Sorry these are getting smaller, I'm just getting back into my stride and just stopping at natural pauses.

Oh, and I do make a habit in responding to all of my reviews so I WILL reply to the backlog of comments when I can. Thank you I do appreciate i'm just REALLY busy!

Lonski.

Chapter Seven.

Which one's the okay one?

"This is useless!"

They had gained unlimited access to the great Library and had been searching high and low for almost a week and despite the odd objection and any breaks Kushina took, Minato was surprised she had stuck at it for so long and had not tried to run away or find another method of uncovering another trail to follow.

"Hmm." Minato responded from behind the heavy book he had perched on a stand before him.

They were supposed to be working with the rest of the team assigned with the same task however after many protestations of them all being 'geeky creeps' Minato separated himself with Kushina with the parting order for the rest of the team to inform them of any discoveries. There had been none. Yet. He reminded himself, yet. Minato was worried about Kushina, while they were together, she seemed able enough to focus on the work at hand but when he took a day away to train his team before the three were sent on a mission away from the Village, she hadn't even been able to read a single book or scroll and instead had spent the entire day reading and re-reading Anko's file for anything she may have missed about the girl. Despite her claims that the girl would not betray Konoha, it seemed that Kushina had niggling doubts which would not go away.

He was not a selfish man in any regard he hoped and sometimes believed however, he had begun to pray more than he had done since they had before that they would find something, anything soon. Ever since he was told he was to be despatched on a mission with his teammates upon their return within the next few days. He was afraid for Kushina, he could not predict what she would do if he was to leave for an innumerable amount of days. The worst part was he hadn't told her he was leaving. He didn't know how.

"You'd think they'd make these things easier to read!" Kushina hissed as she carefully unravelled a large scroll they found in the medical section. Even with her skills in making and breaking it had taken her half a day to break the seal upon it, they did not know what the scroll was about but with such a difficult seal upon it, the prospects seemed good.

"What is it?" Minato asked as he peered over the book he had just closed and blinked through the curtain of dust he unwittingly had made with his eagerness.

"Ugh. Not what we're looking for." Kushina muttered as she read the many intricate symbol and diagrams on the yellowed scroll. "Interesting though, it's a kind of sealing system for holding down moving things. Supposed to work like chains or an anchor or something…" Kushina continued as she peered closer until her nose touched the parchment and she backed away suddenly to sneeze. "Need to find another, not what we need." She muttered as she teetered on another sneeze.

"And to put that back where you got it." Minato replied as he moved back to where he had sat before he ducked from her sneeze.

She sniffed as she re-rolled the scroll and held it under her arm to take back with her. "Joy of joys. Same section do you think?"

Minato nodded thoughtfully, "We're most likely to find something good if it's a difficult seal."

"Hmm… Hopefully I won't need another scroll to unlock the next one I find this time. I'm gonna need glasses after this I hope you know. I'll need a stick and everything just to move properly."

Minato smiled but it did not feel as though it reached his eyes, he hoped she would only read it as tiredness and not worry for something other than about Anko. When it came to reading people Kushina was one of the best, second only to her mentor Ibiki. The blonde stared fruitlessly at the back of the book he had recently closed and considered reading another book beside him. He did not think he would find anything useful in a book anyone could just open however if he took to scrolls like Kushina he would still be just as unlikely to find anything useful, fast. He wasn't as good at breaking seals as Kushina and so he reached for another book in the small hope that the author may have used it as a double bluff to hide their research findings.

"So what is it then?"

Minato felt as though he jumped a mile, for a ninja of his stature he felt quite ashamed for being caught so unawares by someone approaching him from a direction he did not expect.

"Eh?" He spluttered intelligently as he turned to look at a scroll-less Kushina leaning over him.

"You heard." She replies in a low tone.

"Nothing, the book was useless like you said." He turned away from her and reached to grab for another when he felt himself be pulled away from the book by a very, strong hand.

"I didn't mean that." Kushina replied as she pushed the book he reached for with her other hand.

"Hmm." Minato did not know what to say, it seemed almost ridiculous that he couldn't tell her, she could take care of herself, she wasn't stupid. She did stupid things however and that was the point, he mused. "I don't know what you mean."

She raised a thin eyebrow and growled, "You just did what I mean."

"I'm leaving you!" He exclaimed suddenly as his mouth seemed to take a life of its own, damned woman. Her other eyebrow followed the other in confusion, "I mean… I'm leaving Konoha in… A few days." He tried to recover from that ridiculous line. "I don't know how long for, I haven't been told what kind of mission it is, you know how it is." He finished weakly as he felt her grip on his shoulder tighten momentarily in what he hoped was not annoyance or pain.

"Is that all?" Kushina asked, still suspicious.

"I was worried you'd be…" He trailed.

"I'm fine" She said quickly as she released her tightening grip, "Do you know when?"

"Not exactly, when my team return from another mission, we go straight after that."

"Right. Well I'll go find another scroll and you just keep reading those books." Kushina waved her hand at the pile of books beside him.

"Yeah." He nodded. For someone as perceptive as she was, she was one poor liar.

This story keeps running away from me but even though the story is going in a direction I didn't predict or plan I still quite like where it's going. Tell me what you think, either way if you can. I'd love to hear/read what you have to say.

Lonski.