Tag-Team Part 8
In Konoha. Tsunade has only lost Nawaki.(Dan's death happened, in canon, during the Second Shinobi World War but in this story, he dies during the Third)
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"What did you do this time?" The Sandaime asked as Minato and Kushina rushed up to his office. They tossed him a scroll each and turned around to rush back out the door.
"Nothing!" Kushina protested. The Sandaime shunshined in front of the door, caught them both by the arm before kicking the door closed.
"We have another mission that we have to hurry to. We wrote the mission report on the way here so we can get started right away, especially since it includes new identities," Minato responded when the Sandaime looked at them suspiciously. "Kushina wrote the report so you can actually read it this time!"
"And your report?"
"I dictated it to her."
"The prisoner?"
"Ino-Shika-Cho are already at the prison with him."
"Did you get the information? Where are the other team's reports?"
"The information is sealed in my scroll while their reports are sealed in Kushina's since it's her turn to be squad leader on the reports."
"Why are the two of you so skittish?"
"Not skittish, hyper," Kushina corrected. "We got a late adrenaline rush."
"Sit down," the Hokage ordered.
Before they could protest, the Sandaime steered them towards the couch in the corner of the room and pushed them down onto it.
"Now stay there until I finish reading the reports." He took his time walking back to his desk and opened both scrolls, unsealing the scrolls inside and keeping a sharp eye on the two as they signed to each other. To anyone else, they would appear to be fidgeting, but the Hokage learned the hard way not to put anything past them. Only the rustling of paper broke the heavy silence. The Sandaime's frown grew when he read all five reports and found nothing to warrant their odd behavior. He read the scroll with the information gathered, his face blank. Slowly and deliberately, he stood up and carried his chair over in front of the two Jonin. "While you were gone, an updated Bingo book was issued. Lightning is considered a B-rank threat. That is quite an impressive feat for both of you."
They started fidgeting for real.
"This brought some things to my attention."
They shrank back against the couch.
"Neither of you have been assessed for physical fitness since you were Genin. It's about time Tsunade did some menial labor. A complete checkup will keep her away from her gambling for a few days. I owe her a birthday gift and tormenting you will satisfy that nicely."
Both turned red.
"Considering how many problems you like to cause, that should take about a week. After that, you have quite a number of D-ranks you may do until there is time for the interrogation department to train you to resist interrogation techniques, as is required of all shinobi with a capture reward. After that, I am going to schedule a very long discussion with both of you over the many things that have come to my attention and the things that have not. Until I say otherwise, you are not to leave the village. That's an order. The mission that was given to you will be reassigned." He held out his hand and Minato reluctantly turned over the mission scroll he received from Sakumo. "Tsunade is here to make sure you don't run off in the process." He gestured towards the door as the woman slammed it open angrily.
"What do you want now, Sensei?" She grumbled.
"Considering you are the primary physician for these two, I thought it wise to hand them over to you for their long-overdue physical. They are classified as a high flight risk, which you may handle as you see fit."
"How long exactly has it been since either of them visited the hospital?"
"Officially, not since before they were made Genin. Unoffically, Kushina had a short stay a few months later and Minato visited her."
"And why are they classified as a flight risk?"
"Just a precaution. You may keep them for as long as you would like."
Tsunade grabbed them both by the wrist, shunshined to the hospital, and stopped in one of the smaller rooms. To one side of the door was three carts. One consisted of a shelf, which held two neatly placed file folders and two small stacks of hospital clothing underneath. The second sported numerous drawers filled with medical utensils. The third resembled the second, but with heavier equipment. In the center of the room, a bare examination table gave the room sickeningly sterile atmosphere. Everything seemed to glow white.
They shrank away from her as she crossed her arms.
"I could spend five minutes using medical Ninjutsu to assess your condition."
Both brightened at her suggestion.
"Considering it's been almost five years since you last received a fit-for-duty checkup and I haven't had any sake today, I'm going to make your life miserable. You are not allowed to leave this room until I am finished with you. Now, both of you are going to disarm completely, patients are not allowed weapons, for obvious reasons. Put your weapons on this. All of them," Tsunade pushed the wheeled cart towards them, which Minato caught reflexively.
