Koromaru was trotting back to the dorm at a leisurely pace after he had gone on that journey to find Strega's base of operations. He was happy enough since no-one had actually bothered to follow him back home. He had been instructed to leave a device of some function at the base so that everyone else would know where that place was.

And what a place it was.

He barked three times at the dorm's doorsteps, waiting for someone to open the door. There was always at least one person at the dorm where he then lived, so he was sure that someone he knew would.

"Hey, Koromaru!" Minato smiled as he opened the door for the Shiba Inu. "Are you okay boy?" he asked as Koromaru padded over to his feet.

Koromaru let out a happy bark in response. "That's good Koromaru," he nodded before opening the door and letting him in.

"It's just Koromaru," Minato explained to Kanashi.

"He actually found it?" Kanashi grinned. Minato nodded back and then Kanashi looked at Koromaru with the same smirk. "Man, I'm starting to love this pooch!" he said as Koromaru stopped in front of his feet and nuzzled the side of his leg.

"Yeah, yeah, why don't you cuddle up, why don't you?" Kanashi muttered. "Anyways, so the next part of our three step plan has us scouting out their base of operations. And then lastly, we trash the place! How does that sound?" he grinned at Minato.

"Sounds like we're going good so far," Minato nodded. Surprisingly enough, Kanashi was proving himself to be a reliable guy. This plan of his was actually starting to work out, however loosely he outlined it. Minato decided that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Kanashi had to handle operations himself.

"Glad you agree! Because tomorrow, I wanna go and ride in to scout them out!" Kanashi proclaimed proudly.

Minato didn't realize that Kanashi wanted to do this so soon, but he figured that he might as well lend his help. Anything could happen while they were investigating an evil base full of villains and assassins after all. "I'm gonna come with you," Minato said intently.

"Why?" Kanashi asked with a scrutinising gaze. "I can do this on my own," he said.

"You might, but if you have me around I can help defend you when things get rough. I have a feeling they will," Minato explained calmly.

Kanashi narrowed his gaze and stared intently at Minato.

"Oh alright, you have a point, you have Persona, I don't," Kanashi sighed with frustration. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Minato was stronger than him. He could feel just how strong he was, and he didn't even need to throw a single punch or get someone hard with a bash from an elbow.

"Cool. But uh, how am I going to get there too? Just by sitting on the back of your bike?" Minato asked with a sceptical expression.

"Yeah, you have to. I'm driving!" Kanashi said. "And don't worry about it, I'm experienced with this kinda thing! I'm a pro driver," he smirked.

"That's good," Minato nodded. "Don't you think so too, Koromaru?"

Koromaru barked in reply with his tongue hanging out before padding over to the side of the couch and falling asleep. He was tired from all the travelling he had done.

"Pooch must be tired," Kanashi commented.

"Yeah," Minato agreed. "Now, I'm gonna go. I got stuff to do," he sighed.

"Like what?" Kanashi asked.

"Like this," Minato said, pulling out an envelope with a few stamps on it and a hand-written address.

"Ooh, who's it from?" Kanashi grinned mischievously.

"A friend of mine. I replied to her letter some days after the first day of school," Minato explained. "I got this just today." Minato looked upon the hiragana and kanji on the front of the envelope with a fond smile. He was looking forward to reading whatever that old friend of his had to say.

"You don't mind me asking, but… who is she?" Kanashi asked.

"She's a kid that I met around the shrine about a year ago. She moved away because of a divorce, but she still mailed me after she left when she got a chance," Minato said. "Her name's Maiko."

Kanashi took all of the information in, but once he had processed the information his eyes widened. "Wait, she's a kid?" he said with a smile, as opposed to the cheeky grins that he usually had on.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"I love kids! They're awesome!" Kanashi exclaimed.

Minato blinked once or twice. He never had Kanashi of all people pegged as a guy that liked kids. At all really. His usual demeanour would never let that on usually. "Hey, now I wanna see what she wrote!"

"Hey, it's from her to me specifically, not from her to you Kanashi," Minato protested.

"But I just wanna see what she wrote, that's it! It couldn't be anything that was embarrassing, right?" Kanashi grinned before he swiped the letter from Minato's grasp. Minato wanted to get that letter back, but then again… What could possibly be wrong about a letter from a little kid? So he relented and let Kanashi open it up.

"Alright, alright, but I wanna read it too," Minato sighed before moving to see what Maiko had written.

Dear Minato-nii—

"Dude, she calls you big bro?" Kanashi snickered.

"Hey, that's unofficial," Minato defended.

Kanashi and Minato read through the rest of the letter with a goofy grin and a small smile respectively, stopping at certain points. "Hey, she's planning to come back over for a little bit! That means that I could meet her. She sounds like a good kid," Kanashi commented.

"Yeah she is," Minato agreed. "Also, you wanna meet her?" he asked.

"Well yeah. She sounds way too awesome not to meet," Kanashi said.

"Alright, I guess you could tag along for a bit," Minato said, rolling his eyes.

I hope you haven't forgotten our faithful promise!

Love,

-Maiko

Minato froze as he read that sentence over and over again before he remembered. Ohhhh fuck. "Pfft, faithful promise dude? The hell is that?" Kanashi asked. Well of course he would catch that, Minato cursed.

Minato took a deep breath before explaining, "Before she left she said that she liked me enough that one day we should get married…"

Kanashi looked blankly at Minato before he burst into a fit of laughter. "Dude, you must be joking! But that sounds like something hilarious I could use for another trolling attempt," he chuckled.

