Disclaimer: Not mine.
Sizzle, pop, snap.
Minato winced as the unstable murky sphere in his hand dissipated like water vapor, leaving no trace of its existence in anything but the scorched skin of his left palm.
Another dud.
He sighed and flopped onto the grass. Recreating the Bijuu Bomb that Kushina claimed was her "ultimate technique"...
He knew that it would be tough. He just didn't realize that an entire year after Kushina demonstrated it to him for the first time ever, he would still be stuck with nothing but bruised, charred fingers.
Catching smoke in one hand.
It was tougher than catching smoke in one hand.
Glop, glop, glop.
What a vivid autumn leaf red that was.
It spread like blazing flames across Kushina's body and Minato gazed at the beautiful, deadly sight, as transfixed as a most suicidal moth in front of a wildfire.
Kushina's eyes locked onto his, and for a moment, Minato could feel the malevolent energy of a vulpine being, trapped within those crimson, slit-pupiled eyes. A deep, thundering voice flooded his mind with the force of a hurricane.
"Kill. Destroy. Annihilate."
But then he blinked, and all he could see was Kushina's kind, mischievous purple.
He didn't have to worry. Kushina would never let the Kyuubi burn him. Around her, it was safe to be a transfixed moth.
The vivid autumn leaf red bubbled and split into thick, murky tails, bunching up behind Kushina's back.
And then –
A flurry of motion.
Minato squinted at the most peculiar sight.
The tails were...swirling? Was that the correct word? He'd have to ask Jiraiya-sensei, the greatest writer he knew –
The air became as murky and distorted as those vivid red tails. Tiny black and white bubbles appeared out of thin air and coalesced into one dense pitch-black chakra sphere.
"BIJUU BOMB!" Kushina roared.
An earth-shattering blast spiraled outwards, and the abandoned edge of the forest was flooded with that same malevolent energy he'd sensed just moments ago.
A dull pain coursed through his skull and Minato's vision faded into pure white.
Just before he closed his eyes, a worried yelp flooded his ears with the same hurricane force as the Kyuubi.
"OH, DAMN! I didn't mean for you to get hit too, ya know! Minato, just wait a second, I'll take you to the – "
There was a reason his fiancée was known as the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero.
"Magnificent. Simply magnificent," he muttered.
And then he fell onto the ground with an unceremonious thud.
He woke up in the hospital a few hours later, his spiky shock of blonde hair completely encased in a nest of bandages.
Minato winced as his poor, abused ears were flooded once again with shouting.
"Just what do you think you were doing, young lady?" he heard Sandaime-sama's voice bellow at whom he presumed was a contrite Kushina. "Was this one of your pranks again? Because if it was, Kushina, let me tell you, causing massive explosions in the forest – "
Kushina chuckled nervously. He couldn't see her, trapped as he was in a cocoon of blankets, but he knew that she was rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment in that sweet, endearing way.
"Uhhh, see, Hokage-sama, it's not what it looks like, ya know, I swear on Uzushiogakure! I wasn't pulling a prank, I promise!"
"Oh, really?"
A pang of pain shot through Minato's body. It had nothing to do with...whatever the hell had happened back in the forest. He was Kushina's fiancé. He was supposed to protect her from the Sandaime's irritation. And besides, it was he who had asked her to demonstrate her "ultimate technique" in the first place. He just didn't realize that it would make everything explode.
"Hokage-sama!" he called out feebly. His head throbbed. That had everything to do with whatever the hell had happened back in the forest.
All arguing immediately ceased. A small tendril of satisfaction curled down Minato's spine.
"Um...it's all my fault, really," he said, taking all the rightful blame on his shoulders. "I asked Kushina to demonstrate her 'super-duper top-secret extremely awesome technique'..."
The Sandaime sighed. "I don't get paid enough for this."
"And Kushina refused in the beginning," Minato continued doggedly, though not without his face sporting a color strongly reminiscent of the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero, "but I really wanted to see this jutsu of hers, and so she took me to the edge of the forest..."
