Hi! New chapter.

I do not own Naruto.

Chapter Three

It wasn't long before Minato learned that they were in Grass Country, not far from the border with the Land of Fire. Konoha was about a day and a half away. The one called Yamato had sent out a clone just over two and a half days ago, so someone from Konoha would likely be here soon. In the meantime, Minato just had to sit put, and think about what he was going to do. Was he going to go back to the village? Probably. It was his home, after all.

He was feeling better now, having some solid rest, and regular meals. Orochimaru checked up on him regularly, mostly to do some tests, make sure he didn't dissolve into a puddle of goo. That sort of thing. And when he came by, Minato would always ask about his progress, was he sure he couldn't get back? That last bit had devolved into a heated philosophical debate over the mechanics of time travel, with arguments on causality, alternate time lines, and set events that he was sure had delighted the Sannin.

Not that he'd ever admit to it.

Also in the meantime, Izumo and Kotetsu, whom he'd last seen as recently graduated gennin, two years younger than his own team, were catching him up on twenty five years of history. They'd glossed over a few things, like the Kannabi Bridge mission. Minato had asked Orochimaru later, and had been horrified to learn what had happened to Obito, and then later Rin.

Most recently, Kotetsu had told him about a chuunin exam, which apparently his son (he had a son!?) had participated in, and beat a Hyuuga prodigy. There was something about an invasion, but Kotetsu had been called away before he could really get into the details. He'd get the rest of the story later, he supposed.

Right now, Minato was throwing kunai at a target. He was, quite frankly, bored. Orochimaru was busy, and Izumo and Kotetsu had gone out to meet the incoming Konoha team. Yamato was off stalking Orochimaru somewhere, and Minato was kind of avoiding Karin. Every time he saw her and her Uzumaki hair, he was reminded that he wasn't going home, to his own time. Not going back to Kushina, his girlfriend that he'd been planning to ask to officially move in with him.

He closed his eyes, lowering the arm he'd raised to throw his next kunai. It hurt to think of her, though not as much as he'd thought it would. After all, she hadn't lost him like he'd lost her. The other him, the one who'd continued in his time line, he'd loved her, married her, and had a family with her. Even if it hadn't lasted, at least they'd been together at the end.

A loud banging interrupted his thoughts, and Minato turned to see the very person he'd been avoiding coming straight for him. "Oi! Namikaze!" she shouted (could any Uzumaki talk without yelling?). "The new Konoha team is here, let's get going, blondie!"

She strode over and grabbed him by his shirt arm, dragging him along. "I assure you, I am quite capable of making my own way," he said.

"Of course you are," Karin snarked, still not letting go, then her whole demeanour changed, her tone turning to a sweet lilt. "I can't believe it! Sasuke-kun is coming here! I had no idea he'd be part of the team!"

Sasuke-kun, as Minato had learned over the last couple of days, was the coolest, most gorgeous man that Karin had ever met. She had several pictures of him hung up on her wall (he was clearly an Uchiha from the look of it), and from what Izumo had once hinted, even had a couple of his old shirts that she slept in. The girl was obsessed, to say the least.

Finally, they reached the main area of the base, which was where they were all apparently going to meet, and when they got there, Minato noticed Karin stiffen immediately. "What is she doing here?" she hissed, letting Minato go and stomping forward, leaving him to follow hesitantly.

The she, as it turned out, was a pink haired woman wearing a red qipao dress, a black obi, and shorts underneath the dress. The woman stood between two men, one matching the most recent photo Karin had of her Sasuke-kun, the other a ninja in black attire that exposed his midriff. The woman was, in a word, beautiful, and with how close she stood to Sasuke… Well, he could see why Karin wasn't happy she was here.

"What are you doing here?" Karin screeched at the woman.

The pinkette sniffed haughtily. "I'm here because I'm a medic," she said. "I was assigned this mission by Hokage-sama."

Karin huffed, then turned her attention to Sasuke. "Oh, Sasuke-kun!" she said. "I've missed you. It's just not the same around here without you, you know."

She shoved her way between Sasuke and the other woman, knocking the pinkette aside, causing her to trip. Minato attempted to catch her, since he'd caught up to them, but he'd underestimated the force that Karin had used to push her, and the two of them ended up tumbling to the ground in a tangled mess. She landed rather heavily on him, and for a moment, the two of them were staring at each other.

In that instant, Minato took in a lot of details about her all at once. Such as the varying shades of green in her wide eyes, the differing strands of pink hued hair that tumbled down, and even, to his surprise and quite frankly interest, the violet rhombus upon her forehead. There were a few light freckles scattered across her nose, her cheeks were lightly flushed pink, and her shoulder length hair, which was brushing his face, felt incredibly soft.

One moment he was staring, the next, she was scrambling off of him. Minato followed suit in standing up, brushing himself off as the pinkette rounded on Karin.

"You clumsy, moronic imbecile!" she raged.

"Hey! It's not my fault you fell," Karin flat out lied as she clung to Sasuke's arm. "Admit it, Haruno, you're the clumsy one here."

"Karin, Sakura, stop it," Sasuke ordered.

Karin huffed and gripped Sasuke's arm tighter, and the aptly named Sakura blew some hair out of her face in a clear sign of frustration. Then, the other one with them spoke up.

