Poor Minato. He never gets to do his Rasen Senkou Chou Rinbu Kousan Shiki.

(Naruto ch. 641)

- Lana Del Rey: "Blue Jeans" (Born to Die)

35. Bitten Necks and Rushing Blood

The fourteenth of February was for many people spent on cafés, restaurants or spots in the parks. For Minato, he had forgotten such a date meant something different than any other days of the year until he walked out of the door and passed the many men buying flowers from the Yamanaka flower shop and boxes of chocolate from the local. He made a mental note to buy something for Kushina as well when he got back from the mission outside the village, but had quickly managed to forget and ignore the ruckus around him.

To him, Valentine's day had been nothing but a meaningless set-up – and he had probably received more chocolate than any girl could ever dream of.

He avoided the main streets, moving to the quieter, less crowded branches of Konoha. A chilly February breeze sneaked through the streets, sending goosebumps up his skin. Their team would usually meet up by the same bridge whenever they had missions, but they had agreed to meet by the front gate this time, seeing as they were going with several chuunin as well. Minato failed to express well enough just how glad he was to be in charge of the mission, what with two genin strolling along with them; somehow, it made him think everything would go easier as long as he didn't have to ask for permission to do anything, but just do whatever he felt best at once. Yet the anxious feeling that had appeared the day before when he spoke to his team had yet to disappear.

He sighed and looked up at the rustling leaves. He had always preferred the warmth.

After registering their leave and estimated time of return, the company of eleven shinobi picked up whatever possessions they had put down and turned to leave the village. Minato only pulled the sleeves of his jacket up, finally feeling the sun having its effect on him. With one last look at Kakashi, Obito and Rin, who looked anxiously back, he announced take-off and led five chuunin, three jounin and two genin through the gates.

The walk was long enough. The Fire Country was large, and as they headed North-East, they realised just how large it really was. It was well past mid-day when Minato could sense the barriers that had been detected earlier, and as the barriers drew closer, he stopped and signalled for the three jounin to step forward.

"You were here when these barriers were discovered, am I right?" Minato asked a tall, dark-haired man who looked like he wanted nothing more than to go back to bed. But that might just have been his appearances.

"That's right," the jounin said drowsily, continuing as he understood what Minato was after. "We used disclosure techniques to make it easier to find today. We've also done some analyses, and we're not sure how to break it because the barrier's completely strange to us, but we've prepared a few ways."

Minato nodded his approval and stepped aside to let the three jounin do their job.

"How come it's difficult to break something we know's there?" Obito asked, both he and Rin coming closer as the jounin began to perform different sets of seals.

"Because we don't know the structure of the barrier," Minato explained, watching closely as well. "Once you know the foundation, you can make the appropriate force to break through it."

"So it's a lot like poison and antidotes?" Rin said.

Minato smiled. "Yep."

It took well over fifteen minutes before the three jounin managed to force their way through the barrier. There was a flash of blue light where their hands touched the invisible structure, and the barrier started to crack up.

"Huh," Minato said, observing how the cracks quickly spread and shattered the barrier. "I've never seen a barrier physically break ..."

"It's not a barrier used by Konoha shinobi, that's for sure," the female jounin said with a serious expression. "I've never seen anything like it."

The small pieces of the barrier fell to the ground like crystals, making the grass glitter in various colours. Minato walked forward, carefully treading on the remains of the barrier. It broke underneath him like glass.

"Well, with that done, let's continue," Minato said. "Obito, Rin, Kakashi, keep close to me."

As the three hurried to catch up, Minato crouched and spread out the same map he had shown them the day before, only now, the circled area was split up in different sections. The other ten shinobi crouched around him to study the map.

"Haruka, Kiri and Juukai," Minato said, looking up at the three young chuunin and pointing at the section they were currently in. "Search this area. Nana –" he looked at the female jounin, who stood with a brown-haired chuunin, "- area two. That leaves area three for you –" he looked at the drowsy jounin and his chuunin companion, "- and Kakashi, you'll be going with Irino to area four."

He folded the map and stood up.

"Report back here when you're done. If it's urgent, don't wait for me, but send me a clone and get back to the Hokage as soon as possible."

The ten shinobi nodded, and Minato signalled for everyone to start.

They had spent the last hour walking, unable to find anything worth separating from the rest of the world with a barrier. Minato was starting to get slightly frustrated by the fact that this might be the second time he was sent to find children in an area that had nothing to do with them, especially after hearing Kakashi announce on the speaking device that they had cleared area four and was heading back to their start position.