Another glare was all it took for the duo to comply.
"Arm," Tsunade demanded once they finished, holding her hand out to Minato.
"What are you going to do?" Kushina snapped while Minato crossed his arms defiantly.
"I just going to torture you until you can't tell the difference between night and day," the medic scowled, sarcasm appearing to physically drip from her words.
Both Jonin misunderstood the intent behind her words.
"It's a simple diagnostic seal that is more accurate than the current diagnostic jutsus. Both of your medical files are ridiculously thin and while it is safe to assume you aren't going to drop dead any second, considering you spend as much time as you do with my sensei's wife, I'm curious about how many potentially deadly bugs you have in your bodies from the countless foreign missions from which you've returned and failed to report to the hospital." She glared at them, exasperated.
"Fine!" Minato conceded unexpectedly and held out his arm. "See for yourself. We're perfectly healthy."
"You have no idea what you're talking about little boy."
Minato responded under his breath, too quiet for anyone else to hear.
"What was that?" Tsunade asked, dangerously smooth as she took his wrist in an iron grip and bared the soft skin.
"Do you need me to draw the seal for you?" Minato retorted, equally dangerous and undaunted by her tone which could make a Kage shift uneasily.
"You wouldn't know this seal," Tsunade responded absentmindedly, drawing it with practiced ease while Kushina frowned in confusion.
Minato deigned not to respond as Tsunade activated the seal.
Her expression turned stormy exactly five seconds later and she snatched Kushina's arm, drawing the same seal on her, anger growing. "Both of you are indefinitely suspended from active duty," the woman growled.
"What? That's not fair!" The teenagers protested loudly.
"You are also under quarantine!" Tsunade added even louder. "I'm not playing older sister with you two right now. First and foremost, I am an iryo-nin and right now, both of you are under quarantine. You are not to leave this room."
Minato and Kushina fell silent, stunned by Tsunade's deadly seriousness.
"Sit down while I take a blood sample," she ordered, kinder and with an uncharacteristic amount of patience. Both jumped up onto the examination table as Tsunade dragged the cart filled with smaller medical supplies in front of them. With movements she could do while unconscious, she prepared a needle and syringe Tsunade wrapped a hand around the boy's bicep and quickly pushed the needle into his arm.
The Jonin appeared slightly sickened by the sight of blood filling the syringe. Tsunade deftly pulled out the needle and covered the slightly bleeding pinprick with her thumb, medical Ninjutsu flickering around her hand. She transferred the blood into a test tube, labeled it, and capped the top before repeating the process with Kushina.
"You're shinobi, a little blood shouldn't bother you," Tsunade snapped as she slipped the vials into her pocket. Kushina made a face at her, which visibly irked the older woman.
"You're supposed to be a shinobi. You shouldn't let a few insults bother you," Minato retorted defensively.
Tsunade opened her mouth to scold him before she processed exactly what he said. "I guess we're both lacking in certain aspects," she admitted. Minato gaped, sufficiently distracted by her unexpected and uncharacteristic maturity. "Kushina, you're with me," she put Kushina's stack of clothes under her arm and put her other hand on Kushina's back to steer her out of the room. As soon as she locked the door, Tsunade led Kushina to the next room of the hall and closed the door.
"Why did you lock him in? Why quarantine? What's going on now? Why are you taking our weapons?" Kushina fired the questions at Tsunade, barely taking a breath.
"I need you to relax, Kushina and answer me as honestly as you can. Will you do that for me please?"
"Why? Tell me what's going on!"
"While you were gone, Sakumo-san discovered that unknown individuals who may or may not be working together are actively attempting to assassinate you or Minato-kun, but we haven't been able to determine which."
Kushina frowned and waited for the woman to finish.
