After they had left the Hokage's Office Hinata took Minato to her place. It was a house that was in the grounds of the old Uchiha Compound. It had been put up for sale when it was confirmed that Sasuke had been a part of Akatsuki and had taken over Otogakure. She had bought it at auction soon after she had renounced all ties to the Hyūga Clan so that her sister would have no political concerns about the Clan Elders trying to replace her, or about future successions. After much manoeuvring Hanabi, as Clan Head, along with Ino, the incumbent Hokage, declared that the Branch Clan was to be abolished and absorbed by the Main Branch. As there was now no longer any Branch Clan, there was no longer any need for the Hyūga Sōke no Juinjutsu, so it wasn't applied to Hinata when she left, nor were her memories wiped of the Hyūga secrets, so she was allowed to keep the name 'Hyūga' as her own.

When they arrived Hinata let them both in and said, "You can use the first room on the left when you go upstairs."

Minato rushed upstairs and flung the backpack that he had been carrying since he left the hospital onto the bed and went back downstairs. When he saw Hinata making some tea he sat down on one of the stools placed next to the bench dividing the kitchen area and the dining/living room. He said, "So…I don't mean to sound rude, or offend you by this, but…"

"Yes?" Hinata said, her tone informing Minato that she was unlikely to take offence at whatever he had to talk about.

"How long will I have to live here with you?"

"Ah. Well, technically the answer would be however long you want to. But you are required to live with a minimum of three months with me."

"Oh?"

"It's just standard protocol for all new entrants to Konoha. Of course, normally a jōnin would just keep track of your movements. Since you're just a kid though, you've been put under my care. So for all intents and purposes I'll be your guardian until you are done in the academy."

"My guardian?"

"Yes. It's little more than a title here in Konoha, but you'll need to get my permission to go on the various outings that the students go on."

"'S'at so?" Minato asked.

"Yes. For now though, you told the Hokage the ninjutsu that you can use, but I was wondering what you know about Konoha in general?"

"What do you mean?"

"In the first years in the academy the students are taught the history of the Konohagakure, along with some of the more prominent clans"

"Oh. No. I don't know anything like that," Minato said, his face dropping into a concentrated frown, trying to think on how he could learn these things.

Hinata smiled, thinking, 'Well, it would appear that he's not too much like 'him' after all. He must take after his mother then.' She said, "There's a book on the shelf over there," indicating the bookshelf against the staircase wall. "It's called The History of Konoha by Hyūga Katsuoka. It's not the academy textbook that you'll be using, but it has just about everything that you'll ever need to know about the village in it."

Minato looked through the bookshelf until he found the book that he had been told about and saw next to it 'The History of the Land of Fire, by Hyūga Aoko' and 'The History of Modern Konoha, by Hyūga Hinata.' Minato called out, "Hey all of these history books are written by members of some Hyūga family."

"Yes," Hinata said, "That would be because I took them with me when I left the Hyūga Clan's compound, although mine wasn't printed at the time."

"Yours?"

"Yes. It should be near that one I just told you about, 'The History of Modern Konoha."

Minato thought, 'She's Hyūga Hinata? That means that she knew Tōchan growing up. Maybe I should stick around here for a while after all,' as he walked over to the couch facing the television on the far wall and lay down and started to read. He stayed there for the rest of the day, turning one page then the next, getting through about a third of it by the time dinner came around. After dinner he went back to reading his book.

By that time the next week Minato had finished The History of the Land of Fire and The History of Konoha and was about to start on The History of Modern Konoha, but he found that that would have to wait because Hinata told him some good news. He was being let into the Konoha Ninja Academy the following day.

XXXXX

The next day Minato easily figured out the class naming system used and rocked up to the class that he was told that his classes would be held. He knocked on the door and waited for it to be opened to let him in. He was about to bang on the door impatiently when he heard a faint voice say, "Now today we have ourselves a new student coming into the class." Then the door opened and he was let in. The owner of the voice that he had heard said, "This is Uzumaki Minato and, as I said, from today he will be joining our classes."

A girl with a fox kit sitting on top of her head called out, "He looks kinda flaky."

Minato blurted, "Hey! I'm no breakfast!" almost all of the class exclaimed in confusion as the cereal that Minato was referring to was named as such only in the Land of Demons. In Konoha it was called something else.

"Well…that's…nice…" The teacher said. "At any rate, Minato, this is the class that you'll be joining and they've been together for almost half a year now, so I'd like you to tell us a bit about yourself before you take a seat."

"Okay," Minato said. "My name's Uzumaki Minato and I'm…" Minato thought, 'Come on, come on, say something cool! Ah! That'll sound awesome!' "…gonna become Hokage!"

The class burst into laughter as the teacher thought, 'Geh, troublesome.'