"Why would someone put up a barrier without something to hide?" Rin asked from where she was walking fifteen feet away.

"It might be an old barrier, few walk here these days," Minato said, turned to Obito, and shouted, "Obito! Don't walk too far off."

Obito turned and said something that could distantly sound like, "yeah, yeah …", but had not taken more than one step before his body fell through the ground.

"Obito!" Minato shouted and set off in a sprint towards the place where Obito had disappeared, Rin squealing and following. He slowed down and grabbed Rin before she could run past him, approached the hole carefully, girl shivering anxiously behind him.

Suddenly, two hands appeared, and Obito hoisted himself up enough so they could see the large grin on his face.

"Sensei, I found something," he said eagerly. "Get down here."

Rin let out a relieved sigh, and Minato looked down the hole where Obito had fallen through. There was a room down there, a dark, grey and smouldering room. The floor, walls and roof were of wood which had with time started to rot, some places worse than others.

"Seems like you found a weak spot," Minato said. "Good job, Obito."

Despite not having actually discovered the place on purpose, Obito smiled and dropped himself down again. Minato waved for Rin to follow and jumped down himself.

Straightening up, he saw he stood in the midst of a lab room. There were tables along the walls where most of the possessions one would normally find in a lab had been removed, except from those items that were broken or otherwise useless. There were two sinks, green of algae, and glass cupboards containing only dust.

"This hasn't been used in some time," Obito said quite unnecessarily, wiping dust off a table with his forefinger. Minato placed a thumb on the wall and activated a bit of chakra. Closing his eyes, he could picture the rest of the lab from the doors leading from the room they were in.

"It's huge," he finally said. "It goes a long way out of this area. Everything is within the barrier, of course."

"Let's find out more," Obito said eagerly. "Are there anyone else here?"

"Nope," Minato said, removing his hand from the wall. "Seems like the others have returned to area one. But don't enter any rooms without my permission."

With some power, he managed to open another door, which seemed to have grown to the walls. The room was larger, containing empty cages. It was too dark for them to see anything else; the lights, unsurprisingly, didn't work, and the hole in the roof didn't provide much light to the other rooms.

They searched several other rooms, but were unable to see much. In the end, it was so dark they could not even see themselves.

"We'll report back to the Hokage," Minato said, turning and almost crashing into Obito. "We won't find out anything when the rooms are so dark."

They left the abandoned lab. There had been no children there, they had figured as much, but the lab was nevertheless worth investigating.

"There might be more clues down there," Minato said as they followed the path they had come from. "I doubt it, since it seems to have been abandoned many years ago, but we didn't exactly get to see all of it."

"Can we join you then?" Rin asked. She too had become more eager, and confident, about the mission.

"Of course you can," Minato said, smiling of how their dedication reminded him so much of himself as a young boy.

When they returned to the village, Minato soon figured out there was no use trying to avoid the annoyingly sweet couples running from café to restaurant to somewhere else he preferred to not know. The long journey had made him tired and hungry, and despite having thought about buying something for Kushina, the idea didn't seem so tempting any more. Besides, he was pretty sure Kushina would be more happy for a bowl of salt ramen than a box of sweets. And he may have bought her takeaway if it hadn't been for the long queue outside Ichiraku's.

After choosing the house roofs as his path home, he finally entered the hallway in Jiraiya's house, took his shoes, jacket, weapon pouches and swords off and stretched in a bone-cracking manner. It was only then he noticed the smell of food coming from the kitchen.

Upon entering, he saw Kushina sitting by the table, reading a newspaper with a bored mine.

"Oh, hey," she said as he entered. "There's food on the stow if you're hungry."

Minato, who had been eating quick, half-hearted dinners or takeaway for the past year, was genuinely surprised of how good food could smell. He peered down a large sauce pan, finding slices of pork, cooked vegetables and noodles.

"I didn't know you cooked," Minato said, giving Kushina a surprised look as he poured food in a bowl.

"Had to do something while the rest of you were at war," she said bitterly, but watched in anticipation as Minato picked up a piece of pork and ate it. Whatever he had expected, it was nothing like this; the pork was perfectly cooked, tender and with such a good flavour he suddenly doubted he'd ever eaten actual pork before. But then again, he was used to rations.

"Is it all right?" Kushina asked as he sat down and chose a few vegetables.

"All right?" Minato repeated incredulously through a mouthful of vegetable. "This is great, Kushina. You should do this every day."

She was unable to hide how pleased she was that he liked her food, and beamed as she returned to the newspaper.

