Minato: Introduction
Minato awoke to a deep-seated feeling of fatigue that saturated his body to the bone, which told him he'd succumbed to chakra exhaustion. The tight ache in his gut was an indicator of a mostly healed wound that had reached the to-scar-or-not-to-scar stage. However, his surroundings didn't smell like the hospital...
"Yogensha-sama, your guest has awakened."
"Arigatou, Gachoukuro-san!" That voice...
Minato opened his eyes, blinked twice and turned his head towards the rapid pattering sound of someone running in bare feet.
There was a black goose as big as an Inuzuka dog sitting by his knee. It had to be some king of summon, although the blond journin had never heard of a goose contract. That was both a relief and a problem; he may not have been captured by enemies, but they definitely weren't Konoha's allies either. Who exactly were these people?
"Ah, Nato-san!" It was the girl with the starry eye-sockets. "I brought food!" She held out a bowl of what smelled like miso soup.
"Arigatou, saotome," Minato said uncertainly, "but I'm not sure I can sit up unaided right now." His abdomen twinged in agreement.
"Gomen nasai, Nato-chan!" she said, putting the bowl down next to the goose before kneeling behind his head and hooking her elbows under his armpits. "Ready? And up!"
The girl being rather small, Minato ended up with his head leaning against her shoulder and his shoulders in her lap. That was however enough to give him the needed leverage to drag himself into a sitting position without his healing abdomen protesting too badly. Once upright, he accepted the soup from his helper and drank it down slowly.
"Saotome, anata no namae wa nan desu ka?" he asked, putting the bowl down.
"Watashi-wa Yogensha Usei desu."
"Konnichiwa, Usei-chan. Watashi-wa Namikaze Minato desu, but I think you knew that already."
"Hai." Usei blinked innocently, briefly cutting off his view of the twin pools of starry night that semed to stare right through him. "I am yogensha, Nato-chan. It is not just my name."
Yogensha. Seer and prophet. "A kekkai genkai?" he'd never heard of eyes like hers. Not even the legendary rin'negan could see into the future.
Usei just smiled, a little girl with a secret. "I am nearly six years old, Nato-chan. I have been yogensha since I was three and a half and you are the person with the most important future I have seen so far."
"Could you please not call me that?" Minato pouted. "It sounds girly."
"If you don't want me to I won't, Mina-chan,"
Minato groaned theatrically. "That's even worse!"
Usei giggled happily at his antics then stiffened abruptly, the star-like points of light in her eyes flaring brightly:
"Namikaze Minato, journin of Konohagakure no sato, student of Jiraiya the Gama-sennin, heed my words. You are the linchpin of your village's future. Should you die before the war ends, Konoha will follow you to the grave."
Minato froze, suddenly intimidated by the soft, sweet voice speaking through the bright, bubbly child he'd just met.
"If you need help, little shinobi, ask for it." Usei rose smoothly to her feet and left, walking around the folding screen that separated the alcove Minato's bedroll was lying in from the rest of the cave.
"You get used to it," the goose commented.
"Pardon, Gachou-san?"
"She's not all there," the goose elaborated, briefly stretching its wings. "Comes with being yogensha; half the time she's seeing the past or possible futures. Hope you've got a plan, though;" it added, eying him narrowly, "she's always right."
Minato thought of his village, his recently-former genin team, his fellow ninjas and the woman he loved. If Usei was right -and it sounded unpleasantly likely- he really needed to get that damned jutsu finished.