Time Flows Like Ink
Summary: After a fuinjutsu experiment gone wrong, Minato is yanked into a future where his family is dead, his team fell apart and the Uchiha were slaughtered. With the defective seal burning in his palm, Minato struggles to stay afloat in a Konoha that isn't his.
Chapter 2
His and Kushina's home was gone. Not gone per se, but different. Changed. Other people lived there, as they had for years. Their belongings would have been gotten rid of long ago.
All their memories were lost.
Minato was slumped against the cushions on the couch, staring straight ahead. He would have to go back at one point. Even if he didn't, they would find him. It was just… He needed a moment for himself.
They'd told him that Kushina had died after the Kyūbi had broken out. Was that the entire truth? Minato knew about the risks of a jinchūriki giving birth. He and Kushina had discussed the issue at length. They'd developed contingency plans, just in case of something going wrong. Did this prove that they hadn't done enough?
Something must have caused the Kyūbi to break out. People had died in the attack, people other than Kushina. If Minato hadn't done enough to stop it, their blood was on his hands.
By the time he felt a presence enter the apartment, he only felt numb.
"They told you about me?" Minato asked.
A pause. "They had a feeling you'd come here."
He'd tried preparing for it this time, and still Minato was taken aback at the voice that sounded far too deep. He turned. "You're taller than me!" he burst out, staring at Kakashi in both mortification and shock.
Kakashi blinked, his one visible eye widened. Then, only increasing the bizarreness of the situation, he laughed. Kakashi laughed, as if the sheer disbelief in Minato's voice wouldn't have sent his younger self into a rage. "I guess I had to get a growth spurt eventually."
There were other changes. Kakashi wore his headband so that it covered one of his eyes. He held himself differently, too. Gone was the strict rigidness of his younger self, gone the tension in his shoulders, the frown making him look constantly annoyed. Kakashi looked more relaxed than his younger self had ever been. The jōnin vest suited him.
He noticed Kakashi was staring, too. "What is it?"
"Nothing, I just." Kakashi looked away. "I never realized how young you were. When you took me as your student."
Minato sat back, stunned. This was just a headache waiting to happen, but Kakashi was older than him now. His student was older than him.
And looking at him like he expected him to vanish into thin air. "Kakashi?"
"Sorry." Kakashi looked away. "It's been a long time since I've seen you."
Minato didn't know what to say. Something about that sentence felt so fragile. What had happened to Kakashi while he'd been gone?
"Do tell," Kakashi said, his voice sounding stilted. "What would you have done if I'd moved and you'd broken into some stranger's apartment instead?"
Minato didn't manage to muster a smile. "Kakashi…" Was there something he wanted to ask? What did he actually want to hear the answer for? "Kushina and I. Did anything of ours survive?"
Kakashi paused, piercing him with a glance. Minato had a hard time reading him. "It really is you, isn't it? How is that even possible?"
Minato shrugged helplessly, raising his hand. "Fuinjutsu experiment gone wrong? I hadn't really had the time to find out." Or the motivation. It was hard to make himself care about how it had happened.
Kakashi's gaze lingered on his burnt palm. He stood. "Wait here." He came back carrying a single, measly box. "I'm sorry. Most of it got destroyed in the attack."
Minato opened the box with a lump in his throat. This was all that was left of Kushina and his life.
His hot-pink apron.
("Why are you laughing?"
"N-Nothing! It's nothing! Where did you even get that?")
A few prototypes of his custom made kunai.
("So, how many new trees do we have to plant this time?"
"That's not funny. Just wait until I manage to perfect the technique. I'm really close!"
"..."
"Less than last time. I'm getting better, I swear!")
Even one of Kushina's maternity dresses had survived.
("Urgh. Being pregnant sucks. Next time you can carry the baby. I've had enough of this."
"As much as I'd love to do that, I'm afraid that's not how it works, sweetheart.")
Minato chuckled softly, his eyes suspiciously damp. He waved off Kakashi's hesitant "Sensei?" and continued to look through their things. It really wasn't much.
Oddly enough he felt calmer. Not good in any interpretation of the word, but not as restless. And there were still questions left.
