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 18

They tracked down Danzō on the same day Minato was yanked back into the past. Jiraiya's seal worked like a charm and led them effortlessly to Danzō's hideout as though he'd left them a trail to follow.

Knowing exactly what it was they were tracking – not Danzō himself, but the scavenged body parts he'd stolen from fallen Uchiha – served as a splendid motivator to put an end to this chapter of their adventure.

"Do you know how much further?" Mikoto asked. Kushina had reverse-engineered Jiraiya's seal to exclude Mikoto from the search and allow her to come along without throwing off the trail.

Minato paused. Jiraiya's seal lay hot in his palm, almost too much to bear touching. "It's here," he muttered, raising his head to survey their surroundings.

He examined the forest ground – perhaps they were hiding in tunnels like the ones in Konoha? No, that wasn't likely. They hadn't had time to set up something so elaborate. That left...

Minato looked up and dodged a Root shinobi's attack. Several more descended all around them. Minato left them to Kushina and Mikoto, scaled up the trees, grabbed half a dozen kunai and threw them in an arc, burying them into the tree trunks around him.

The Root shinobi charging at him was no challenge. Neither was the one after them. Or the one after. More took their place, and more, and more, and Minato teleported from one of his kunai to the next to avoid their attacks and retaliate.

He pulled another sealing scroll from his pocket, leaped across the trees above Kushina to drop it and–

– Kushina caught it, pushing in chakra to unseal a stash of Minato's special kunai. She scattered them around her without breaking her form, expanding Minato's coverage and picking off Root shinobi one after the other.

She'd caught no glimpse of Danzō thus far. It was easy to work off her frustration on his underlings – too easy, too tempting to do what he wanted her to do, get caught up in a meaningless fight and tire herself out against mere canon fodder.

It was Danzō who deserved her anger, nobody else. Danzō who stood between them and their happy ever after. As long as Danzō was out there, they would never be able to live in peace. They needed to end it now, once and for all, end it and live on without his legacy casting a shadow over their future.

Kushina set her brows in a firm line, summoned her chakra chains, knocked an entire group of Root shinobi against the trees and ducked as–

– Mikoto leaped over and past Kushina to capture the immobilized shinobi in a genjutsu.

She wove layer upon layer of illusions, pouring in all of the fear and anger she'd felt over the last few weeks. Paying even a fraction of it back would be gratifying, but it wouldn't be enough.

Mikoto would not be satisfied until she'd killed the one responsible for driving her clan into ruin in the future.

Another shinobi caught her gaze and Mikoto's eyes flashed red, her irises spinning a genjutsu in the time it took to blink.

They were trying to separate them. Minato recognized both this and the fruitlessness of their efforts minutes into the fight. None of them allowed themselves to be herded where the Root shinobi wanted them to go, their fighting styles too in sync and their experience too overwhelming.

Minato had not thought Danzō so cowardly to let his subordinates fight without making an appearance himself, but then again, they didn't seem to have known him at all.

Minato locked eyes with Mikoto and read the determination in her features. He hesitated – putting a stop to Danzō was his mission. Building a perfect future had become his purpose the instant the seal in his palm had pulled him forwards that very first time.

But it was the Uchiha clan on the line. Mikoto's clan. Her family.

He took Jiraiya's seal (still hot – Danzō couldn't have gone far), tossed it downwards–

– and watched Mikoto pluck it right out of the air. Kushina steered closer to cover her friend, keeping her clear of enemies while she used the seal like a compass.

Kushina itched to take over the task herself – everything in her screamed to drop the no-name shinobi and go after the main course instead. But now Mikoto had the seal, and she was already focused and spewing murder from her eyes. Kushina could recognize when it was time to be a supportive friend and exercise restraint.

Below her, Mikoto zeroed in on one particular Root shinobi. She weaved through opponents gracefully without taking a single hit, cornered the shinobi she'd picked out–

– and looked directly into a single red, swirling Sharingan staring at her from an unfamiliar face.

Anger flared up in Mikoto's chest and boiled over in waves. Had her clan ever been more to Danzō than a fresh stock of Sharingan eyes? Were they a means to an end, or did he hate them as much as his actions suggested? Would he let them die, plan their slaughter or wield the blade himself, once the time of the massacre came?