Minato sighed exasperatedly. "Yeah, yeah of course. But considering that she's coming over in some few days, you can hear it from her," he said, a smile starting to crease his face once more as he thought about Maiko. He liked hanging out with her before. She was a strong girl, considering how young she was. He was glad that she was doing well so far.

"You bet I will son!" Kanashi declared.

…

True to Kanashi's word, Minato had been able to go with Kanashi to find out about the Strega base. Getting there was simply on the back of Kanashi's bike, but he was surprised to see that there was no-one to penalise them on something like that. Must've been pretty lucky.

"So, I guess this is the place," Kanashi nodded to himself as he turned off his bike.

"Huh, looks kind of like a mini-Tartarus," Minato commented as he looked the building up and down. "I'm actually kinda surprised that we never noticed this place before, considering how crazy it seems to look."

"Mini-wha?" Kanashi asked.

"Tartarus," Minato said patiently. "It's where the people in SEES used to go to train up to go toe to toe with powerful Shadows, which was what we fought against. Also the place where we went to go fight Nyx."

"Oh. Is that about as crazy as it was the last time?" Kanashi said quickly. Minato wasn't quite sure whether he was actually listening to his explanation. Oh well. If Kanashi somehow got left out of the loop in a discussion, it wasn't going to be his fault.

"Hm, I think it's been toned down," Minato said. There was a low lying tower, perhaps inconspicuous at first if you were just passing by. But if you ever stopped to look properly at it, there were multiple branches of smaller towers coming from the base, sticking out diagonally rather than straight up. Minato had no idea what kind of purpose they served than to make the tower even stranger than it needed to be. "That's saying a lot," he chuckled.

"So, we gonna scout out the place or what?" Kanashi said impatiently as he wore his hood up.

"Yup, let's get a closer look," Minato nodded as he pulled up his own. It was warm, but whatever. It was all for the sake of anonymity.

Surprisingly enough, there weren't that many people going in and out of the tower. Sure, there were a few hoods every now and then, but that was it. Of course, Kanashi and Minato took note of where the entrances were. There was one main one, but they decided that if they were going to attack, they probably wouldn't take the most obvious.

They settled on a back door that nobody seemed to go through. Granted, it was locked tight then, but they thought that if they could at least get past the door with some magic and an excessive amount of brute force, they'd be good to go.

"There isn't that much at all," Minato sighed with relief. "I think we've got everything. And now we should probably get out of here. I think I saw some cameras," he said, looking around the corner.

"Yup, probably should," Kanashi agreed. "Though it would be pretty funny if someone actually saw us and we had to start running away with a wacky chase scene on my motorcycle."

"Say that and it's gonna happen," Minato snapped.

Too late.

"Hey, get 'em!"

"Fuck," Minato cursed.

"Hey, at least we were ready for something like that!" Kanashi grinned.

So, what did they do once they were caught?

They ran like hell.

"Come on, buckle up blue hair, I ain't waiting around to get chased by a bunch of them ass-ass-ins!" Kanashi yelled.

"Hey, I'm almost done," Minato said as he put his helmet on. "Alright, then go!"

"Hell yeah, you're gonna get to see my pro driving skills!" Kanashi said excitedly.

"You mean you weren't doing your best before even though you were going at 90 kilometres!?" Minato shouted as they began to drive off at considerably higher speeds than before. Making Minato hold onto Kanashi's waist.

"Nah! I'm going at 200 like a fucking boss!" Kanashi replied over the roar over his Hayabusa.

"Hey, they're trying to catch up to us," Minato noticed as he barely looked back.

"Heh, they're gonna be left behind in the dust!" Kanashi said as he revved his motorcycle to go faster.

"I hope so," Minato sighed before looking ahead.

"Dude! Stop holding onto my waist goddammit!" Kanashi growled.

"What else am I supposed to hold onto then!? You're driving at 200!"

"Hold your own wei-"

"TRUCK!" Minato shouted.

On cue, Kanashi swerved out of the way safely. "That yell killed my eardrums, seriously bro, keep you-"

"KIDS!" Minato warned as he spotted a line of kids crossing the street.

Kanashi's eyes widened and he promptly pulled on the clutch, making a wicked turn but also blwoing some smoke into the teacher's face. "Sorry gramps!"

"ASSASSINS!" Minato pointed out the assassins that were quickly closing in behind.

"I told you before it's ass-ass-ins! Quick, I'll give you an opening for a punch so make me proud and gasp in awe at my peerless driving skills!" Kanashi said.

All in a blur, Minato somehow pulled it off.

When they got back to the dorm, there was one thing on his mind. He was never going scouting with Kanashi again.

AN: Aaaand done at about the speed of Kanashi's Suzuki. Okay, maybe not. Plz box me yo thoughts and imma see ya guys later.

Nights: Indeedly so. But the revelations are for later.
Haha, I feel like things could've gone better, but unfortunately I'm not as witty as the actual person. I guess, I also feel like that could've been done better though.
More like, what'll be done to him?
Thanks, and I will.

Yoshikunitsu: Aha, no. She's getting to be a goddess with sass and you don't wanna piss her off.
Yup! More for the OCs!
It's a problem, but hopefully he'll get around to fixing it, right?
I will, and yeah! Happy new years!

Raidou: Well, Kanashi can just be that annoying, can't he?
Yeah, I think so too! Little thing for everyone: Taka means hawk, and Tsume means claw.
Thanks!