"He normally shadows your missions whether you know it or not. At almost all times, you are accompanied by one or more of the most powerful ninja in the village or protected by some powerful seals. It's only because of that they haven't been successful. Sakumo-san only discovered them because Jiraiya unexpectedly shadowed you instead of him. The only thing we've been able to determine for certain is that they have been regularly attempting poison. Because of the Kyuubi, it takes an immensely strong poison to bother you, but we also know nothing of Minato-kun's abilities to combat poison. You noticed, even though he didn't, that the seal I used wasn't the classic diagnostic seal but a detection seal for poisons."
"Why couldn't you tell us this in the Hokage's office? Grandma Mito wrote the privacy seals in there, no one could—"
"The room isn't secure and you don't have clearance or any of the better secured rooms. As I was saying, it found that you have multiple chemicals, which are harmless by themselves, in oddly high quantities. If someone introduced other specific chemicals into your body, it could be deadly. I'm not trying to get Minato-kun angry for any other reason than to distract him from what's really going on, do you understand?"
Kushina raised an eyebrow.
"Sakumo-san watched someone break into Minato's room—"
"If you want to lie to my face, at least be convincing about it. No one broke into Minato's room, there's no one after us and this hospital isn't about some possible poisoning or skipping checkups. Just because I'm loud and impulsive doesn't mean I'm stupid or gullible." Her voice began to gradually rise. "It certainly doesn't mean I'm blind enough not to notice the bjiuu-containment seals all over this room and the last. What is going on? I know Grandma Mito told you everything she could about the seal before they put that thing inside of me!" Kushina jabbed a finger at her stomach.
"Calm down, Kushina," Tsunade tried to soothe. "You're only—"
"Like hell I'll calm down!" She screamed, tears welling in her eyes and turning towards the hidden camera. "It's always been calm down, Kushina, you're only leaving everyone you know behind to die so you can live somewhere everyone thinks you're dirt! Or, calm down, Kushina, you're only going to become everyone's personal scapegoat and boogeyman! How about this: calm down, Kushina, we only sealed the most powerful and hate-filled bijuu inside of you after the most terrifying experience of your life in order to try and drive away the first real friend you've ever made! What is it this time? Calm down Kushina, we only wanted to see if we could trust you to keep the awful monster from destroying us by betraying you and lying to your face for years!" Red chakra bubbled from her stomach and coated her skin. "Well, I don't even want to control it now!" She spun on her heel and raced towards one of the walls, slamming her palm against it and leaving a small black seal on the otherwise clean surface before stepping back as it exploded outward. She forced away the Kyuubi's chakra as she stepped through the hole to meet several ANBU, the Hokage, and Danzo reflexively shielding their faces from the blast. In one of the few places in the room where the rubble didn't reach, Minato lay propped in the corner, an ugly bruise forming over his temple. In an instant, she correctly deduced what happened from his distinctive lack of a jacket and the torn back of his shirt where he hid a small, nearly undetectable weapons pouch.
She blinked and felt the ANBU reach for her and twisted away from their grasp before shunshining beside Minato. She lifted him over her shoulder and blasted her way out of the room, vanishing into the forest outside. She did not even think of stopping until Minato stirred. She skidded to a halt and set him gently on the ground as he clutched at his head. She clung tightly to his arm as his other hand flickered to a green glow and quickly healed the bruise.
"Are you okay?" She asked in a small voice.
"Think I should be asking you that. Did you use some of the Kyuubi's chakra? My senses are fried right now."
"I'm sorry!" Kushina cried, lips trembling.
"Why would you be sorry? If whatever happened was your fault, I would be mad at you, but you weren't the one who hit me over the head or got you upset enough to lose your cool."
"Minato—"
"I have too much of a headache to try and make you feel better, Kushina, please stop being ridiculous."
"You don't even know what happened!"
"I can guess. They wanted you for some reason that related to the Kyuubi. They said something. You got mad. They messed with you, and you lost control. You redirected that loss of control until you got the control back. You ran."
"Jiji was there."
Minato stiffened. "He's the Hokage, I guess it makes sense."
"I didn't lose control."
"So did they attack you or something?"
"No."