"And she made everything explode," the Sandaime finished. "I suppose that this...super-duper top-secret extremely awesome technique, to use Kushina's words...was the Bijuu Bomb?"
As Minato couldn't see what was going on, he could only assume that the frown Hokage-sama was wearing had made the crow's feet around his eyes stand out even more as he buried his face in his hands.
"You two will be the death of me," he said faintly. "And you're going to get married, at that. Only the heavens know what trouble your future child will get up to." He sighed for the umpteenth time. "Kushina, Minato, I need not remind you of how invaluable you both are to Konoha. Please use your discretion before creating massive explosions in the forest. My former teammates Koharu and Homura will have my head. And, Kushina, Biwako will have your head."
Kushina gulped loudly.
Minato knew that few things in this world inspired terror in his fiancée. An enraged Sarutobi Biwako was one of them. For that matter, she inspired terror in him as well.
"Now I must be going. Paperwork calls."
As soon as the Sandaime left the room, a crushing weight descended on him, his vision was filled with bright, lovely habanero-red hair, and the breath abandoned Minato's lungs.
"I'm so sorry, Minato!" Kushina yelled. "I never meant for you to get hit by the blast, ya know. I mean, I controlled it so it wouldn't be as dangerous as usual, but this damn Kyuubi, he makes chakra control so difficult, ya know?!"
"Urk – Kushina – can't...breathe..." he gasped.
"Oh...oh, sorry." Kushina finally let go of him. He blinked up at her drowsily. Her beautiful eyes were puffy and swollen; her hair oddly windswept. His heart sank.
Minato reached out and stroked her tousled red hair.
"I'll be fine after getting some bed rest," he said. "Don't worry about me."
"I...I wasn't that worried," she protested.
An errant sniffle gave her away. He tactfully chose to ignore this.
"But..." he trailed off.
She frowned. "But...?"
"Kushina...that jutsu was..."
"Terrible?"
"No, it was – "
"Evil?"
"Actually, I – "
"Destructive?"
"Kushina...I – "
"I know what you're gonna say, ya know! That it's something a jinchuuriki like me should never ever use in a million years?"
Where was she getting all of this from? That jutsu was...
"Amazing."
A beat of silence. Kushina blinked down at him in shock.
"Come again?"
"Kushina..." He took a deep breath, willing himself not to get carried away and 'geek out,' as Kushina liked to tease him of doing. "That was perfection. The intricately formed chakra sphere, made without even the need for any hand signs...it's a work of art. And the ratio of those little white chakra beads and little black chakra beads, I'll have to calculate that perfectly. And – "
"Minato," Kushina broke in with an impish grin, all concern for his injuries immediately forgotten. "You're geeking out again."
Minato pouted at her.
"But c'mon." She hoisted him up out of the hospital bed and pushed him out the door. "If you reaaaaally insist, I'll tell you how to do it. Let's go get some ramen with Old Man Teuchi and I'll explain in more detail, ya know!"
"Wait, Kushina, I think I need to still reco – "
"C'mon, Minato, I know you're really strong. If you can geek out even after getting hit on the head, then you can come eat ramen with me!"
By now she was dragging him along the hospital corridors and blithely ignoring the scandalized looks the hospital staff were shooting her.
"Um. Kushina, just slow down – "
"Y'see, Minato, the secret of the jutsu is to go bam and gahhh."
"Um, wait, what? Kushina – "
"Don't worry, I'll explain everything over ramen!"
Minato sighed. His amazing, gorgeous, talkative fiancée...
Well, she wasn't called the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero for nothing.
He smiled.
Sizzle, pop, snap.
"Minato-sensei, you came up here again?" asked Rin's voice.
The evening sun blinked down on him tiredly, ready to retire for the day, casting excessive gold on his already yellow hair.
Minato, not for the first time, had passed out again at the edge of the forest where Kushina had first made everything explode with that miniature Bijuu Bomb. Despite the attack single-handedly destroying some old trees planted by the Shodai himself (much to the Sandaime's disappointment and Kushina's embarrassment), the earth was resilient, and one year later, a verdant, although thin carpet of grass blanketed the massive bowl-shaped crater from the blast.
