(A/N) Hello! You get to know now that this started with a comment about how if Iwa and Konoha were allied, they'd like, be the ultimate defensive villages. It spiraled from there.

Konoha celebrated the signing of the treaty with Iwa. Minato hid on a roof and pretended he wasn't suffering from too sensitive ears.

Someone found him anyway.

"Hey, you alright, 'tebane?" Someone asked, right in his ear, and far too loudly. Minato jumped, his notebook and pencil going flying.

"Kushina, d-don't scare h-him," a boy said tugging on the too-loud girl's arm.

Minato quickly gathered his pencil and notebook, storing them in his pocket. "H-hello, who're you?"

"I'm Kushina Uzumaki!" She shouted, and Minato flinched away. Not much, but enough for the boy to notice.

He tugged on Kushina's arm again. "W-why don't y-you quiet d-d-down a bit? H-he doesn't s-seem to like l-loud noises."

"Oh, sorry!" Kushina said, slightly quieter this time.

"Thanks," Minato said quietly, ducking his head.

"M-my name's T-Tadaaki, what's yours?" the boy offered his hand, and Minato took it, using it to pull himself up.

"Minato Namikaze." Minato was proud of himself for getting through his name without stuttering.

"Nice to meetcha!" Kushina said, grinning widely. "Are you a genin yet? I'm an Uzushio genin! I'm just here for a thingy."

"I-I'm a genin," Minato confirmed.

"Tadaaki's an Iwa genin!" Kushina chirped, eyes closing and shoulders lifting in a beaming grin.

Minato blinked a few times, nearly blinded by the reflection of the fireworks off Kushina's brilliant grin. Then the Iwa bit registered to him. "R-really? They l-let you come on the t-trip?"

Tadaaki ducked his head slightly. "M-my sensei is the t-top of the diplomatic c-corps. H-he brought me along h-hoping it'd get me a bit of experience."

"And get you to stop stuttering so much!" Kushina crowed, elbowing him playfully.

"N-no!" Tadaaki protested.

"Y-yes!" Kushina parroted right back.

Minato coughed once, and their attention switched to him. "Is there a r-reason you interrupted me?"

"We just wanted to know why you were up here instead of down in the square!" Kushina said, grinning.

Minato blinked dubiously at his hiding spot. He'd selected it specifically so it wasn't visible from the street. They had to have been on a roof as well to have seen him. "Cause it's really loud down there?"

Kushina snorted. "Eh, it's nothing compared to manning a cannon!"

The boys blinked at her. "Cannon?"

"A cannon!" Kushina confirmed, grinning. She made the grabby hands. "Minato, gimmie the notebook!"

Minato blinked, but quickly took out his notebook, found an emptyish page, and handed it to her.

"Pencil too, I don't carry one around," Kushina insisted. Minato handed over his pencil too.

"C-can you even d-draw?" Tadaaki asked doubtfully.

"Of course I can! See, this is a cannon!" Kushina sketched a long tube thing with a largeish base and a stack of balls next to it. "Those are the cannonballs, you put them in the tube, then… KABOOM!" She threw her hands up in the air, almost dropping Minato's notebook. "And the cannonball goes super far and crashes into whatever you aimed it at!"

Minato squinted at the drawing. "I fail to s-see how that long tube goes kaboom."

"Well, it's not the tube, that's just what the outside looks like!" Kushina said, exasperated. "There's a modified explosive tag on the inside! It only explodes in one direction, and that propels the cannonball!"

"But d-doesn't blow up the cannon itself," Minato agreed.

"Exactly!" Kushina chirped. "They need maintenance and stuff, and have to be replaced every five years or so, but they're pretty sturdy otherwise!"

"Minato! There you are!" Jiraiya scared the three genin out of their skins, landing on the roof next to them. "Ooo, is that a little Mina-chan getting a girl I see?"

Minato immediately flushed redder than Kushina's hair. "N-n-no!"

Kushina cackled. "He called you little!"

