Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!

- Hans Zimmer: "Harvey Two-Face", "Blood on My Hands" (The Dark Knight)

52. The Assassin

While dodging an aggressively fast kunai aimed at his head, Minato tried to get hold of the two scrolls he had stolen information onto. Papers flew as he dragged the still open scrolls towards him when the enemy desperately tried to take them, and the chaos was well performed despite the clash only lasting for seconds – for Minato had decided not to stay, and had landed on top of a labyrinth guard who had been staring curiously, and likely bemusedly, at Minato's mark on a wall.

The sudden clash was something Minato had mentally prepared for, so he was able to react as quickly as necessary to avoid serious damage; the guard had, naturally, stumbled and fallen to the ground, but was not knocked out until Minato had dropped his scrolls, done a quick number of hand seals and placed his palm on the guard's back.

But Minato knew the damage was already done. It was one thing that he had managed to get out of the building with the information scrolls he was now gathering from the ground, but he had probably alerted the whole village, and every guard and shinobi would soon fill up the alleys and the streets to get him. He placed the scrolls safely in a pouch on his back, and placed a finger on the ground to check his chances. He wasn't surprised when an alarm, high and piercing, went off nearby.

The people didn't seem to run out on the streets to catch him, but several groups of people entered different buildings. If they were gathered there rather than on the streets, they were probably waiting for him to show up … Which meant the buildings they were guarding, contained something they didn't want Minato to get his hands on.

Even though Minato knew his chances of collecting more information was dropping drastically, the least he could do was mark the buildings that seemed to need tighter security. He had no map showing where each building was, nor would he remember which direction he had to go if he had one, so he had to go to the buildings and mark them. And he had to be quick.

To this day, Minato had not experienced a more chaotic scene. The guards had increased from ten to at least ninety after the alarm went off, and as he travelled through his Hiraishin marks for the sake of confusion and easy access, the guards had only seconds to realise that they had to act before he was gone, leaving behind a small, red seal that would later tell Minato if the building was important. A few times, he had to use his kunai to move to buildings he had not yet marked, giving the guards a few more seconds to react.

But in the end, all they could see was a yellow flash.

Kushina had few things in mind. One was how to best keep the secret that the jinchuuriki the enemy were looking for was in fact standing right in front of them.

The rest were bright curses and a note to kick Kousuke's butt for being late.

She had pictured Kumo-nin as non-hesitant, merciless and sharp. Something she felt proud enough to call herself. Though as she remained silent and refused to speak while preparing for possible battling, the Kumo-nin didn't seem to act at all; they stood quite still, watching her either expectantly, impatiently or somewhat angrily. Either way, Kushina was well aware of what shinobi were capable of doing to their enemies, and didn't feel like pushing their limits. If only Kousuke would hurry up …

"I'll give you one last chance," one of the impatient women said. "I'll assume you know something since you haven't denied anything, but if you don't answer us now, we're gonna have to take this one step further."

"I'm sure you know what that means," a man said, watching her with sharp eyes.

"I'm sure I do," Kushina replied. "But torture won't give you anything."

"We'll see about that," the man said. "Now speak. Do you know where the Kyuubi is?"

Seconds passed by, in which the woman looked more impatient as Kushina kept her mouth shut. Eventually, the man pulled out a kunai, as the others surrounding her did the same.

"Fine," Kushina said quickly. "Yes, I know where the Kyuubi is."

The man raised an eyebrow. After a moment, he said, "Well?"

"'Well', what?" Kushina asked, raising an eyebrow in reply. "You asked if I knew, and I answered."

Kushina could swear she had never seen a man go more red of fury, but he never had the chance to attack, as he might've wished; something large and powerful burst into him and several others standing nearby, kicking them off the ground and knocking them out. As the tornado-like shape eased down, Kushina said, "Seriously, what took you so long?"

"Sorry, honey," Tsume said as she turned directions and made a few hand seals. "I was far off and my brother couldn't find me."

"That's fine," Kushina said, turned and blocked an attack from one of the women who had stood behind her. "I was talking to Kousuke."