"I know you Kushina. You didn't just let it out."
"No—"
Minato sighed and burned a quick seal into tree behind him with Chakra. "We found a flaw in the seal's design when we stole Mito-san's layout of the seal. The Kyuubi can intensify your emotions—"
Kushina stiffened. "Someone's coming," she hissed and burned two more seals beneath Minato's in quick succession.
"She stopped here for some reason," Sakumo concluded, bending down to pick up a torn fragment of Minato's shirt. "As far as I can tell, she used a little chakra, but so did Minato. It's safe to assume he used the Nidaime's jutsu. There's no way anyone will be able to follow them. Now what happened? They are supposed to be on a mission right now. Why do you need them tracked?"
The teenagers followed his gaze to find Danzo and the Hokage emerging from the shadows. "You don't need to know, Hatake-san," the Hokage told him evenly. "When it becomes relevant, you will be notified."
"With all due respect, Hokage-sama, those kids are as good as my own. I am Minato's guardian and Kushina sleeps at my house more often than her own. If something's wrong, it is relevant to me. I can find them if I know why they're running. There's a thunderstorm coming. If I don't find them soon, there's no way anyone will be able to once the rain comes."
"Kushina lost control of the Kyuubi."
"She's lost control before, what makes this time different?"
"She misunderstood the circumstances."
"How?"
"She thinks we've been deliberately tormenting her."
"From her perspective, it would look that way."
"That's not what happened."
"Then what happened?"
"I can't tell you."
"I have a very high level of clearance."
"It needs higher."
Sakumo sighed. "This is something I've noticed. When those kids are in the village, they are genuinely happy, trusting, carefree, oblivious children. They act out, demand attention, show off, and run around doing stupid things. They feel safe. They drop every single shield they have. If they sense danger, the shields come up without a second thought, even if the danger is nothing more than Kakashi running around the corner too fast waving a wooden kunai. I can't even count how many times the two of them have drawn their weapons when they're not expecting me to step around the corner. They treat everyone as a friend one second and an enemy the next, including you. They learned to do that by watching us. We treat them as harmless children one second and shinobi the next. One second we're claiming to protect them and the next, we're expecting them to protect us. If you want me to bring them back, you're going to have to decide how you want them brought back. As children or shinobi?" Sakumo crossed his arms as Minato and Kushina clung to each other unconsciously, hidden behind the three barriers.
"That's not—"
Sakumo whipped out two cords and they wrapped around Minato and Kushina, jerking them out of the barriers and flinging them down in the center of everyone. Grabbing them by the hair, Sakumo pulled them to their knees and turned their tearstained faces towards the Hokage. "Decide, Hokage-sama." He ordered as the children's fingernails clawed weakly at his hands. "Are they children? They come back from their missions starving because they can barely feed themselves on their own. They sleep with the lights on and still wake up screaming in terror from watching their parents murdered in front of them! They still cry when they fall down while running in the house. Are they children? Or are they your shinobi? Their Chakra reserves rival ours. She has the Kyuubi sealed inside of her and you said so yourself he is most likely to succeed you as Hokage. They have a ninety-seven percent mission success rate, one of the highest in the village, almost as high as mine. They are legacies of two almost extinct and extremely powerful clans. They are two of the most skilled seal masters in the entire shinobi world, head and shoulders above everyone else in the village, including yourself. The boy has already recreated versions of two jutsus our best researchers have declared impossible, and one of them was entirely by accident, while he was still in the Academy. Decide, Hokage-sama. Are they children so innocent they can't tell a lie and so scared they can't even look you in the eye or are they shinobi with the potential to level armies single-handedly?" Sakumo shook the two as punctuation
The Hokage looked down at the two trembling figures, the sunlight falling on their faces tinged red by the autumn leaves and making their tears glisten like blood. He could see the dried blood on their clothes underneath the grime from a mad dash through the forest and being thrown against the ground.
Thunder boomed and the sunlight vanished, replaced by sheets of cold rain which soaked everyone present in less than a minute. The two shivered. Their clothes clung tightly to their skin, revealing well-defined muscles and a distinct lack of weapons and armor.
