The Shinigami's Price

Minato awoke with a startled breath, his heart sounding incredibly loud in his own ears while his blue eyes washed over the unfamiliar environment. Before he could lose control over his reactions however, training took over.

Identify threats.

He rose to his feet without a sound, his eyes scanning the off-white area where paradoxically dry mist hung at the height of his calves, while chakra surged forth and informed him of the absence of shinobi in the immediate surroundings.

Weapons.

Chakra ran quietly through his libs as he brushed the impossibly soft and yet sustaining ground at his feet, priming it with a Hiraishin mark before disappearing across the white distance in a random direction, his senses peeled in order to pick up on the slightest disturbances.

Identify location.

Minato slowed down after realizing that there weren't any places he could take cover behind, nor any signs that he was, in fact, anywhere in the elemental nations. Only then, he allowed his own mind to reassess the situation, he wasn't in any immediate danger, and while he could do with clothes and at least a weapon, chakra answered his commands quite readily, so he managed to contain his growing dread.

Just as he thought about it, familiar clothes appeared to his left, causing him to shunshin 30 meters back in order to assess the one responsible, who still didn't appear. Cautiously, he walked over the garments, which he donned after a brief inspection.

"If you are quite done?" a dry voice stunned Minato out of his reverie, making his head whip to one side in order to regard the newcomer, and just as he saw who the man was, the instinctive violent reaction that would have seen him pin the stranger to the ground in order to demand answers died on his lips.

Grey hair, pink, reddish eyes with no trace of a pupil, and a plated blue armour with a collar of white fur identified the newcomer louder than any introduction could.

"Nidaime-sama?" of all the shenanigans an enemy could make use of in order to surprise Minato, Fourth Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, assuming the form of a dead man didn't seem among the most effective, and yet, there was something about the intruder that made the shinobi's breath catch in his chest. As if there was something about his situation that he hadn't yet truly realized.

And so, he finally relived his last moments, the smell of blood and ash assaulting his nostrils, while an alien chakra made itself known over the shinobi's gut: cold and unforgiving, it carried with it the relentless erosion of the rain against the mountains, and the sudden stabs of pain that heralded a quick death. It was a feeling that he couldn't forget, nor something that he could ignore, and unconsciously, his right hand clasped wildly at his belly through the clothes that had appeared out of nowhere a few minutes before.

He remembered it clearly: the Kyubi no Kitsune, titanic in its rage, endless in its bloodlust, relentless in its pursuit for destruction. Minato Namikaze had always knew many things, gifted as he was with an extraordinary brain, he knew how to make fuinjutsu simply work, just as he knew that he loved Kushina and as he had known that he was the best choice to lead Konohagakure no Sato.

"I am dead." the blonde shinobi spoke out loud, his voice miraculously steady.

"Yes." Tobirama Senju replied, and Minato had the uncomfortable sensation of being studied while his fellow Kage remained silent.

"There is just one problem." Tobirama said finally, and Minato closed his eyes.

"I botched the contract." the fourth Hokage guessed, falling short of the dry voice he had been aiming for. It had been a possibility, he had known, fuinjutsu wasn't something to be improvised in the heat of battle, extraordinarily talented or not. Yet, he had been so sure, that knowing of his mistake left a bitter taste on his tongue, and that was without considering what his failure would mean for his home.

"You didn't 'botch it'." the second Hokage interrupted Minato's musings with a scoff: "Mankind isn't made to overcome some things, death is one of them."

"I wasn't overcoming..." the protest rose naturally to the fourth Hokage's lips only to be cut short by the glare of his predecessor.

"There is no bargain to be had with the End." the grey-haired shinobi tilted his head questioningly, "Nevermind using the Shinigami for one's own purposes."

Grief and shame hit Minato like a stab from a katana, cutting his ability to remain on his legs and making him fall to his knees on that unfathomable ground, too soft and malleable to be unforgiving as he wished it to be against his kneecaps.

"For you, there is no hope, but for Konoha, there might still be a chance." Tobirama said, breaking Minato's spiralling train of thought. Somehow, the Yondaime wasn't surprised that his interlocutor had known what he was thinking.

Minato found himself grasping at the words with all of his strenght, his blue eyes zeroing in on his interlocutor with a light that managed to show the unending determination that he would apply to whatever task he could complete in order to protect his home after his most recent vain hope.

"The Shinigami was amused by your attempt at a contract, so he was thinking we could make a deal. A little unorthodox, but then the original circumstances that brought you here were unorthodox to begin with."

Minato didn't need the reminder, the taste of blood and ash returning with a vengeance on his tongue. "Why am I talking with you instead than with the Shinigami then?"

"As Hokage, you're likely been made aware of my edo tensei technique," the Second Hokage tilted his head once more: "I too am paying the price of my foolishness."

"What are you offering?" Minato asked once he realized that his predecessor, in more way than one, wouldn't be revealing anything more about that topic.

"The weak which court death often find it, and the fools attempting what is forbidden always pay the price." Tobirama spoke, taking a single step towards the Yondaime Hokage: "They're usually left alone, unless they step over certain boundaries. Right now, there is someone who has stepped over a few of those boundaries. that must be fixed. You can figure out how to undo what he did, though killing him would get the job done just fine."

Minato rose a single eyebrow towards his interlocutor: a single assassination to save his people? He wasn't too keen on killing people, not after the last war, and surely not now that he was dead, since he had hoped that at least the end would allow him some measure of peace, but a single life was nothing.

"What if I refuse?" he asked, just to be sure.

"Then the contract with the Shinigami is void, and your soul will be torn asunder while the seal placed upon your newborn son turned jinchuriki will shatter."

There was only one answer he could give to that: "Who is this being?"

"Tom Marvolo Riddle."

AN

I've honestly tried to focus on a single fic, but the plot bunnies have simply clogged my mind and refused to let go. So, enjoy this one.

I own nothing.