"I kinda missed some actual home-made food," she admitted.

"Same," Minato managed to say before his mouth was stuffed with more food. He had actually not had regularly home-made cooking since his father was alive.

After two rounds, his hunger was finally satisfied, and he leaned back in his chair and let out a content sigh. Kushina put down her newspaper and drew her chair closer to him.

"So," she said with such a fake sweet voice and falsely battering eyelashes that Minato had to raise an eyebrow. "Did you get me anything?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Kushina," Minato said, faking a regretful voice. "But I hate Valentine's day."

Kushina grinned and got up, walked over to the kitchen bench and rummaged inside a plastic bag.

"I remember how all the girls used to have these loud arguments about who would get to spend the day with you," she said, sounding as though the memory, which was in reality quite painful to Minato, entertained her. "And then take it in turns to walk up to you and try to invite you to the movies. I still remember how angry they were when you rejected them."

She turned with a pile of chocolate boxes in her hands. Minato groaned.

"Please tell me those are from you," he begged.

"Sorry, Minato," she said, placed the boxes on the table and sat down on his lap. "You've got quite a few admirers. And I hate Valentine's day as much as you do."

He buried his face in her shoulder and sighed.

"You're taking this surprisingly easy," he said, glancing at the boxes and dreading the names on the cards.

"Well," Kushina said, letting a hand stroke gently through his hair. "They're not really much of a threat, you know …"

Minato grinned and lifted his head from her shoulder to kiss her. And as they looked at each other, Minato brushing a few strands of hair away from her face, Kushina leaned in to kiss him again, slower this time.

Minato would have preferred to sit there the rest of the night with her, but he was stained in ten or more year old dirt and sweat and was quite sure she would appreciate it if he got cleaned up. So he broke the kiss, Kushina looking a bit disappointed.

"I should take a shower," he murmured, brushing hair away from her face again. Kushina didn't reply at first; she looked him in the eyes, a small smile tugging on the corners of her lips, much like the times when she was thinking about doing mischief. Minato only looked back, waiting for her to say something. Eventually, she bit her lower lip, as though unsure how to formulate words, but her eyes had adopted some sort of character he had never seen on her before; her eyes looked, what, foxy?

She leaned in closer, inches away from him, and mumbled, "Can I join?"

Minato understood the general meaning of her question, but tried at first to find any hidden meaning behind it; maybe she didn't mean it the way he thought – and hoped – she did. But his face slowly broke into a grin as he realised she had meant it exactly the way he thought.

His normal response to questions like these would have been "what?" – but it might have been his tired mind currently being unable to make things more complicated, or the fact that her question didn't really need more explanation, or the fact that Kushina was struggling to keep the mischievous smile off her face in the hope that she wouldn't look too hopeful; instead, he replied with a "sure," and held around her to transport them both to the bathroom, boxes of chocolate long forgotten.

He locked the door behind them, and was suddenly unsure how to proceed. But before he could in some way ask Kushina how she wanted to do this, she had sneaked two hands around his back and kissed him again. He felt her fingers closing around the edge of his mesh shirt and pull it up; they broke the kiss to get the shirt over his head, and Minato felt that the only natural thing was to do the same to her. So as carefully as he could, keeping a close watch for any signs that something he did was uncomfortable to her, he tied up the belt around her waist, slid the blouse off her shoulders and pulled her shirt off.

There was not much he hadn't seen on her already, except the fact that her breasts were, despite hidden behind a black bra, a lot more exposed to him now than before. Deciding to take it as slow as possible, he proceeded with her pants rather than the bra first, as she did the same. They stepped out of them as they slid to the floor, and he kept her close, arms around her, finding the clasp keeping her bra together.

And of all the difficult things he had done in his lifetime, nothing could be compared to this.

Kushina giggled as he struggled with the clasp, her fingers tugging on his boxers, but that went unnoticed by him.

"What the hell is this?" he complained, drawing her even closer so he could peer around her shoulders to get a look at it. Kushina only sniggered and started to pull down his boxers – he didn't mind, they were going off anyway, and besides, he was way too occupied to care. "Of all the things I've unlocked in this world, this is the biggest challenge I've met."

"Has to be pervert-proof, doesn't it," Kushina breathed. Minato wondered why her heart was suddenly beating so hard against his chest until he realised he was completely naked; and as though the tiny distraction had made the outcome, the clasp unlocked, and he could slide the bra off her shoulders. He let his hands slide down her back to the matching panties, and pulled down the last piece of cloth between them.