"This is a fascinating exhibition of female competition for what they perceive as the alpha male," he said, pulling out a notebook and scribbling furiously.

Karin looked ready to burst again, and Sakura also looked ready to blow her top. The two of them simultaneously thwacked him over the head, with Sakura yelling, "Can it, Sai!"

"Well well," came a new voice, and they all looked over to see that Orochimaru had arrived. "I never thought you would come here, Sasuke."

"Orochimaru," Sasuke said. "I came because I have some questions for you."

"I shall endeavour to answer them," the Sannin said smoothly. "In the meantime, Sakura. Aren't you here to give Minato a check-up?"

Sakura nodded. "Can you show me a room I can do the check-up in?" she asked.

"Of course," Orochimaru said. "Karin, now that you've properly greeted Sasuke, you can return to the second annex and continue your cataloguing."

"B-but Orochimaru-sama!" Karin stuttered, clearly not wanting to let go of Sasuke.

"Now, Karin," the Sannin ordered, and Karin looked incredibly torn, but after giving Sakura a heated glare, she stomped off.

"Minato," Orochimaru said. "Why don't you take Sakura to one of the rooms in the third corridor? Sasuke and I can go have a nice chat in the main lab. Sasuke's replacement… You can do whatever, I suppose."

Sai gave a creepily fake smile as Orochimaru left, Sasuke following him. Once they were gone, Sakura went over to Sai, hugging him and saying, "Don't listen to him. You're not just a replacement. You're a bona fide member of Team Seven."

Sai patted her back. "I know. Thanks, Hag."

Minato's brow rose at that.

Sakura lightly whapped him over the head, then turned to Minato. "Lead the way, Namikaze-san."

Minato led Sakura to one of the rooms in the third corridor. This one, he knew from his brief exploration, had some medical supplies in it. Once in there, he turned on the lights, and Sakura indicated for him to sit on one of the chairs in there.

"Alright, you should know the deal with a medical check-up, Namikaze-san," she told him. "Shirt off, and no activating anything to do with chakra unless I ask you to."

Minato did as he was told, then said, "You can just call me Minato. Namikaze-san is a bit too formal, don't you think?"

A small smile played on her lips. "Alright then, Minato," she agreed, her hands glowing green as she started his physical.

"How have you been doing since you got here?" she asked as she worked. "Symptoms of any sort that you didn't have before?"

"The occasional dizzy spell, moments of physical weakness," Minato told her. "Orochimaru-sama has been keeping an eye on my recovery, most likely due to his research."

Sakura hummed, and Minato inhaled sharply as he felt her chakra enter his respiratory system. "Kakashi-sensei's not happy with him," she admitted. "This is a pretty big thing for him to have 'forgotten' about."

"Well, he seems genuinely excited about all the data," Minato said breathily, "so I don't think he was lying about it slipping his mind. Oh, and Kakashi-sensei?"

Sakura's lip quirked in genuine amusement, and Minato's heart skipped a beat as her chakra now flowed through his cardiovascular system. "Yes, sensei," she confirmed. "though technically I should be calling him Hokage-sama, now."

Minato's eyes widened in shock. "Kakashi's Hokage!?" he spluttered, and Sakura laughed in delight.

"For just over three years now," she told him. "Tsunade-shishou dumped it all on him after the last war, claiming she was too old and too tired to do it anymore, and took off for a year's holiday to go gambling and drinking."

Minato sat there for a bit as she worked, just taking this all in. "Kakashi's Hokage," he muttered. "Does he, uh, have anyone special in his life? A girlfriend? Fiancee? Something like that?"

"Not really," Sakura hummed. "Though… he and I were seeing each other until about six months ago."

Minato's brow rose in surprise. "I assumed… Sorry, but based on what happened earlier…"

"Sasuke and I aren't together," she told him as her chakra cut off and she stood up a bit straighter. "It's hard to put yourself into that kind of relationship with someone who's tried to kill you a number of times."

"Then what was that with Karin?" Minato asked.

Sakura shrugged as she reached into the backpack she'd brought with her, pulling out a notepad and pen. "I just don't get along with her," she admitted. "It doesn't help that Sasuke uses me as a crutch to keep her at arms length. Now shush a moment while I write."

Minato dutifully kept silent, the only sound in the room being Sakura's pen scratching over paper, and the rustle of that paper when she flipped to a new page. He watched her work, noting the ever so slight protrusion of her tongue at the edge of her mouth as she scribbled. The way her brow scrunched, and the way her body was angled, leaning against a filing cabinet. His eyes roamed over her, and that was when he realised that he was checking her out!

Abruptly he tore his gaze from her, wondering if it would be alright for him to put his shirt back on now? Eventually Sakura finished, and she nodded when he asked her that.

"So what's the prognosis?" he asked after he'd pulled his shirt back on.

"You're in perfect health," she told him. "Now I guess, you need to decide if you're coming back with us when we return to Konoha in a few days."

Minato opened his mouth to answer, but he didn't know what to say. He closed his mouth, wondering… A hand reached out and touched his shoulder, and he glanced up to see Sakura looking at him sympathetically.

"It's up to you," she said. "What do you want to do?"

What indeed.

Thanks for reading, hope you leave a review. :)