asked with a sigh, crossing his arms and looking down at her.

"Nothing," Lee said, "I just came to make sure you don't do anything."

Tobirama looked unimpressed, but then made way for her and Kakashi to come inside, "This sounds like it will be a very long and very frustrating conversation."

"Thank you," Lee said with a smile.

She gratefully allowed him to usher her towards the main dining area, stiffening when she caught sight of the English nin sitting at the table reading through one of Konoha's standard history textbooks on the clan wars and the founding of the village.

God, she'd almost forgotten about him.

"Don't mind Ren," Tobirama said without even glancing at the man, "The seals render him harmless even with his silver tongue intact."

The man Ren, Voldemort, glared up at Tobirama but made no move to contradict him. Lee imagined that after they'd returned from England and it'd become clear that Ren wasn't just a missing nin but the missing nin things had gotten a little awkward.

He really looked nothing like Weasley Tequila. Maybe there was something there in the mannerisms, certainly in the chakra, but otherwise it really was amazing that Lee had managed to put two and two together.

Lee asked, "Didn't you dump him on Orochimaru?"

She was pretty sure, as both Senju Hashirama and Tobirama had gone off to England with her, that they'd dumped the man onto the next best thing. Which, of the S-ranked sannin, was somehow Orochimaru.

"He didn't like it," Tobirama said mildly, "Said he wanted to return to his former quarters for as long as we were in the village."

Didn't like it? Maybe it was just Lee, but she'd always assumed the pair would get along like a house on fire. Orochimaru loved terrifying snakes, Voldemort loved terrifying snakes. Orochimaru loved pain and misery, England swore that Voldemort loved pain and misery. It was a match made in heaven, honestly, what was there for the pair dislike?

Tobirama didn't wait for her to ask but instead walked out of the room. He was probably going to find his older brother or something. Still, as usual, being left alone with the English nin was… unpleasant.

Kakashi awkwardly drummed his fingers against the wooden table, trying to break the silence.

Riddle dutifully ignored him.

"So," Lee finally said in English, "You downplayed your importance quite a bit."

They'd known he was clever, that he was an excellent infiltration specialist, but that had been extraordinarily well done. He'd used the entire village's culture against them, he'd even used Lee's preconceptions against her, and so he'd told the truth without telling the truth at all.

Slowly, the man closed his book with a smile, "Oh, I wouldn't say that. In fact, I believe I was remarkably honest about my origins."

He was honest without being honest and they both knew it.

Nuke-nin they'd figured out for themselves, he'd never admitted to that directly, but he had talked about his revolution and quite a bit about her own English lineage. He just hadn't made himself sound nearly as… terrifying as the English found him.

He also hadn't mentioned the other pieces of himself he'd left behind.

He smiled at her, a sly and rather cruel thing, "Rumor has it that you're in a spot of trouble."

"That's not news," Lee responded, and it wasn't, for him and everyone else this had been going on for ages. The only news was that Lee herself had temporarily returned to face the music.

"No, but it is interesting," he said, still smiling, "Do you remember when I asked you if you ever wanted to return to your home country? Tell me, after visiting yourself, after what Konoha has done to you, is it still true?"

"What are you trying to get at?" Lee asked with a sigh, "I know you're not my friend."

Besides, just because Konoha blamed her for the outbreak of a third war did not make England look rosier even in comparison. True, they all but worshipped Lee over there, but of the two extremes at least Konoha was somewhat rational in the way it treated her. Aggressive, true, to the point where they had done their best to destroy Sakumo-shishou, but Lee knew why they did what they did.

"We're not exactly enemies either," the missing English nin coolly responded.

Lee scoffed, tapping her forehead, for once hidden only beneath hair rather than a shinobi's headband, "This tells a different story."

He didn't look phased at all, instead calmly replied, "You were a prophesied threat, I couldn't leave you alive."

"And so you blew yourself up trying to kill me?" Lee asked dully but by the look on his face he'd expected that insult.

"Well, I confirmed that you were, indeed a threat. However, I don't believe that means we need to be enemies. I can help you, Lee, especially if you ever need to leave this country."

Kakashi finally chimed in, "You know I'm right here, don't you?"