Whichever was the case, Danzō would not have the chance to demonstrate.

"You're going to drive Konoha to ruin," Danzō told her with the voice his Henge had given him – less a warning than it was an accusation.

"That is not for you to decide."

Danzō could not have had the Sharingan for long. His use of it was unpracticed and rough compared to his other skills. He did not break through all of her illusions in the way a skilled Uchiha would have, and he averted his eyes whenever Mikoto moved close to him.

His Sharingan was unpracticed but his ninjutsu was near impeccable. Mikoto narrowed her eyes and–

– didn't manage to get the upper hand. Kushina snuck glances whenever she dared and saw Danzō back Mikoto into a corner.

It simply wouldn't do.

Kushina swatted a couple Root into Minato's vague direction and changed course. She summoned her chains and flung herself at Danzō from above, trusting Minato to have her back.

Mikoto turned her head and–

– spotted Kushina charging at Danzō. She changed course–

– watched Danzō dodge her chains at the last second–

– saw Danzō's eyes flickering up and meeting Mikoto's gaze–

– and watched him freeze as Mikoto's genjutsu took hold. Kushina's chains wrapped around Danzō like snakes.

Kushina breathed heavily, staring at a motionless Danzō. He'd lost control over his Henge and no longer looked like a stranger. Kushina grimaced at the sight of his eye, added more chains and pulled them tighter just because she could.

She chanced a look at Mikoto.

"What are we going to–"

Mikoto flipped a kunai in her palm and rammed it straight into Danzō's stolen Sharingan.

Kushina's sentence trailed off. Blood gushed out of Danzō's eye socket and covered Mikoto's hand. She twisted the kunai for good measure before pulling it out and watched Danzō's frame slump in his bindings.

The fighting around them halted. The fire in Mikoto's chest kept burning.

They returned to the village with Danzō's corpse. There was no remorse to be found among the village.

"How long have you been a member of Root?"

The question – like all the ones before it – went unanswered. The Root operative didn't talk. She didn't move a muscle. Of all the shinobi they'd taken in, she was one of those refusing to exchange a single word with the people who'd killed her leader.

"How much did you know about Danzō's schemes?"

Minato watched through a wide glass window, his expression stoic and his jaw clenched tightly. The girl was eleven years of age at most. Most likely she was younger. She was questioned as an adult because that's what Danzō had made her.

"Do you have associates in the village?"

If she had, she likely hadn't seen them in years. Perhaps she didn't remember them. No child with a loving family would have found themselves sucked into the dark, gaping maw within Konoha that was Root. If there was no one who'd questioned her disappearance, there wouldn't be anyone to take her in once the investigation was over.

Minato kept watching and pretended like the sight didn't make his stomach turn.

"Sensei? Kushina-san told me where to–" Obito threw a glance through the glass screen and stiffened. "Who is that?"

"It's one of the Root shinobi we captured," Minato said quietly.

Obito's eyes widened. "Oh."

In silence, they watched the interrogator do his job. He'd taken to threats now – if there weren't any results soon, they'd have to consider the option of involving a Yamanaka. Minato hoped that it wouldn't come to that.

"What's going to happen to them?"

Minato stole a glance at his student. Obito's brows were drawn together, his eyes stuck on the girl on the other side of the glass screen.

"I don't know." Loathe as Minato was to admit it, there was no instant solution for the mess they'd found themselves in. "We're investigating whether any of them have family in the village. Or outside of it."

While certainly unlikely, the possibility was there. If even a single person reunited with their family, Minato would consider the operation a success.

"If we can't find any," Minato started and found that he didn't know how to finish the sentence. "We'll see."

They'd have to find out how thoroughly Danzō had brainwashed his subordinates. Some of them – few – had already proven a genuine, if twisted loyalty. Mostly the older ones. Others were too young to have found their way into Danzō's clutches through anything other than coercion and manipulation.

"Did you really kill Danzō?" Obito asked without taking his eyes away from the glass screen.

Minato pressed his lips together in a grim line. "Mikoto did."

