Apprentice Part 4
In the morning
(MINATO)
"Minato! Minato! Wake up!" Minato successfully ignored the boy until he jumped up and started bouncing on his chest. "Curfew is over! Get up! You have to go look at the seal!"
"Stop the racket!" Kushina snapped from directly beside Minato.
He yelped and fell off the couch in surprise at finding Kushina curled against him. Kakashi landed on the coffee table and smoothly rolled of the other side.
"Come on!"
"Is the sun up yet?"
"By the time it is, we'll be there!"
"Fine, but you're not walking into a minefield if you want to make it to graduation, understood?"
Kakashi opened his mouth to protest before reconsidering and agreeing reluctantly.
"Go get my pen and ink for sealing; it's in the bottom drawer of the dresser just inside my bedroom door."
"But what about your security?"
"I'm in the house and conscious so it's deactivated. Now go!"
Kakashi raced to get what Minato needed. When he returned, Minato was standing by the door, dressed in his shinobi clothes but unarmed.
"My sensing range is very far. If I sense you setting a toe out of this house before I return, you won't be able to use Chakra or move faster than a civilian toddler until your father gets back. I have no qualms about using S-ranked seals on you so don't even test me."
"You're in a bad mood this morning," Kushina commented. "I'll have breakfast ready when you get back. Kakashi, you're going to help me."
Minato stepped out of the house and trudged towards Kakashi's home. Sure enough, he saw the seals plastered all over the house.
At first, he had no idea what they meant. After studying them for a moment, Minato closed his eyes and spread his senses, detecting the slightest traces of Chakra on the property. He followed one of them to a small house nearby and knocked loudly on the door.
"It is way too early for a damn salesman, who are you?" A man answered.
"Namikaze Minato, Jōnin of Konoha, may I come in?"
"You can dress up like a shinobi, but you have to give me some identification because you don't look the part."
Minato pulled out his ID card and showed it to the man, who stepped aside politely.
"I don't mean to be rude, but what would a Jōnin want at five in the morning?"
"You son was a part of a rather malicious prank on a classmate last night," Minato answered politely as he put away his identification.
"Masaru was here last night."
"Are you a shinobi, sir?"
"No, Namikaze-san."
"Masaru-kun is currently attending the Academy, correct?"
"Correct."
"Does Masaru-kun have more shinobi training than you?"
"Yes, Namikaze-san."
"So that means Masaru-kun could have left the house and returned without your knowledge, correct?"
"That is correct," the man gritted his teeth. "Masaru! Get up and come down here this instant!" He shouted. Footsteps sounded overhead and a second later, a boy trudged down the stairs. He froze in horror when he saw Minato.
"Who are you?"
"Namikaze Minato. Do you recognize the name?"
"You're the cool guy who visits the Academy and teaches a few of the specialty classes."
"Correct. Now do you know why I'm here?"
"No?"
"Remember that paper you signed when you began at the Academy? You promised to abide by the rules placed on shinobi stationed at home."
"I remember."
"How is sabotaging the wellbeing of your future comrade fulfilling your oath to assist and defend all residents of Konohagakure and its dependent villages?"
"I didn't sabotage anyone."
"Then why were you at the house of Hatake Kakashi last night?"
"What makes you think I was there?" The boy answered, crossing his arms defensively. "He's an arrogant bastard, so he deserved whatever he got."
"I was just there and I tracked the Chakra signatures that didn't belong."
"How do you know it wasn't my older brother? He's a Genin."
"Chakra signatures are very unique, it was you. Now, are you going to confess and apologize for what you did to Kakashi's house or are you going to find yourself a new village to live in?"
"You can't kick me out of Konoha!"
"Your little prank may have seemed innocent, but it is treason to act against a shinobi or a shinobi-in-training."
"You're bluffing," Masaru snapped.
"Am I?" Minato took out his sealing pen and pricked his finger, drawing a quick seal on his hand. "Do you know anything about Fūinjutsu?"
"It's just a useless bunch of squiggly lines, why?"
"What can it do?"
"The Academy teachers showed us some Fūinjutsu, but the explosion was pathetic. It can carry things too, but not very much."
"I've seen Fūinjutsu do some pretty amazing things, some of the most gruesome being turning a man entirely inside-out, but if you say so," Minato pressed his hand against the boy's head, leaving an imprint of the seal he drew on his palm. "If you're so confident Fūinjutsu is worthless, by all means I can activate this seal and we'll see what it can do before you go talk to the Hokage about whether breaking a vow and sabotaging a shinobi-in-training is treason. If not, you can clean up the fake seals you drew all over Kakashi's house with the rest of your co-conspirators before the Academy begins this morning and I won't report this incident."
The boy took off immediately.