Ren looked down at the boy in surprise, blinking, clearly having forgotten that Kakashi was fluent. Well, perhaps not so much forgotten, as never having realized. While Kakashi had been dragged by Lee to most of her English lessons, he hadn't ever acted like a willing participant and rarely opened his mouth to speak back. Lee knew he'd picked it up because Kakashi was a terrifying genius like that, but Ren probably hadn't had a clue.

"Forget it," Lee said, "Konoha might treat me like trash but that doesn't mean I'm going rogue to pal around with you."

If Lee had her way Ren was going to be stuck here, all his chakra sealed, for a good long time. As for the other pieces of him, well, Lee would deal with those later.

He opened his mouth to protest but the former hokages finally made their entrance. Hashirama with his usual flair of water works. The man rushed over, grabbed Lee in a bone crushing hug, and wailed, "I'm so sorry, Lee, we really tried to talk to the council!"

"Oh, it's fine," Lee tried to say but Hashirama wasn't having it.

"They never should have done that to you!"

"She never should have been on that mission in the first place," Tobirama cut in.

Yes, well, Lee wasn't going to deny that for obvious reasons.

"Really," Lee insisted as she pried out of Hashirama's grip, "I'm fine, that's not why I came to talk."

"Oh?" Tobirama asked shortly.

Lee took a breath, this was it, she could do this, "Well, you see, Minato came up with this really dumb idea yesterday. He wants to protest my probation status, so he's talking to pretty much everyone he knows in the village and—"

"Protest?" Hashirama asked, "What does that mean?"

"Well—" Lee stopped, not quite sure how to explain it. Minato seemed to have a vague idea, enough of an idea to work with, but it wasn't really a shinobi concept. "Essentially, you get a bunch of people together, and as a group you let the authorities know that you don't like something they're doing."

Tobirama and Hashirama looked as if she'd just started speaking another language and sprouted antennae.

"Typically," Lee continued, "You stand outside some important building, say the hokage tower, with signs saying what you want until they finally do something about it or you give up."

"And that's it?" Tobirama asked.

"That's it," Lee concurred, "Well, sometimes people will stop working until the authority gives them what they want. But that's something a little different."

"But there's no coup?" Tobirama pressed, looking more dumbfounded by the minute, "No civil war? You just stand outside a building with a sign?"

"Yes?" Lee said, that certainly sounded like what a protest essentially was. Though, judging by the English nin's expression, he was embarrassed to even be sitting at the table with them.

Tobirama blinked once, blinked again, then looked at Hashirama, "So we annoy and humiliate the administration into being reasonable human beings. That just might work."

"What?!" Lee gaped.

Hashirama grinned, all sign of his previous melt down gone, "It's a great idea! Internal change without violence, I wish I'd thought of it years ago! This can be Konoha's legacy, Tobi!"

"No, seriously, it's a bad idea," Lee said, "We'll all be arrested—"

"And won't that make Konoha look stupid," Tobirama cut in, "Half our upper ranks arrested because they stood outside the hokage tower yelling with signs for the fate of a single out of work shinobi."

Lee was about to note it could severely damage their careers except their careers had been over for years. More, they were the former hokages, their faces were on the goddamn mountain range. If anyone could give Minato the legitimacy he needed to avoid any kind of consequences to his little protest, it was them.

"Though I suppose we'll have to bring you along, Ren, since we can't exactly leave you unattended," Hashirama noted apologetically.

"So long as I'm not thrown back into T&I then I have no complaints," Ren said shortly, as if he really hadn't just been talking to Lee about how great it'd be to run back to the mother country while no one was looking.

"If I ask you to please not to will you listen?" Lee asked desperately.

"No," Tobirama said shortly, "This isn't about you."

Lee's head hit the table in despair. She couldn't do this, she couldn't do Minato's work for him.

"Wow," Kakashi noted cheerfully, "I didn't even have to say anything this time."

(Minato – 5, Lee – 0)

When Minato knocked on the front door of the Senju compound it immediately opened to reveal a determined second hokage.

He started without preamble, "We're in, both the protest and returning unsanctioned to England. Now, what do you have worked out so far?"

Minato wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed to get the former hokages to agree even faster than Uzumaki, but he'd take it.

Author's Note: Next chapter, all the other people Lee and Minato still have to talk to. But hey, look at that, Jiraiya learning some things and the awkward reuniting with that scheming and tricky English shinobi.

Thanks to readers and reviewers. Reviews are greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto