As Muroshi noticed, Koumori is indeed Shisui's daughter Himiko from my one-shot, Shisui's Sacrifice. And now, on with the story!

Naruto: Tangles

Naruto blinked in puzzlement at the tall redhead with metallic gold eyes who had just let himself into the room. "Ahiru-san?"

The redhead winced. "That's not really my name. The other adults nicknamed me that because the younger children followed me around like ducklings when they were toddlers." He had a nice voice, warm and low. His face also looked naggingly familiar, though Naruto couldn't recall where he'd seen those features previously.

"Have we met before?"

The redhead winced again. "Just the once. I'll tell you about it as soon as I've deactivated the seal I'm wearing, okay?"

"You're wearing a seal?"

"Aa. It's a disguise seal; Usei-chan is very good at them."

"Usei?" Naruto asked.

The redhead smiled. "You know her as Ame. Usei's a nickname from when she was younger." He made a quick set of handseals and pressed his fingers to his forehead. A small seal appeared between his eyebrows and glowed for an instant then darkened to black. As it did so the red in his hair faded to corn gold and his eyes bled to the blue of summer skies. Naruto stared at his taller, older, more solidly built double. The only real difference in features was in the shape of the eyes.

"My real name's Minato," the older man said shyly. "I'm technically dead and I'm your biological father."

Naruto couldn't stop staring. "Tou-san?" he breathed, voice cracking. "How?"

Minato smiled a little, one hand rubbing the back of his neck in a reflexive gesture Naruto also used when put on the spot. "Well, I died sealing Kyuubi -sorry about how that turned out by the way- but Usei -Ame, whatever- wouldn't let me leave. Well, couldn't really. So I hung around as a ghost. About four years ago she worked out how to create a solid clone I could inhabit and well, here I am."

Naruto blinked. "Shintai bunshin variant?"

"Aa, that's right. She's working on making me a proper body of my own but it's a major project and she has a ton of other responsibilities."

The younger blond lunged for the older one. "Tou-san!"

Minato hugged him closer, ignoring the tear stains accumulating on the front of his kosode. "Shh, sochi. I'm here; I've got you. You've grown up into a wonderful young man; your mother would be so proud of you. Especially of all those pranks. She was an incorrigible prankster in her day, was Kushina-chan. You have her Uzumaki temper as well. Shh, It's all right; I'm here now. I'm sorry for not finding you sooner."

"Not your fault;" Naruto sniffed, wiping his face with a handkerchief as he got himself under control again. "It was Madara-teme who started the stupid Kyuubi business in the first place."

Minato chuckled quietly. "Oh so true. I did want to come and find you as soon as I got this body but Ame wouldn't let me. She pointed out that I'm rather unusual-looking and my death was very public, so my coming and taking care of you publicly could have caused all manner of mess. Plus she was taking care of you as much as was possible already. So I agreed to take care of this brood of hers in her absence." the former Yondaime looked wistful. "They all call me 'tou-san' but it isn't quite the same as when you say it. I'm also very glad she told you about me. I really should have written a more detailed will."

Naruto grinned mischievously. "If you're their tou-san and Ame's their kaa-san, why is she getting married to Kakashi-sensei?" he asked innocently.

"Brat!" Minato spluttered, face flushing scarlet. "I'm a good seventeen years older than she is!"

"You don't look it," Naruto pointed out. "You barely look twenty three. Hell, you look younger than Sensei and he's marrying her."

"That's because I've been dead for the past thirteen years. The dead don't age, even if they're wearing clones."

"Does that mean you are younger than Kakashi-sensei now?"

"No. I'll never be younger than Kakashi," the elder blond said firmly, lips twitching slightly at Naruto's teasing. "I looked after him from when he was a genin at five up until he joined ANBU at fourteen, just before I died. He was like a son to me and always will be."

"so then," Naruto drawled wickedly, "My kaa-san is getting married to my adoptive nii-san despite my tou-san and kaa-san already having another twelve kids younger than me that they're raising together. That's a twisted family dynamic. Add that you, tou-san, are technically younger than my nii-san even though you practically raised him and, well..."

Minato covered his face with one hand. "Just stop. Please?" he begged, voice slightly muffled. Naruto could practically taste the embarrassment though. The young jinchuuriki decided to alter his plan of attack. He needed this out in the open; Ame-kaa-san was the most important person in his life short of his team-mates and he needed to know where his father stood with her, propriety be dammed.

"You love her."

"Minato moved his hand and looked down to meet Naruto's eyes. "I do. She's a very special person and a true friend. I owe her my continued existence."

"Yes, that too but that isn't what I meant; you're in love with her," Naruto persisted, half a lifetime of geisha training in emotional sensitivity backing up his hunch.

The older blond stiffened, face closing down to bland serenity. "Naruto," he warned.

"I need to know, okay? You may be my father but she was the one who raised me. Via a clone, but still. She says she's in love with Kakashi-sensei and I know he's head over heels for her, they're getting married and already have three adorable little babies who make your insides go squishy by just looking at you. But even though Ame-kaa-san is definitely my mother Kakashi-sensei is more of a mentor and big brother than a real father figure, especially with how he trains us. He doesn't act like a parent except on specific occasions, like first kills. But now you're here and you feel like my tou-san and everything's sideways," Naruto burst out, arms waving wildly and voice rising to a wail at the end. "I just want to know where I fit."