"I understand that he must be disciplined for attacking a classmate, but did you really have to threaten to turn him inside out and to exile him?" The boy's father asked reproachfully.
"Do you know anything about Fūinjutsu, sir?"
"No, Namikaze-san."
"First, Fūinjutsu is one of the most dangerous branches of the shinobi arts and it is not to be used in jest. Second, he did commit treason. Placing seals, including fake ones, on the house of a Jōnin, especially one with a family is an attack on Konoha forces, no matter what the intent behind it was. It's a law that probably saved my life more than once. Finally, he expected me to scold him, take away privileges, or kick him out of the Academy in a worst-case scenario. The way I handled it, with every intent to punish him with the highest law as an adult, which I would have followed through with, took him off-guard. The lesson will be learned. Have a nice day, sir."
Minato vanished in a flash of yellow light, reappearing just inside his front door.
"What happened?" Kakashi asked as he watched Minato wash off the remaining ink in the kitchen's sink.
"Just a few of your classmates who dislike you tried to play a prank."
"It was just a prank?" Kakashi asked skeptically.
"Yes, a very tactless and inappropriate prank."
"I fell for a prank?"
"Everyone does, even your father and the Hokage himself has fallen for Kushina's pranks."
"You haven't."
"Actually, I do quite often, but I get myself out of it before it embarrasses me. There's a difference, Kushina's pranks don't have malicious intent behind them. You didn't overreact if that's what you're thinking."
"Teach me Fūinjutsu," Kakashi demanded.
"No," Kushina answered firmly. Even Minato appeared surprised by her vehemence.
"Fūinjutsu is not something to take on for revenge," Minato agreed, though less intense. Kakashi bristled, but bit back his argument as Minato looked down at him sternly. "I don't have a problem with teaching you anything, as long as you're learning it for the right reasons. Vengeance is not one of those reasons."
"I think it's perfectly fine to learn something to get back at someone," Kushina commented as she placed breakfast in Minato and Kakashi's hands. "But you're too young and arrogant to understand the intricacies and potential power or make it a serious part of your fighting style."
Kakashi settled into a pensive silence as his two elders began to bicker.
"Age has nothing to do with it Kushina, you were learning seals in the cradle and you were plenty arrogant when you were in the Academy, declaring you were going to be Hokage and everything even though your class rankings put you nearly as low as me," Minato retorted.
"At least I actually graduated, not cheated my way through the exam with excuses."
"I didn't cheat, I exempted them. Besides, I don't see you denying your arrogance."
"You were as arrogant as I was, always manipulating everything with your little chakra tricks. And by thinking we could take on four students and a nin-dog who graduated in the top half of the class with nothing more than a few slips of paper."
"It's not arrogance if it actually works!"
"Suit yourself," Kushina opened her mouth to take a bite when Minato flicked a piece of food straight past her fork, making her choke unattractively and toss her glass of water in Minato's face. Kakashi tossed two napkins at them and it turned into a three-way brawl, which didn't end until Kushina took pity on Kakashi for becoming Minato's human shield and stopped pelting the two of them with bits of unerringly aimed rice.
"You have a half hour before you have to be at the Academy, Kakashi. Do you still have a change of clothes in little closet I don't know what to do with, right?"
"It's a linen closet, Minato, for extra sheets and towels and blankets, not Kakashi's clothes and your weapon repair tools," Kushina rolled her eyes.
"Well, I don't have extra of any of that stuff so things are fine where they are."
Kakashi rolled his eyes as he left to clean up, annoyed by the fact he was the one covered with the most food, and Minato was only slightly damp from the water Kushina threw at him. Minato smirked at the boy's back before he used a water jutsu to clean up the room in a few seconds. The second he was finished, Kushina swept his legs out from underneath him. He landed flat on his back and while he recovered from the shock, Kushina sat across his hips and pinned his wrists above his head. He waited for her to speak, carefully keeping his eyes on her face as she leaned over him.
"You're not getting off that easy, Minato," she smirked. "What did the Hokage want with you yesterday?"
"Wouldn't you want to know?"
"Please?"
"It bothers you; of course I'm not going to tell." He vanished from underneath her and leaned against the doorway. "That was a clever try at catching me, but it won't work."
"Damn, why haven't you joined ANBU yet?"
"Because I want some cute Genin to torment first."
"Genin aren't cute. They're obnoxious."
"Whatever annoying they may be, it's nothing compared to what we were."
"Don't point it out!"
Minato stuck his tongue out at her while Kakashi tugged at his shirt. Turning his attention toward the boy, Minato waited for him to speak.
"Can we go early to the Academy?"
"Sure, any particular reason?"
Kakashi's forehead scrunched up.
"Fine, don't tell me. Let's go."