She had to back off when two others charged at her, and glowing chains of chakra shot out of her to hold them down as the siblings shot at them in two wild tornadoes. Though there had been around ten Kumo-nin surrounding Kushina to begin with, several more appeared – a back-up of thirty guards -

The Inuzuka techniques were only effective as long as their target stood still long enough, and when Kushina was forced to release her chains and battle on short distance herself, their attacks seemed less efficient. Kushina was pretty sure they would be able to stand up against them, as long as there were no surprises … She used the chakra chains for all they were worth and made hits with the strongest power she could offer – if they could do this quickly, there would hopefully be no serious damage -

But it was easy, wasn't it? There were enemies showing up directly in front of her, from her left, from behind; it should be confusing and make her hesitate. But it was nothing against Minato and his Hiraishin technique. It seemed her training really had paid off, and she should remember to thank him later -

Someone appeared closely behind her, too close; she flung her arm back in what she hoped was a deadly hit, but it was captured with a firm grip and she stood watching a very familiar face.

"Just me."

"Don't do that, Minato."

"Sorry," he replied and pulled out a red scroll she knew contained Hiraishin kunai. "I made a complete chaos and had to get out quickly."

"You made a chaos?" Kushina asked with a doubting face as she grabbed the four kunai he was handing her, and Kousuke and Tsume backed off to let him do his job. The group of fifteen remaining shinobi stood so close there were no need for more than the eight kunai Minato and Kushina were holding. The kunai were thrown in sharp speed towards the shinobi, who prepared to block, and Kushina felt a disturbance in the air next to her as Minato disappeared. She had barely blinked once when the fifteen Kumo-nin were dead.

If she was merciless, it was nothing compared to this. She had seen Minato kill, and she had trained for situations like these when a necessary amount of Hiraishin kunai were thrown so Minato could strike and be done as quickly as possible. But she had never realised how little it took for him to make that decision. He had only been there for seconds before he acted, and barely knew the situation at all.

Minato had been there for thirty seconds, and fifteen Kumo-nin he had no idea who were, were already dead.

"Well, then," Kousuke said casually and walked over to Minato. "If there are Kumo-nin out to get the Kyuubi and Minato already made a mess in the village, we should probably find somewhere to hide." He nodded towards the thickening forest, and the rest of the group followed.

"Did they find out who you are?" Minato asked Kushina, who caught up with him.

"No, they had no idea," Kushina replied, keeping a normal expression. "But then again, I had no idea they were interested in the Kyuubi in the first place."

"Me neither," Minato said with a frown. "Just before I fled the village I found the mission orders on the capture of the Kyuubi. The Raikage put one hundred shinobi in total on different missions connected to it. They already have a tailed beast, don't they?"

"What, a hundred Kumo-nin are looking for the Kyuubi?" Kousuke asked, turning his head slightly to look at them.

"He already knows that it takes more than a handful of shinobi to capture a tailed beast," Kushina said, who was not surprised by the amount. "I'm just wondering what they need another tailed beast for."

"Agreed," Minato said.

"What the hell did you do, by the way?" Kushina asked.

"Oh, well, where do I begin," Minato said. "I was caught in some sort of labyrinth. That wasn't really the problem, because I was at the right place, but I was discovered. I marked all the buildings that seemed to contain something important, but it seemed like half the village had been alerted, so it wasn't easy to get out of there ..."

"I guess you won't be entering the village any time soon, then," Tsume concluded, at which Minato nodded. "But you got something, right?"

"I did, but I think my job here is done for now."

They had been forced to leave the country only a day after the chaos. The Raikage had arranged for guards scattered outside the village in quite a large range, making their chance of finding good information quite poor, and the smaller villages seemed to tighten their security as well. They had probably already received message that someone was roaming their country, and the discovering of forty dead shinobi in a small clearance made the tracks unsafe; the only places they could stay, were distant and empty, giving them no result whatsoever. Besides, they had sent Kushina in belief that the Lightning country had no interest in the monster. The circumstances were now quite different, and the mission was impossible to continue.

To get out of the country had taken them a day, while travelling through the Frost and Hot Water barely took two days. They had no time to rest as they arrived at border post twenty-three; the Hokage had sent a note to the squad leader and told him to use them as he liked, and so Kushina, Kousuke and Tsume were set on watch, while Minato was handed a small pile of papers.

"You may prioritise as you like," the squad leader said as Minato skimmed the papers. "Just get it done as quickly as possible. Hiromu was here a few days ago to hand me the information."

Minato nodded, feeling a pair of eyes peering from behind him to look at the papers. The top paper wasn't so bad; capture and bring back a man people called Kenji. It also allowed him to use extreme violence if needed. Minato shifted the paper to read the next mission orders more thoroughly, and found himself staring at the picture of a very curly-haired man, who looked less like the assassin he was described to be and more like a sour, old lady.

"Are all these capture missions?" Kushina asked.