He tried not to look too hard – he gazed for a moment, understanding just how beautiful she was – and held a steady grip on her hips as he led her backwards into the shower.

They may have been the tiniest bit nervous, anxious maybe, and expectant, but it turned out to be the most entertaining shower Minato had ever had. First of all, Minato had been the last to use the shower, and almost always took ice cold showers to clear his head; as he turned on the water, Kushina made a funny squeal and jumped away from the water. It ended up in a struggle containing Minato's laughs and Kushina's punches as he tried to push her underneath the icy shower; eventually, she had accepted the challenge and stood shivering underneath the water constantly repeating the words "holy shit," while Minato held around her from behind, stroking her arms to provide some body heat.

"Okay, turn it up," Kushina said with a shivering laugh, and Minato reached for the crane. "I don't get how you stand this."

She leaned back against him as the water turned warmer, looking up at him with eyes full of anticipation. Minato suddenly felt the urge to run his hand down her flat stomach, hold them against her hips and slide them up again, take in every part of her soft skin. Apparently, Kushina was thinking along the same lines; she reached out for a bottle of shower gel, eyes never leaving his, and held it out to him. He tried not to smile like a boy on his birthday when he grabbed the bottle, poured some of the transparent gel into his hand and rubbed his hands together. He began exactly where he had pictured; his hands ran slowly down her stomach, and she closed her eyes and leaned against his shoulder, appreciating the soft touch of his normally rough, yet warm hands. He let them glide down her hips, before turning directions; while one held around her stomach, the other continued up. Kushina smiled a little when he hesitated, and blushed when one of her breasts filled his hand, and he gently, using the soap as his excuse, stroke it before attending to the other one. He spent longer time than necessary on them, and as his hands ran down her stomach again, the soap had long since been washed away from her body. This, however, did not keep him from steering his hand towards her legs, the touch of his hand so close to what was between that he felt her skin rough with goosebumps; one of her hands was leaning against the wall, the other against his leg, he could see her chest rising up and down as her breath barely picked up, and her lips were parted as she waited to see what he was going to do. And as Minato slowly, steadily kissed her from below the ear and down her neck, he found the courage to move his fingers from the top of her thigh to the soft, smooth skin between her legs, and she let out a small gasp.

She was tense, out of nervousness he presumed, which bothered him slightly. He knew she would let him know – in one way or another – if she felt uncomfortable with what was happening, but he wanted her to relax. So he kept his fingers still and focused on holding tightly around her, kissed her cheek and rested his head against it. She opened her eyes, turned her head slowly to look at him.

"You all right?" Minato murmured, looking with a hint of worry at her. She smiled, nodded and reached up to kiss him, and he felt her shoulders lower and her hand loosen its grip on his leg. He decided to leave it at that, not wanting to rush things more than needed, despite how fast the thoughts in his head were going and how much the blood in his body had rushed down.

They ended the shower like that and found towels to get dried up, but as Minato was about to reach for his clothes, Kushina gently pushed his arm away and closed in, kissing him as she pushed him out of the bathroom, and he kissed her back as he clumsily opened the door to the bedroom and was pushed down on the bed. They did their best to crawl further up on the bed while they were tangled up together, and lay side by side, Kushina's hand against his chest and one leg across his, Minato's hand resting on her hip as they made out like they never had before. As Minato contemplated whether or not it was safe to move his hand to the other side of her leg again she had grabbed it and led it there herself; Minato came to the conclusion that she hadn't been afraid of what was coming when he did it in the shower, she had just not known what to expect, and she seemed a lot more relaxed now than before. So he continued until she found it hard to kiss, and her breathing became small moans against his lips; and while he was at it, he gently pushed her on her back and leaned over her, kissed her down her body and dipped his head down between her legs; he stayed there until her chest rose up and down heavily, her hands clenched around the sheets and her thighs almost crushed his head as she gave in to the tingling feeling rising inside of her.

And just as he had lifted his head she had grabbed his hair and yanked him back to her face, and her other hand found its place on the lower parts of his back and pushed him down. He realized she wasn't done with just the one pleasure, she was craving for more, and only then did he start to get nervous; but all in all, he had no time to be nervous. There was no denying that he wanted it himself, especially as the girl underneath him was biting his neck and he felt it weirdly titillating and good, and he began to push.

I mean, it's about the third or fourth time he's tried to use it, right? Seriously, if Kishimoto decides to let him use it, it better be good.

And that's a ridiculous name for a technique.