"And he had the..." Obito gestured vaguely towards his eyes and grimaced. The skin around his nose turned a pale, sickly color.

"He did." Before Obito could ask, he added, "We don't know who he stole it from."

Obito hummed. He hesitated, then said, "Does this mean you did it? Did you fix the future?"

"I hope so." Minato tried not to let doubt creep into his voice. "We're not sure what else Danzō was responsible for. We'll have to see, once we return."

"We? So you're taking Kushina-san along?"

"This time, probably. Now that Danzō is no longer a threat."

The stranger remained an active threat. But Kushina and he had held their own against him once before.

Obito lapsed into silence. He wasn't a quiet person: he filled silence with words even if he had nothing to say at all. He was loud and flashy and he didn't do silence. Not unless something occupied his mind that was too big to leave space for words.

"What are you thinking?" Minato asked.

Obito shrugged.

A door somewhere in the building slammed shut. The girl in the interrogation chair flinched but didn't break her silence.

"Were all of them this young?" Obito asked, his brows creased in a frown.

"Not all of them," Minato said. "Some." He didn't mention the boy who'd looked so small as though he belonged in preschool. Nor the untold number of shinobi they hadn't been able to capture.

Obito's frown deepened.

"We're trying what we can," Minato told him. Some shinobi would be happy to deal with Danzō's underlings the same way they'd dealt with Danzō. Minato was not one of those people. "As long as they're willing to accept help, we'll do our best."

"That's not it." Obito looked away. "I just... It could have been me, you know?"

Minato paused. He opened his mouth, but Obito kept going before he could reply.

"Not me, specifically, but. You know. Any of us." He bit his lower lip and turned his head as though physically forcing himself to look at the girl. "All those times I spent arguing with Kakashi about… about stuff. It just feels... really silly."

"This isn't what a shinobi's life is supposed to be," Minato said softly.

"Yeah, well." Obito swallowed heavily. "They didn't get a choice, did they?"

Obito threw himself into his training starting the very next day. He'd always been hard-working, but the single-minded focus he demonstrated was new. He no longer initiated fights with Kakashi if he could help it. He was rarely late for one of their training sessions. When Minato explained something important he actually listened, and he trained far past the point of Team 7's official training sessions.

"Is Obito okay?" Rin asked him by the third day.

Kakashi was only a few steps away – frowning and with his back to them, but clearly listening.

"I think so," Minato said. "He just realized some things."

It wasn't necessarily bad. Minato regretted the circumstances under which it had happened, but perhaps a reality check like this was exactly what Obito needed.

It would occur to Minato later that he may not have given himself the time to process the Root kids' interrogations properly. It would occur to him that stemming everything on his own was neither healthy nor advisable. It would occur to him that bottling up his anger wasn't a good coping strategy as long as he carried a seal in his palm that reacted to strong emotions.

He looked at the former Root shinobi currently being questioned and thought 'This kid is younger than my son.'

"How did you join Danzō's ranks?"

"I graduated."

"Graduated how?"

"I earned it."

"How?"

"I killed my brother."

She looked into the distance with empty eyes as though she was giving a report.

Minato clenched his fist and his emotions surged – anger at Danzō, grief for the traumatized children, blank terror at the thought of what might have happened, had Danzō gotten his hands on Naruto, too.

He remembered Jiraiya's warning, but it was already too late.

Shikaku had joined him for his daily visit to HQ. He turned at the sound of Minato's sharp intake of breath. "Minato?"

Kushina wanted to come with him. She'd been very clear on that front. The manhunt was over and Danzō was no longer a threat and there was no reason for Minato to leave Kushina behind.

The seal in Minato's hand burned.

"No," Minato choked out, blindly reaching for one of his Hirashin seals even as panic welled up in his chest. "Not yet."

His panic tipped him over the edge and the seal flared up.

Minato's last thought before plunging into the usual swirl of colors was that Kushina's revenge would be swift and creative.

A/N: Studying from home right now - work at the hospital is over for a few weeks, and school isn't happening in a classroom because of the virus. It honestly could be worse. I'm glad that I'm free of work for the moment!

My betas are Igornerd, To Mockingbird and PyrothTenka! Go check them out, they're all wonderful writers!