"Decide quickly, Hokage-sama," Sakumo tightened his grip until they started to struggle weakly against him.
"That isn't a choice, Hatake."
"It's a choice you have to make. You're the Hokage of Konoha, no one else. Are they children or are they shinobi?"
"They're both!" The Hokage yelled.
"Then kill them!" Sakumo shouted back and shoved them forward, throwing two kunai at the Hokage's feet. "A dog can only be beaten so much before it bites back and they're treated worse than most dogs."
The Sandaime stammered an unintelligible response, clenching his fists tightly. "Then they have to be my shinobi," He murmured, eyes darting between the kunais and the muddy hair obscuring their faces before turning away and leaving.
Danzo followed; his face, unreadable.
As soon as they were out of sight, Sakumo fell to his knees and rolled them over, checking them for major injury. Two if his summons approached and sniffed at the teens as they pushed themselves up, shaking the hair out of their face.
With the amount of water putting down on them, Sakumo could barely see them as pulled Kushina onto his back in a piggy-back ride. She clung to him tightly as he lifted Minato to his feet and started guiding him back towards the village. The rain eased slightly as they approached the gates. The guards waved them through without question. The civilians scurried around, squeezing under the eaves of buildings to avoid the downpour. Guiding Minato towards his house, the door opened before them to reveal a masked four-year-old.
"Please go get some towels, Kakashi," Sakumo ordered softly. The boy rushed to obey as Sakumo closed the door behind him and set Kushina on her feet. She rubbed her eyes as Kakashi returned with a stack of towels as tall as himself. Sakumo took one and put it around Kushina's shoulders and another over her head before doing the same for Minato. He stripped off his Jōnin vest, weapons, and shirt, slipped off his shoes, dropping it all out a heap before hurrying back towards his bedroom for dry clothes. Kakashi padded after him, eyes gazing up curiously. "I'll teach you a new jutsu if you go wait quietly in your room until I get this sorted out, okay?" the father bargained. The boy dashed out of the room and picked up a book from the bookshelf in the hall before secluding himself in his room. Sakumo hurried back, dressed in dry civilian clothes. The teenagers visibly relaxed as his reappearance, but had not taken any initiative to dry themselves. Sakumo put his hands on Minato's head and dried the boy's hair, hating how Minato tensed at the gesture. Sakumo wrapped the towel tightly around Minato's shoulders. "Go put some dry clothes on, Minato-kun," Sakumo propelled Minato towards his room and turned towards Kushina. She looked ready to fall over as he dried her hair and guided her to the bathroom. "You keep your spare clothes under the sink, put something dry on," he suggested quietly. She closed the door behind her. Sakumo turned around and knocked on Minato's bedroom door. "May I come in?" He asked quietly.
"Yes," Minato answered, barely audible. As Sakumo opened the door, he saw Minato sitting on his bed, wet clothes dripping onto the floor. The wall of the room were covered with seals pinned on the walls but not activated. Sakumo noticed each paper had a slit running from the center of the seal to the edge of the paper, preventing the seals from ever being used. Minato held a plain, worn box in his hands, staring sadly at the contents. Sakumo let the door swing closed behind him and went to Minato's closet to pull out a change of clothes. He laid them on the bed and sat down beside him.
"What's in the box?" Sakumo asked.
"The scrolls I stole on my clan history. You already knew that didn't you?"
"I did. Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"No."
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know."
"Is it anything I can help with?"
"I don't know." Sakumo waited for Minato to elaborate but no words came out.
"Put some dry clothes on, you'll feel better then, and you'll know if I can help you," Sakumo mussed the boy's hair as he left. A few minutes later, he heard the teens' voices murmuring in Minato's room. He pulled out the stack of paperwork he needed to catch up on in order to distract himself from the possible repercussions of his recent actions.
An hour later, the voices quieted as the two fell asleep. As quietly as he could, Sakumo took that as his cue to make his way to his own bedroom.