A/N: I'm so happy I could cry. I'm just so happy that nobody flamed me (yet). I was very shocked when I opened my mail inbox and saw about 36 favs, alerts and reviews. I should warn the people who are reading that I will try my hardest not to bash anyone because I respect all the character's personalities, intentions and the like so if you like to see characters like Sakura get bashed, I really advise you not to read… So sorry! By the way, did you know that Second Life is actually the name of the game the manga/novel ½ prince revolves around?
Dante Siegfried 888- He is NOT going to be a loud mouth idiot. I'm not going to let that happen. I really like Naruto's character, especially his personality but the one thing I do not like is that the mangaka made him an idiot. I know this contradicts me saying I respect their characters but I feel really sad when such an incredible character is used for comic relief when he does impossibly stupid things. But he is not going to be a genius exactly because Minato does not want them to know he is…well… him basically so I am writing this sentence as an apologia to you if this really puts you off. If it is any consolation, he will not end up dead last and fail because he IS Minato after all.
I love cute things- But what if my sentences are really really long? Do I still put 3-4 paragraphs or do I shorten the paragraph to 2-3 sentences? And…um… what do you mean by paragraphing again when someone is ending their speech?
Chapter 2: Misgivings and Discovery
Minato watched his breath frost in front of him as the pounding of his footsteps echoed in his ears. His lungs felt like they were about to burst and his leg muscles were screaming for rest. The pain in his chest had extended to his shoulders and midriff as the night grew longer. He could feel something cold and sticky trickling down his body as he ran, the origins of the liquid making themselves known by sending occasional bursts of pain through his battered and bruised body. Some of the wounds had even been cauterised by some of the more sadistic assailants and although it stopped the bleeding, the ninja who had done it using a fire jutsu were actually aiming to torture him.
Minato glanced up at the sky, noting that daybreak was drawing closer and the weekly rite of beating him up was nearing its end. The sound of his own ragged breathing filled his ears as his 8 year old self ran through the streets and alleyways, searching for a reprieve from the beatings. As he collapsed on the outskirts of training ground 7, he once again found himself doubting Konoha. Over the years he had oftentimes wondered why he had even sacrificed himself for the village in the first place but shrugged it off and remembered all the wonderful memories of the place with Jiraiya, Kushina, his team, and the list went on.
This night was different because they were never this aggressive on normal days before; and they normally stopped chasing him at around 1 AM but they seemed very persistent that night because he could tell it was nearing dawn. He felt the pain in his body subside into a dull ache that was forgotten as he lost himself in reverie and, staring up at the waning moon partially obscured by the clouds, he absently tugged on the choker around his neck, fiddling with the diminutive tri-pronged kunai on the end of it.
Minato had no idea how it had gotten there but it had been there when he woke up after finding himself in the orphanage. He had tried countless times to remove it but it proved too stubborn to get rid of so he had resorted to trying to cut it off but alas it was all in vain. He thought the pendant was ironic and although it could work as a fully functioning blade, he found that it didn't hurt him in any way, even when one of the mobsters grabbed it and tried to dismember him with it on 'his' birthday.
The beatings were especially harsh on his birthdays and even the word harsh did not do justice to the severity of the attacks on that particular day and although he did not want to pass himself off as delusional, there were just too many precious memories about the place he wanted to preserve to hate them. Besides, his anger and spite usually dispersed not long after the beatings anyway. He thought it strange but never questioned why.
Hiruzen acted as a grandfather figure to him, giving him monthly allowances and visiting him occasionally but despite the law that was passed, people still spoke about it albeit discreetly. Cessation of the beatings had not occurred despite his threats but Minato was grateful that escalation hadn't either. He had been enrolled into the Ninja Academy courtesy of Hiruzen but the teachers scorned him and made attempts to stunt his learning process as much as possible, not that he would let them have the satisfaction of seeing him drop to the position of dead last.
He had played his cards well and was now somewhere in the middle of the class in ranking, although the reports always depicted him as the Dead Last. He was careful not to do anything that would link him to his previous self but it was especially difficult not to just rear his head and pound his sparring partner into the ground instead of taking a fair amount of beating due to him always being paired up with Sasuke, the Prodigy. The teachers had always hoped that Sasuke would 'put the demon in its place'. Minato sighed involuntarily, knowledgeable of Sasuke's ignorance of being used for their so called revenge.