That day had been etched into Minato's memory forever.
The bright, blinding white light had illuminated his mind, and for a moment, he felt like he could see into the future.
Rin's warm hands were on his own, channeling her chakra through his arms, soothing away the angry red blisters that had taken to forming on his hands for the past year or so.
Sizzle, pop, snap.
"Sensei, you've gotten first-degree burns again. Keep this up, and soon you'll get second-degree burns," she chided, her purple face marks scrunching up in concentration. "Don't kill yourself trying to create this new jutsu. Remember that time you were trying out the Hiraishin and you teleported yourself halfway across the country?"
"Sorry, Rin." He gave her a faint smile, slowly rising to his feet and dusting off his mission gear. "But I...I was just so close. But so far. Rotating the chakra in just one hand...well, it's like catching smoke in one hand. Rumor has it that this jutsu...well, it's very difficult to..." Perform in human form, whether for a jinchuuriki or even a normal human like me.
Rin gazed up at him thoughtfully through a curtain of brown hair. A peaceful silence descended upon them.
Between her mild nature and calm, clear disposition, so much like his own, he had initially thought that his days as leader of Team Minato would be all soothing sunset walks and picnics by the river bank after long, grueling missions. That was incredibly naive of him, looking back. Between Obito's habitual latecoming, Kakashi's irritation at said latecoming, the random fights the two would pick, and Rin's often fruitless attempts to mediate between the pair, he could count on his fingers the number of peaceful moments that all four of them had shared throughout the years.
But still, in between the chaos of being a jounin instructor and a front-line fighter in the Third Ninja War, there were moments like these, when it was just him and Rin and a beautiful sunset to watch.
A peaceful silence, suitable for contemplation.
"Maybe..." she said after a while. "Maybe if it's like catching smoke with one hand, you should use two hands, sensei."
He blinked at her.
"I mean..." she continued, "of course, whether you use one hand or two, catching smoke will be almost impossible. But you could use one hand to hold the sphere, and the other to rotate the chakra around, I think."
And then, suddenly, the bright white light illuminated his mind again.
He felt as though he could suddenly see into the future.
Sizzle, pop, snap.
"Minato-sensei, you came up here again?" asked Kakashi's voice.
The midnight moon smiled down at him quietly and peacefully, its silver rays casting his golden hair white.
Minato, at the edge of the forest again, back where Kushina had made everything explode with that miniature Bijuu Bomb two years ago. Although she'd accidentally single-handedly taken out those old trees planted by the Shodai, the Sandaime need not have worried back then; the tree roots were still strong and deep, and now two years later, they had given way to tiny little saplings, and the sparse green blanket of the previous year was now as thick as the warmest of winter scarves.
Kakashi gazed at Minato, the flickering flames of the small campfire rendering his masked face incredibly inscrutable.
Sizzle, pop, snap.
"Sensei, your hands are covered in ink," Kakashi pointed out.
Minato blinked, then looked down at his hands, covered in pigment as black as the sky above.
"Minato-sensei, it's not good for a ninja to stay up all night when he has a mission tomorrow," said Kakashi. "According to the shinobi code of conduct, a ninja must not do anything to jeopardize the success of a mission, and sleep deprivation is one huge way to do that."
Minato gave Kakashi a tired smile. "I'm sorry, Kakashi. But it's been two years already, and this jutsu...it's still..."
He didn't finish the thought. Perhaps he didn't need to, around Kakashi.
His rules-obsessed student carefully picked up one of the many scrolls littered along the campfire grounds, his brow furrowing as he instantly absorbed all the material contained within it.
"Your calculations are all off in this scroll, Minato-sensei," Kakashi said, pointing at one ink-smudged line in reproach (how Kakashi could read his awful chicken scratch was beyond Minato). "No wonder you can't progress beyond the rotation step."
Minato smiled again, a bit less tiredly, as Kakashi took hold of a paintbrush and began scribbling quickly.
A different kind of silence descended upon sensei and student this time. Not peaceful, but...
Charged?