"Kakashi. Where are Obito and Rin?" He held onto one of his old kunai because he had to hold onto something.
Kakashi took him to the memorial. There was a clench in Minato's gut, but not much more. He had expected it, since everything in this world seemed to be designed to cause him pain. If his other two students were there, they would have come with Kakashi to see him.
ANBU were following them, observing from the shadows.
Minato stared at the memorial stone as he listened to Kakashi's story. Killed, both of them, killed on missions during the war. Minato could feel the guilt and self-loathing radiating off of Kakashi. He blamed himself. He shouldn't – it had to be Minato's fault. He hadn't done enough. He hadn't been there. They'd only been children at the time. Why hadn't he been there?
Kakashi raising his forehead protector was the last straw.
Obito's eye stared back at him, the Sharingan blood-red and a scar slicing through the eyelids above and below it. Obito's eye and Kakashi's guilt, raw and as fresh as if it had happened only days ago.
It was too much.
Pain burst in his chest like he'd been hit, his throat closing up and aching. His family was dead. Most of his team was too. Kakashi was grieving, hurting beyond imagination and Minato hadn't been there to help him, hadn't been there to stop it.
His eyes prickled and he could feel his hands trembling.
Why hadn't he been there to stop it?
The pain in his chest burned and there was a tugging sensation in his palm.
"Sensei? What's wrong?"
Everything hurt and his hand was burning. There was a yank and Minato fell into nothingness.
His knees hit the ground and Minato caught himself just before falling over. He felt faint, his senses dull and sluggish. At least the burning in his hand had stopped.
Minato squinted, trying to clear his head.
"H-Hokage-sama?"
The ground was swaying under his knees, and he didn't trust himself to stand. He could make out the memorial stone before him, so he hadn't actually moved in place. But where was Kakashi?
"Over here! Hokage-sama, are you alright?"
He could feel shinobi landing beside him. "Y-Yeah…" He staggered to his feet, steadied by a strong grip around his arm. The fog in his head was clearing, but he still couldn't feel Kakashi.
Something was odd.
"WHERE IS HE?!"
That effectively cleared his mind. He would recognize that shouting everywhere. The shinobi around him took a step (or several) back, and the grip around his arm loosened as if whoever was supporting him contemplated the risk of letting him fall in order to get distance between them and the nearing tidal wave.
Fiery red hair filled his vision, wild and framing a furious pair of eyes. Minato's breath got stuck in his throat.
"K-Kushina–!"
"Where were you?! Nobody's seen you for two days!"
Two days? It had been hours at most. "Kushina–"
"Everyone's been looking for you, Namikaze, do you know how worried I was?! I know–"
"Kushina–"
"–sneak out of the village all the time. The Hokage, alone, outside of the village. During war times! Are you mental?!"
Minato threw his arms around her, and Kushina fell silent. He breathed in her scent, fuinjutsu paper and ink and the paint they had picked for Naruto's bedroom. She smelled like home. Her hair was tied in a messy ponytail, oddly unkempt.
"M-Minato."
Kushina put her arms around him hesitantly. Minato tightened the embrace, holding her close. Kushina was here. She was safe. He never wanted to let go.
Kushina put her hands on his shoulders, and Minato let her push him away reluctantly.
"Stop being emotional and start talking. You owe me–" She broke off mid-sentence, staring at him. She must have noticed his tears.
He laughed shakily, not caring that his wife and the ANBU were watching. "It's good to see you, Kushina."
"You weren't gone that long," she grumbled, frowning in both irritation and worry. "What happened?"
One of the ANBU was brave (or reckless) enough to interrupt. "Hokage-sama, Uzumaki-san. Maybe we should escort you to the hospital–"
"You, shut it. He's fine. If he can hug, he can talk. And he will start doing so immediately," she said, piercing Minato with a glare. "Won't you, husband?"
Minato grinned and waved off his shinobi. It was great to be back.
In the end he managed to persuade Kushina to have a little more patience. There was a mass panic in the making and several hysterical council members he had to take care of.