Minato closed his eyes and sat carefully on the sofa. Naruto joined him, leaving a careful distance between them. It had been a terrible question to ask someone, but Naruto wanted to be certain that this was going to work before committing himself. He been let down by everyone except Ame; caution was perfectly valid under the circumstances.

"Sochi, the first time I met Ame she was five. I was twenty two and very much in love with Kushina-chan, your biological mother. We spent about five days together, in which time I learned she was a seer, a fuuinjutsu prodigy, very friendly and an oddly innocent little girl who had suffered great trials with surprising fortitude. The next time I saw her was barely a year later, Kushina was dead -I was dead- you were orphaned and out of my reach and I had just sealed the Kyuubi in you. I was also a ghost bound to the mortal plane and the only person I could interact with was this six-year-old child who could talk to gods and demons and considered time to just be another direction of travel." Minato paused for a moment, piercing Naruto with a freezing stare. "To pass the time I agreed to teach her everything I knew, ninja-related or otherwise. Death released me from all oaths, after all.

"I spent the next seven and half years in and out of her head; in her mindscape I could physically affect my surroundings and actually do things, which made it easier not to go completely insane. I actually had a home in there. I taught her everything I knew, everything about myself and learned more about her than anybody else living or dead; we were almost family, strange as that sounds. Then she hit puberty and her guardian was forced to leave her."

"Then what?" Naruto ventured after a short pause.

"She was already a maiko by then. Not long after she turned fourteen and had been a woman for a few months her Okaa-san declared her ready to join the geisha sisterhood, which meant loosing her virginity and an introduction to sex," the older blond said flatly. "Except her surrogate father-figure had just left her and the only male she trusted with her person in a situation requiring such vulnerability was me."

Oh. That's... kinda like it was for me, really. It goes weird in my head when I think about the fact I had sex with one of kaa-san's clones. But I think I see where tou-san's story is going. "She made you a temporary clone body, didn't she?"

Minato nodded jerkily. "It wasn't the first time; She did it annually, as it took a great deal of effort. I'd been incorporeal for most of eight years and hadn't been physically involved with anyone since Kushina-chan. Then to have her ask me that..." he paused. "I couldn't refuse. I owed it to her and I didn't really mind. But to go from being unable to even touch cold stone to a week of bedroom fun and light-hearted outings in restaurants and pleasure parks is a massive shock to the system. A whole week of incredibly intense sensation and emotional intimacy. Then the clone ran out and I was incorporeal again." He sagged against the sofa back, staring blindly at the ceiling. Naruto cautiously laid his head against his father's upper arm, offering what comfort he dared.

"On a different note, I am not going to comment on your alter ego's choice of profession, given your actual age," Minato said in rather bemused tones, "although I feel compelled to commend you for your stealth. Just don't tell anyone for a few years, please? I want blackmail material on as many people as possible by the time my own identity comes out."

"Sure. What happened next?"

Minato sighed. "For almost a year, nothing. Then when she was fifteen and a half she finally managed to create a body I could use indefinitely; this one, as it happens. We were completely separate people for the first time in almost a decade. Then she got a new mission that I couldn't join her on. So I stayed with the Kamen children and a shintai bunshin -one like Hibana who expressed a fragment of her true personality rather than an echo of the whole- while she went away to help others and spy on Madara. Who is now dead, thank the kami. Anyway, I found myself missing her terribly. The bunshin -who went by Kasumi and was unmade not long ago- was more like a sibling or cousin of hers than a true copy, lacking both her quirks and her intelligence. It would have been lonely without a dozen terrors running around the place wanting to learn how to be ninja." He lapsed into silence again, this time staring at the floor. Naruto let the quiet drag. This conversation had become painfully personal, requiring skills usually employed by Benihime rather than his usual ninja repertoire.

"She'd been gone a year when the dreams started," Minato went on eventually, voice barely a whisper, "and I had to admit to myself that I'd fallen for her. Not to mention the fact that there was no way she could possibly be unaware of it, given her abilities. I felt terrible. I'd always felt she was like a little sister to me, or perhaps an exceptionally precious student since she is technically my successor in all things save blood. But no, I had to fall for her. Worst of all, I knew it wasn't to be: her kekkai genkai is so wild only her true soulmate can anchor her and if that had been me she would have told me sooner and not left me behind in the first place. Then she found Kakashi, which only confirmed it, but I still couldn't put it behind me.

"She is still the only woman since Kushina to make me feel like this," he rasped, head bowed. Naruto caught a glimpse of tears and ducked under his father's elbow to hug him fiercely.

"Gomen nasai," he whispered. "I shouldn't have asked. I'm really, really sorry for prying."

Minato hugged him back just as hard. "I still have you though," he murmured hoarsely. "You will find, Naruto-kun, that some things simply are, and a person has to learn to live with them, no matter how painful they may become."

Notes

Shintai bunshin = flesh clone kinjutsu

sochi = son

A/N: Naruto finally gets to meet Minato! Poor former Yondaime has developed some kind of Stockholm Syndrome variant. Oh dear. Everyone note that Minato is doing his best not to think about his son's choice of profession, although he has had quite a long time to get used to the idea.

A/N2: Ten-Tailed-Tiger123, I rarely use cliffhangers, but the end of the last chapter required it.