Between the two of them, he had initially thought that his days of being the leader of Team Minato would involve not only soothing sunset walks and picnics by the river bank, but also (he blushed), many, many hours...geeking out with the only other..."intellectual" on the team, Kakashi (little did he know that Kakashi was not the type to geek out).
But still, in between silly D-rank missions involving catching cats and escorting old ladies around town, in between facing off against Iwa ninja here or Kiri ninja there with Kushina by his side, there were still moments like this. Moments between just himself and Kakashi, no words needed, only ink-stained scrolls and hands scribbling away.
"Here, Minato-sensei." Kakashi handed him the newly furled scroll. "There was only one thing missing in those calculations. If you read my fixed version, you'll be able to go onto the next step."
His student bowed slightly and made his way back into the village.
"Don't forget, sensei, we have a mission tomorrow morning," he called out over his shoulder. "Don't be late like Obito. Now good night."
Minato gave a tiny wave back along with a "good night" of his own.
And then he opened the scroll.
Minato blinked.
There was only one thing written on it in Kakashi's neat, tiny script.
Power.
And once again, the bright white light flooded his mind and he could see into the future.
Sizzle, pop, snap.
"Minato-sensei, you came up here again?" asked Obito's voice.
It was just about the time between morning and noon. The sky was a gloomy gray, though, the clouds from last night's thunderstorm still stowing away the sun.
Minato's problem student came into view, looking like he'd escaped an asteroid strike. His singed black hair was standing on end, his goggles were askew, his eyebrows seemed to be sparking, his dark blue ninja gear looking suspiciously as though it had been clawed at by a deranged cat.
Minato stared at Obito blankly, who took this as an opportunity to launch into spirited rambling describing in extreme, graphic detail why he was in such a condition (Kushina would have been proud).
"Sorry I'm late! It's just that there was this old lady, and she needed to go home after visiting the hospital, you see, and when I gave her a piggyback ride, she gave me some candy and called me a good boy, and then she told me that it was her daughter's birthday, okay? And she invited me inside for some birthday cake, so I went, because who doesn't love birthday cake, right? But the birthday candles on the cake fell on me and set my clothes on fire..."
He tuned out Obito's rambling, staring gloomily at the splinters of wood on the ground, courtesy of multiple unsuccessful attempts at the Human Bijuu Bomb.
Three years later, and Minato was stuck at the edge of the forest again, boasting the lushest, greenest grass in all of Konoha, no trace of the bowl-shaped crater in sight. Ordinarily, the trees would have taken years and years to grow, but thanks to the Water Release and Earth Release users in the village, the saplings had long since grown into tall, thick trees, graciously offering weary jutsu creators such as Minato a respite from the blazing Konoha summers.
The progress the trees had made in their growth made Minato's gut clench with envy. Three years later, and he was still stuck on the second step, while these trees had long since outstripped him.
"Sensei, your hands are bleeding, did you know that?" Obito's voice said, cutting through his despondent musings.
Minato blinked and looked down at his fingers. Numerous splinters dotted the landscape of his palms, courtesy of the Human Bijuu Bomb training (he strongly suspected that the Sandaime would not be pleased to know that he was practicing on the newly-regrown trees).
Sizzle, pop, snap.
That sound again. Minato looked up in alarm.
"Obito, your eyebrows are on fire!"
Obito jumped a mile high and yelped in fright.
"Argh!"
Uncoordinated hands swatted at smoking eyebrows.
Minato sighed and fetched a water flask from his pouch.
SPLASH.
Obito's face, now dripping wet, beamed back at him. He readjusted his goggles and shot Minato a thumbs-up. And then...
The breath was knocked out of Minato as his sweet, clumsy problem student smothered him in a hug.
"Thanks so much, Minato-sensei! You're a lifesaver, you know?"
Minato gave Obito a small, fond smile, ruffling his scorched hair.
"Obito, you really need to be careful, you hear?" he rebuked gently.
"Speak for yourself, sensei!" came Obito's muffled voice from Minato's midsection. "Look at all those splinters in your hands!"
Obito finally let go and extracted a pair of tweezers from his pouch. Why he carried those around had been a mystery to Minato until now. Now, though, he was extremely grateful to Obito for doing so.