He had to reassure the council that yes, he was back, that no, he was not hurt and no, no hostile activity had taken place against him. His guard detail had worked themselves into a frenzy during his absence, and he could be lucky that his disappearance hadn't reached the public yet. While no one was happy to wait longer for an explanation, Minato insisted on talking privately with his wife first.
Once they finally arrived home, Minato didn't hesitate to tell Kushina everything, starting with the biggest bombshell.
"I went to the future."
Kushina blinked. "The future."
"I know it sounds crazy–"
"That's an understatement."
"– but I was experimenting with my seals–"
"The Thunder God ones?"
"A variation of them, yeah, but–"
"Oh," Kushina said, and her eyes widened like she had come to a sudden realization. "I understand."
"You... do?"
"Of course." She put a hand on his shoulder, a sympathetic look in her eyes. "Look, if you screwed up and teleported out of range of your seals without a way back, that's okay."
"What."
"It happens to the best of us. There's no shame in admitting it."
"But– No! Kushina, please."
Silence.
"You're serious about this." Kushina paused, holding his glance. "How do you know you weren't put under a genjutsu?"
"It was too elaborate. Disrupting my chakra flow did nothing. And there's this." He held open his palm, showing Kushina the seal.
Her eyes widened as she caught sight of it. She leaped over the back of the couch, snatching up a piece of paper from one of the many piles strewn across the house and copied the seal in quick, adept strokes. Finished with that she studied it, murmuring under her breath.
Minato knew better than to interrupt.
After a few minutes she whistled without taking her eyes off the seal. "Wow. You really screwed up. What was it supposed to do?"
"Nothing. It wasn't finished. I was just experimenting with a few new components." Minato shrugged helplessly. "It activated on its own."
Kushina hummed, but didn't answer beyond that. Eventually she sighed, putting down the seal. "That's gonna take a while to untangle. And you're supposed to be a prodigy. Anything else I should know?"
"I think it reacted to my Thunder God technique somehow. But other than that…"
"Eh, I'll figure it out. Cleaning up after your mess, you're welcome."
Minato beamed. He knew she would; he had the bestest wife ever.
"But in the meantime," Kushina said, grinning cheerfully, "What does the future look like? Did you throw in the towel yet and let me take over?"
Her grin faded at Minato's expression. She took on a more solemn tone. "You cried. When you came back and saw me… You cried."
Minato couldn't suppress the urge and pulled Kushina in for another hug. She complied, wrapping her arms around him without hesitation. He closed his eyes, glad to be close to her. "You weren't there. You died."
"How–?"
"The Kyūbi broke out. They told me you gave your life to protect the village and stop it."
Kushina let go of him, laying one hand on her belly. Over their unborn son. Minato put his hand over hers, answering the unspoken question in her widened eyes. He was glad she hadn't spoken it out loud.
"What else?"
"Obito and Rin. Both of them. Kakashi was there, but…" The corner of his mouth tugged downwards at the memory. "He was different. Grieving, and blaming himself."
"Minato." Kushina laid her arm around him, resting her head on his shoulder. She could tell that he needed it, and Minato soaked in the comfort of her warmth. With Kushina this close, his memories of the future felt like nothing but a bad dream.
"Well," she said, opting Minato sufficiently comforted. "What are we gonna do about it?" She grinned, flexing her wrists and murder in her eyes.
Bestest. Wife. Ever.
In retrospect, Minato wished he'd stayed longer and asked more questions. At the time, details had been the last thing he'd wanted.
"I'll start working on improvements for everything Kyūbi related," Kushina said, already looking over old notes and sketches that were strewn around her on the couch. "It sucks that you didn't pay closer attention. It would be easier if we knew what caused it to break out."
"Actually, about that…" Minato trailed off, frowning down at his palm. "I might have a solution."
"Oh yeah? Spill."
He looked up, raising his hand and showing off the seal. "I can still feel the seal pulling."
Kushina's head snapped up from her notes, her eyes widening. "You mean–?"
"The connection is still there." He paused, hesitating in a strange mix of apprehension and anticipation. "I might be able to go back."
A/N: Bet you nobody expected that :P
My wonderful beta readers are To Mockingbird, PyrothTenka and Igornerd!
Thanks for reading!
~Gwen