The girl with a fox on her head blurted, "Hah! You, Hokage! Gimme a break! Setsuko has more chances of being Hokage then you!" and burst into laughter. She said, "I bet you don't even know why the village is called Konoha."

Minato said, "There is a popular belief that this village is referred to the Village Hidden in the Leaves due to the forest surrounding it, but that is incorrect. In actual fact, it goes back to before the Hidden Village System was founded by one of the men responsible for building Konoha during the Clan Wars. There was a very large and powerful clan that opposed the idea of creating a hidden village full of shinobi clans. They were referred to as the Clan of the Frond, the Adachi. They fought against the, til then, coalition of shinobi clans, forming them into one single force that easily put down the rebellion. In commemoration of that enemy that caused the various clans to come together, the founding fathers decided to call this village The Hidden Leaf."

The teacher thought, 'That's completely correct, though not the answer that is given in the second-year textbook. So how does he…I'll have to talk to the Hokage about this.'

XXXXX

At the end of the day Minato rushed back to Hinata's house and flung his bag on his bed before running back downstairs and flopping onto the couch, opening the book that he had been wanting to read even before he had started on the other two, but unable to put either of them down. It took longer than he would have liked because the second book, ran on from the first. That was when a messenger ninja appeared in a puff of smoke outside the door and knocked. Hinata put down the book that she had been reading herself and went to the door and opened it. When she saw the mask with a snake design etched into it she thought, 'ANBU?' and said, "What does the Hokage want?"

'Snake', said, "Ino-sama would like to talk to you concerning your…guest…Hyūga-dono."

Hinata said, "That's my sister."

"I'm sorry Hyūga-don…uhh…!" as a sweatdrop somehow appeared on the forehead of the mask that the man was wearing. Minato started to chuckle at the ease with which Hinata had flustered the ANBU within seconds, only ever having known his father and his sister to have the ability to do the same. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke, not knowing how to extricate himself from the hole that he was digging.

Hinata said, "Minato, I shouldn't be too long."

"Sure thing," Minato said, starting to read as his guardian shut the door.

Not even one minute later Hinata was standing before the Hokage in her office. She said, "Hokage-sama?"

Ino sighed and said, "I thought I said…" she sighed again. "You know what? It doesn't matter. What does is what Minato-chan did today."

"Oh? What was that?"

"According to Kai, Minato made the rest of the students look like morons, though in the process made himself out to be the class fool."

"Excuse me?" Hinata asked as she couldn't see how someone could do both at the same time.

"The answers that he was giving in the revision session were right, but he would have had to have access to information unavailable to the other students to give them. Because they weren't in the academy textbook. Would you care to explain how he knows the exact reason that our village is called the Village Hidden in the Leaves?"

"Well, it's simple really. When he was put into my care last week, as you know, his knowledge about Konoha and the Land of Fire in general was incredibly lacklustre, to say the least. So I just gave him access to some of the books in my house."

"Which books?"

"'The History of Konoha', 'The History of the Land of Fire' and he was just getting started on 'The History of Modern Konoha' when you had me come here."

"Oh good grief," Ino said, covering her eyes with her hand. She asked, "He got through them in a week?" having attempted to read both books herself and she hadn't finished both volumes after a month. "Wait…The History of Modern Konoha? What is that? I haven't heard of it."

"Well…" Hinata said, scratching the back of her neck. "I…kind of wrote it myself."

"Huh? You did?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"Oh…it would have been about five or six years ago now."

"Five or six…wait…you didn't…what years does it cover?"

"Very astute Ino," Hinata said, a shark-like smile on her face. "It covers the years from when The History of Konoha finished up to the start of your reign."

"The…" Ino said, her eyes widening. "Oh no! He can't!" Ino glared at Hinata and said, "How could you Hinata?"

"I was just being as exacting, factual and objective as possible in my recount. Just like my grandmother and my great grandmother were in theirs. Besides, doesn't he have a right to know what happened to his father here? Along with the fallout?"

"Do you really think that putting that into print will help the village in any way?"

"If it was given to a publisher? I have no doubt that it would do anything other than tarnish the village's reputation irreparably."

"Then why?"

"Because, I have the only copy, and it has always been the belief of the Hyūga that all of history must be recorded, the good and the ill. That's why you will find histories within the Hyūga library that you won't find anywhere else. Well…come to think of it, that would imply that there is a similar work within the Hyūga library, wouldn't it?"

Ino hung her head, clasping both sides with her hands, supported by her elbows on her desk. She said, "Then there's two copies?" her voice laced with pain.

"Not copies. Separate works with similar content. There is a difference," Hinata indignantly said, having read her father's work. After she was done, she found that she disapproved of the work so much that she felt that she could no longer reside within the Hyūga clan, or associate herself with it with anything close to resembling pride. So she left, retaining only her name.