"Mmm, just – hang on – sensei – there!"
Obito wrenched a large splinter from Minato's palm and beamed widely.
Minato beamed back.
A happy, content silence descended on them as Obito picked all the splinters out one by one.
Between the two of them, when Obito had declared that it was his dream to become the Hokage back when they'd first met (just like him), he had been sure that his days as leader of Team Minato would involve not only soothing sunset walks, riverside picnics, and geeking out, but also its fair share of mayhem and absolute lunacy. He...was right.
But these little moments, when it was just him and Obito, listening to his chronicles of mishaps while rendering assistance to the elderly...
He wouldn't trade them for the world.
"Say, sensei, mind telling me what problems you're having with Kushina-san's super-duper top-secret extremely awesome technique?"
Obito grinned tackily and waved his tweezers around as though they were deadly weapons (knowing Obito, he would undoubtedly manage to find himself in some freak accident and actually use them in such a way).
Minato burst out laughing.
This was a mistake. Obito scowled and pouted at his sensei, as if by doing so, he could awaken his Sharingan.
"Oi!" he snapped. "I, Uchiha Obito, the future Hokage...well, I'm sure I'll be able to help."
Minato ceased his laughing and locked eyes with Obito. Underneath those goggles was nothing but earnestness.
"Well." He sighed. "The sphere...it keeps escaping from my fingers and dissipating after I apply rotation and power. It's like...water slipping through my hands."
Obito scrunched up his eyes. "Water slipping through your hands, huh..."
Then his face cleared up immediately. The sun reached its zenith and the clouds vanished, the sun rays once more bathing Minato's head in gold.
"Sensei, that's it! You have to hold it in, and go bam and gahh."
Minato stared. He was spending way too much time with Kushina. It wasn't healthy.
Obito continued, unperturbed. "Like...like a water balloon! You just have to...to hold it in, Minato-sensei! What's it called? Compression! Yeah, that's it! You've gotta compress it, sensei!"
Minato's breath left his lungs for the second time that day as he gazed at Obito's smile. It was so bright, as bright as the light of that explosion.
The future was right in front of his eyes.
"Come on, Minato!" Kushina yelled, tugging him along to the edge of the forest again. "I heard from Obito that you finally finished your super-duper top-secret extremely awesome technique! You have to show me, ya know!"
Oh no, I have to keep her away from him for the next decade or so, or else they'll keep egging each other on, Minato muttered in his mind.
"Um. Kushina, I can't just – "
"'Course you can! I showed you my super-duper top-secret extremely awesome technique, didn't I? Now it's your turn!"
And blew up a third of the eastern edge of the forest. Sandaime-sama will kill me if I do it too, the voice in his head said.
He sighed as the massive three-year-old trees loomed overhead. There was no winning any arguments with his Kushina.
He supposed he'd just have to keep the damage to a minimum.
"Well? Go on, show me, show me, show me!" Kushina clenched her fists and gave him an intense, excitable look, magnified by the fact that she was jumping up and down as though she was on a trampoline.
Minato softened immediately upon meeting her kind, mischievous eyes.
Anything for Kushina.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated, visualizing a dark, murky sphere of chakra taking form in his left palm.
Rotation.
Still with his eyes closed, he brought his right palm against the chakra sphere, forcing it to vibrate with energy.
A whirlpool. The sphere should swirl about like his wife's clan's name.
Power.
He added ever more chakra to the sphere.
The force of a hurricane. It need to be as earth-shattering and powerful as the malevolent energy of the Kyuubi.
Compression.
A water balloon. Despite its whirlpool spin and hurricane force, it still needed to fit in his palm like a water balloon.
He had to perform the Bijuu Bomb in human form.
Minato still hadn't opened his eyes. This was something he needed to feel before he saw it.
Now...what should I name it? Super-Compressed Human Version of the Bijuu Bomb?
No, Obito would laugh at him and tell him that he was awful at naming things.
Blinding Sphere of Extremely Explosive Chakra?
He frowned. Kushina would laugh at him and tell him that he was awful at naming things.