Minato puffed out his cheeks and looked away. "I just haven't hit my growth spurt yet! A-and you're really tall!"

Kushina just cackled again, looping an arm around the only slightly shorter than her Tadaaki.

Jiraiya came over and ruffled Minato's hair. "Well, kid, however you did it, I'm proud."

Minato sighed, slumping under the assault. "Whatever, Sensei."

"So, when're you gonna leave?" Kushina wondered, kicking her legs in the air as she hung upside down on Minato's couch.

"Never," Minato replied absently, sketching something. "I l-live here."

"Not you!" Kushina protested. "Tadaaki!"

"I-I think the delegation l-leaves in t-two days."

"Aww, that's not any time at all!" Kushina complained. "Can't you like, ask to stay a bit longer!? Like, I dunno, to promote inter-village stability or somethin?"

Tadaaki shrugged. "I-I'll try I g-guess."

"Later," Minato muttered, frantically erasing something. "Now w-we can j-just hang o-out for a bit.

"Hey guys!" Kushina chirped, bouncing into the room. "Wanna take a trip to Uzushio with me?"

Minato jumped, clutching his notebook to his chest. "Huh?"

"Well, see, I'm going back to Uzushio for a visit cause I wanted to see my home, and we have a delegation going anyway to tell them about the attack, and the Hokage said I could go with them for a quick visit if I wanted, and I do want to, and cause he knows Jiraiya, he said I could bring you two if I wanted to!"

"O-oh," Tadaaki looked rather surprised at being asked. "S-sure, I-I think it c-could be cool to s-see Uzushio."

"Minato?" Kushina asked, grinning like a cheshire cat.

"Sure," Minato managed. "C-could be fun."

Kushina grinned. "We leave in two days! Imma tell Jiraiya I'm stealing you, bye!" With that, she disappeared in a whirl of her bright red hair.

"I-I guess we're going t-to Uzushio t-then," Tadaaki said, apparently still reeling in shock from the sudden wild Kushina appearing.

"I guess," Minato agreed, loosening his clutch on his notebook.

"We're almost there!" Kushina shouted cheerfully, pointing to Uzushio. The almost reddish tint of the buildings only enhanced by the clouded sun.

Minato looked up from his ever-present notebook. "Really?"

"I-it looks really big," Tadaaki noted, ducking his head when Kushina flailed her arms excitedly.

"That's cause it is!" Kushina insisted dramatically. "Uzushio is huge! 'Specially compared to Konoha. Konoha's tiny!"

"Is that why you had all of the back alleyways and secret routes memorized in a week?" Minato wondered. "Because Uzushio is so much bigger?"

"Also Uzumaki have better retention rates then you Konoha people," Kushina said, grinning.

"I'm f-from Iwa," Tadaaki pointed out weakly.

"Then you Iwa people too," Kushina decided, settling in her seat like a proud peacock.

"Uzushio's people, in general, have better retention rates than most of the world. The Uchiha have photographic memories with their Sharingan on, and occasionally with it off. They're about the only people that can beat an Uzushio native in a memory game," said the jounin accompanying them; a coworker of Jiraiya named Sakumo Hatake.

"Oh hey look!" Kushina said, standing up again in the boat making it tilt dangerously. "We're deploying the fleet!"

"Why is Uzushio deploying its fleets?" Sakumo asked, leaning to the side to counter Kushina's rapid shift in position.

"Attacking somewhere?" Tadaaki suggested.

"Probably Kiri," Minato agreed. "It's the only one reachable by ocean of the ones who were going to attack Uzushio. Suna and Kumo are both landlocked away from Uzushio, but Kiri's fairly close by."

"Sounds about right!" Kushina chirped. A speculative gleam entered her eye.

Sakumo eyed her cautiously, and resolved to keep a close eye on her. "Isn't the Red Lights Festival soon?"

Kushina beamed. "It is! Two days from now on July 1st, is the Red Lights Festival!"

(A/N) Do I have an entirely made up festival just for Uzushio? Yes. Yes I do. Fight me on it. Or don't.