The God War Part 10
Eight days later
(-)
"To-san!" Minato screamed, darting through the crowds of people, immediately forgetting whatever mission he had put himself on. The high-pitched fear in the child's voice rang through the streets, setting everyone on edge, seconds before the alarm began to toll. Masao landed on a nearby roof, fully dressed in the Konoha Jōnin uniform.
"Everyone, head towards the emergency shelters immediately. Ninja, both active and retired are to follow protocol N-1-1-7-2-5." His voice rang through the entire area and everyone immediately began to follow the orders. Masao jumped down in front of Minato. "You need to go with the civilians, son, understood?"
The boy's bottom lip trembled and one of the kinder civilians took his hand. Masao smiled at her before leaping back to the rooftops. The civilian woman tugged Minato towards one of the shelters, but in the blink of an eye, Minato continued his race towards the front gates, against the flow of civilians. A handful of individuals tried to catch him, but he evaded their hands and continued uninterrupted. A block away from the front gates, Minato leapt to the rooftops and crept as close as he dared to watch the confrontation at the gates.
Osamu, flanked by his loyal clan members stood a step outside the gates, facing down the Sandaime Hokage, Masao standing off his left shoulder and Sakumo on his right. Masao's loyal clan mates stood in ranks behind him. Minato crouched behind a chimney, watching.
"You are not allowed entrance into this village," the Sandaime responded, his voice ringing out with authority.
"Then I'll take it!" Osamu snarled, blurring as he attacked the Hokage. Masao intercepted him mid-strike, underestimating the power of the attack and sliding back against the Kage, who darted around him, aiming a disabling strike at Osamu's leg. Osamu avoided the strike, simultaneously defending against Masao's retaliation.
All hell broke loose as both sides leapt forward. The Kage pulled out of the conflict and watched the fighting carefully from the rooftop across from Minato. The tolling alarm faded as the emergency shelters closed.
Unbeknownst to anyone but Minato, a small shinobi crept up the alley wall of the building the Sandaime stood on. Minato slipped out of his hiding spot and used all of his speed and stealth to make his way to the adjacent wall and scurry up, matching the shinobi's movement. The shinobi silently leapt up on the roof and crawled forward, a tantō in hand, ready to attack the instant the Sandaime noticed him. The second he reached striking distance, Minato darted out from underneath the eaves of the building like a startled cockroach and grabbed the kunai pouch of the shinobi, only a few years older than him, ripped out a kunai and redirected the blade to send the shinobi stumbling in front of the Kage.
Instead of attacking immediately, the Hokage hesitated at the sight of the girl, no older than ten. She leapt forward to attack faster than anyone expected and before the thought of defending himself crossed the Kage's mind, Minato knocked the tantō to the side, clumsily latched on to the girl's shoulder and drove the kunai into the base of her skull, killing her instantly. The four-year-old stumbled away from the body, a few drops of blood splattered across his face and the kunai by his side smeared with it.
The Sandaime's eyes widened in surprise, but before he could do anything but stare at the boy in surprise, Minato vanished and he had to refocus his attention on containing the fighting from a distance with a matrix of seals. During his brief lapse in attention, a shinobi forced Kotone away from the others. Minato hid in the shadows of a nearby home and watched as he continued to force her backwards. He flared his chakra, causing Kotone to jerk backwards reflexively, but instead of facing a jutsu, she found a katana emerging from her heart. Minato screamed and leapt forward as the shinobi pulled it out. Before he could free his weapon, Minato sliced through the tendons of his arm and using his momentum to fly past the cursing Namikaze, twisted in midair to sever the man's spine in his lower back. Minato lost his balance and flew into the wall a few feet away. The shinobi fell on his face, only one limb responding to his commands. He switched his katana to his usable hand and threw it towards Minato, but the boy jerked out of the way and landed on the man's back, stabbing him repeatedly and unable to take his eyes off of his mother, whose dead eyes stared at the sky.
What felt like years later to the boy, someone caught his wrist before he could stab the long-dead man again and wrenched the kunai out of his solid grip. Faintly, he heard someone shouting his name, but he could not tear his eyes away from his mother with a rose of blood blossoming over her heart and a blanket of red spread beneath her, staining her bright yellow hair.
"No! No!" Minato wailed as someone picked him up and tried to tear his gaze away. His arms flailed and he nearly forced the individual to drop him. A pair of hands twisted the boy's arms behind his back and dragged him off the shinobi's mutilated chest, forcibly tearing him away from the morbid scene and around the corner. Minato fought every step of the way but sheer size overwhelmed his struggles.
Finally, Masao forced Minato to look at him. Almost immediately, the boy stopped struggling.
"To-san—" Minato choked out, "To-san, Ka-san gone forever!" The boy sobbed, retreating from Masao's touch, wrapping his arms around himself and cowering against the grimy alley wall.
Masao knelt in front of the boy and forcibly stilled he tremors in his hands before producing a damp cloth to clean the blood off Minato's face.
"No!" The boy cried and jerked away from Masao's touch. After a second, the father tried again and the boy did not react. He methodically cleansed the blood from Minato's face and stripped off the blood-soaked jacket to scrub the physical blood off his son's hands. "I made Tomiko-chan and Isamu-san gone forever, just like Ka-san!" Minato continued to speak unintelligibly.
Folding the boy against his chest, Masao allowed his own grief to show.
"It hurts, To-san," Minato's muffled voice cut through the eerie quiet.
"I know, Minato. It doesn't go away."