He wanted to keep the swirl motif in the name, damn it! He needed to pack all the relevant information about the jutsu in just a few syllables!
Let's see...swirl motif, swirl motif. Minato cast about in his mind for anything involving swirls. The protagonist of Jiraiya-sensei's first novel, Musasabi Naruto, sprang into his mind.
Naruto was also a ramen topping with a spiral shape...it would be perfect, wouldn't it?
How about the Great Naruto Explosion?
Unacceptable, came Kakashi's deadpan voice in his mind.
Swirl motifs, sensei? asked Rin's voice. You mean like the spiral crest on the Konoha shinobi uniform?
Hmmm...
Those were in honor of Kushina's clan too. Spirals...spirals...
Names didn't have to be flashy. He just had to describe what he saw, didn't he?
It was finally time to open his eyes.
As he gazed at his new jutsu, the future took shape in his mind.
"Rasengan."
After all, it was only a spiral sphere, wasn't it?
And then a massive explosion shook the forest grounds. Kushina's worried yelp slammed into his ears with all the force of a hurricane.
"MINATO, ARE YOU OKAY? MINATO, HANG ON, I'LL TAKE YOU TO – "
"Magnificent. Simply magnificent."
He fell to the ground with an unceremonious thud.
He woke up in the hospital a few hours later, the Sandaime's shouting flooding his poor, abused ears again for the second time in three years.
"I keep telling you that you shouldn't create massive explosions in the forest – "
"Hokage-sama, this time, I really didn't do anything, ya know! It was just that – "
Minato sighed, something he'd been doing a lot lately.
He'd have to step in again and take all the rightful blame on his shoulders, didn't he?
"Hokage-sama!" he called out feebly. "Um...it's all my fault, really. Kushina asked me to show her my 'super-duper top-secret extremely awesome technique'..."
Once more, all arguing ceased.
The Sandaime sighed. Minato was sure that he had just gained several extra gray hairs in the past five seconds alone.
"I don't get paid enough for this. Let me guess, you made everything explode, didn't you, Minato? Never mind, I'm leaving. I've already had this conversation with you two before."
The poor aged Hokage stalked off, muttering about "paperwork," "needing to retire," "Koharu and Homura," "Biwako," and "not being ready for future pranksters making everything explode."
As soon as the Sandaime left, Minato's vision was once again flooded with lovely habanero-red hair as Kushina descended upon him to knock the air out of his lungs.
"Minato..." she said, uncharacteristically quiet. She reached out and stroked his mane of blonde hair. "That jutsu was..."
Minato blinked up at her nervously.
What if she didn't like the jutsu? Or thought it was a rip-off of hers? Or too dangerous?
That would break his heart, because after all, she was the inspiration for everything he did.
"That jutsu...was AWESOME, ya know!"
She grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the hospital bed, dragging him along the corridors and blithely ignoring the scandalized looks the hospital staff were shooting her.
"I expect details, Minato, details! Don't make me interrogate Obito for the goods all over again!" Kushina yelled over her shoulder. "Let's go to Old Man Teuchi and get some ramen!"
"Wait, Kushina, let's calm down – "
"You made the jutsu go bam and gahh, didn't you? Huh?"
"Kushina, really, it wasn't that – "
"Don't give me 'Kushina,' I know how strong you are! Let's go. Shio ramen, extra large with chashu!"
Minato smiled. His Kushina, so amazing, gorgeous, and talkative...the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero.
But he was a perfect match for her, wasn't he?
He wasn't called the Yellow Flash of Konoha for nothing.
A/N: Haven't written MinaKushi and Team Minato before! I really like them, so much fun to write. I know that Kushina and Obito are very similar to Naruto in personality. I tried to reflect that, but at the same time, I tried to avoid making them clones of Naruto. :)
We know that Minato took three years to create the Rasengan, which was based on the Bijuu Bomb, which is a jutsu that only a jinchuuriki can do...and the only jinchuuriki he ever spent time with was Kushina, so I guess I came to the conclusion that she must have shown it to him and he got inspired.
Please leave a review. :)