He had also been burning midnight oil, researching ways to bring Kushina back from the dead but so far his efforts had proved fruitless. He had also conducted experiments to see if he could use his old techniques in his new body but chalked it up to the body not being ready for the strain of the jutsus when he failed to produce favourable results, driving him to train himself to exhaustion whenever he was away from prying eyes.
The sounds of shouting and heavy footsteps in accompaniment with the clanking of weapons broke Minato out of his stupor as he pushed himself up and hightailed out of the clearing before they could catch him. As he directed them back to the streets. He took a wrong turn in his haste despite knowing the pathways like the back of his hand, and found himself in a dead end. He about-faced and was about to sprint out of the alley when his muscles refused to obey his commands anymore, and, cursing his amateurish mistake, he wished for the millionth time that he still had his old body and the Kyuubi never attacked.
He could feel himself growing lightheaded and the dour alleyway started blurring due to the amount of blood he had lost via the multiple wounds he had suffered. The sounds of the mob drew closer and yet he could do nothing about it. He cursed his helplessness and inability to do anything and tried to ignore the buzzing in his body as he tried to force his limbs to move. Through the numbing cold and the injuries wrecking havoc on his pain receptors, he felt his back collide with the wall as darkness began to fill the corners of his already hazy vision.
Without registering what he was doing, he brought one of his mangled arms and gripped the pendant on his choker tightly in his hand as if his life depended on it, causing a thin thread of blood to trail down his hand, still wishing desperately that he still had his old body. Before he knew what was happening, warmth blossomed through his abused body and dulled the pain and chased away the cold fingers of winter. The sudden focus allowed Minato to check his body to find the source of the comforting feeling but when he did conduct a quick check, he found that the baggy clothes he was wearing was suddenly too tight fitting and the ground seemed further away than it was before.
Sensing something odd, he turned to the window embedded in the back door of a shop and couldn't help but allow a sharp intake of breath. There was a significant lack of whisker marks, he was taller, and was basically back in his old body and looking as if he hadn't aged a day since the attack. He hastily used Hiraishin and flashed to the top of the Shodaime's head on the Hokage Monument, remembering that he had once put a Hiraishin seal there because it was the one place where he felt closest to the vast sky. Being there had a calming effect on him and he settled down on the carving to ponder what had just occurred.
His mind played back the events of the attack starting from the when he left himself vulnerable by running into the alleyway. He was thinking so hard you could practically see the gears turning in his head. He didn't even notice when the sun came up and bore down imperiously on Konoha, signalling the start of a new day as the people below him busied themselves with their morning preparations.
Theorising that it had something to do with the choker and his desire coupled with the visualisation of his old body, he decided to experiment. Minato closed his eyes and tried visualising the form he had been in for the past 6 years and immediately experienced the same explosion of warmth throughout his body. Upon opening his eyes, he took note that he was back in the form everyone in Konoha knew but loathed. The other thing that he noticed was that somewhere and somewhen between his old body and his new one, the injuries he had sustained had disappeared.
This new development proved to be useful and yet complicated things for him. He had been trying desperately to hide who he really was and now he discovered that he could return to his old self. The years of abuse and beatings he suffered came washing over him, causing him to rethink trying to resume office as the Hokage again. No. He decided to wait and let Konoha prove itself to be the prestigious and harmonious village it was meant to be. Until then, he would keep up the façade and would not help unless his village was entering war or turbulent times.
After making this mental vow, Minato then proceeded to make his way back home and prepare for the Academy, considering letting himself skive once and pull a Shikamaru by sleeping in class. He was troubled by how he was supposed to find clothes for his original body but found himself weighing the option of letting his last surviving student, Kakashi, know about his existence but decided against it as he rushed to the Academy because the fewer the number of people who knew, the better. And the current headcount was 1: himself.
A/N: I think there will be mistakes in here without a doubt so please correct me. I haven't had time to go and search for a betareader so… I hate it when the internet gets all 'laggy' on weekends. It's really annoying… By the way, there might be some inconsistencies in this because I'm really out of it today and I can't seem to remember what it is I want to type after 3 seconds… Oh and I said it was winter in Konoha but there was no snow. You'll probably criticize me on that. Well, you know how in the entire Naruto anime I have never seen snow in Konoha but princess Koyuki's dad told her about spring so I assumed they have seasons in the elemental countries so I thought that Konoha might be like Singapore where we don't have winter per se. Winter comes but there is no snow. It just rains A LOT. We call it the monsoon season anyway if you're curious…