"Some of them," Minato said, shifting the papers and sorting them in his head. "A few of them are assassination missions."

Kushina had opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the squad leader.

"Kushina, I need you at the watch tower."

"Right," she said, lingered for a moment, then turned. "Good luck, then."

"Thanks."

She walked away, but watched Minato's back as he quietly, without giving her one last glance, continued to choose who he should capture or kill first. She shook off the chills that threatened to crawl down her back, and realised as soon as she sat down at the watch tower that he must be used to this sort of work; only seconds after she had settled down on the hard bench, Minato shifted the papers one last time, folded and placed all but one in a weapon pouch and headed down a path leading out of the camp. Within minutes, he had decided whom deserved to live a few hours less than the others.

Kushina shook her head incredibly. When had she started thinking like this? Minato had always been an assassin, and she herself had killed before without hesitating. Seeing him do his job didn't change anything.

She just wished he had looked at her one last time before he left.

An hour passed, and Kushina remained alone on the watch tower, making sure the ground guards did their job correctly as travellers from the Hot Water country passed by and keeping an eye on sky level in case an unlikely attack happened from above. The sun was about to set, but it wasn't as orange and warm as the sunset in Konoha, where the last streaks of sun did their last attempt in warming the village. Despite the north of Fire being warm and humid at day, the evening was getting chillier, and the sun slowly sunk behind pink clouds.

There was movement from below, and Kushina turned her head and saw one of the ground guards, as well as the squad leader, get up and walk towards the path Minato had walked down an hour before. She was quite sure what she was about to see, and sure enough; Minato entered the camp with a man flung over his shoulder, blood dripping down his T-shirt and jacket. He was met by the squad leader, who gave some instructions to the guard Kushina couldn't hear – they were too far away – before he led Minato towards the tent Kushina remembered contained a few cells and an interrogation room. She watched them disappear inside, and that was it, yet she couldn't help keeping her eyes firmly set on the tent, wondering when Minato was about to come out, see her and smile before he headed off again. Because surely, he would do that. It was something he always did before a mission. He said goodbye.

As the minutes ticked away, Kushina forced herself to shift her gaze where she should keep it, but glanced at the tent frequently. After half an hour, she saw movement in the corner of her eye, turned to see Minato leave the tent and straightened up in her seat. He had stopped a few feet away from the tent and pulled out the next mission paper, skimmed it and found his path. With the paper clenched in his hand, he set out in a slight run, seemingly unaware of her watching him expectantly, and now disappointed.

She wasn't needy, and liked to think that she normally wasn't demanding too much of him, but something bugged her about his behaviour. He came back once more, dumping a dead body outside a different tent and waiting for someone to come out and take over, before pulling out another mission paper and heading off immediately. Kushina knew he had been given orders to get the missions done as quickly as possible and that he wasn't about to take breaks in between, but there was something different about him, as though he had forgotten there were other people there. He came back once more after two hours, a new dead body on his shoulder and even more blood covering his jacket, T-shirt and part of his neck, but Minato himself was unharmed. Nor did he seem to be anything else.

She had once seen a photo of him taken sometime at the end of the war, looking quite all right with a normal facial expression, and blood covering his white T-shirt. She had asked him what had happened, and he had replied that it had been after one of his assassination missions.

"What happened to you, I meant," she had said.

"Oh." Minato had smiled apologetically, but it hadn't been genuine. "That's not my blood."

If it was the regret in his smile or just the smile itself that was fake, she didn't know. But that was once, and she had waved it off as something out of importance. Seeing him now was different, when his face didn't show anything but a cold stare and a mind that was only set on his next victim, and as he was skimming the next mission paper, Kousuke passed by and stopped to say something Kushina couldn't hear. Minato replied, but didn't look up, nor did he smile or seem to recognise that his best friend was talking to him. Kousuke gave him a final nod before he turned and headed towards the watch tower, while Minato found a path leading into the Hot Water country, made a small conversation with the ground guard and set off in a run once more.

Kousuke climbed the stairs and sat down next to Kushina, and handed her a warm cup of white tea. Kushina mumbled something of gratitude as she took it, and let it warm her hands as she quietly watched Minato's brightly blonde hair fade the further he ran.

"Are you worried?" Kousuke asked eventually as he took out a pack of cigarettes.

"Of course not," Kushina mumbled.

There was a pause before Kousuke spoke again. "That side of Minato's not my favourite, either."

Kushina felt her heart skip a beat, and looked up at him.

"First time I met Minato, he was like that. Just back from a mission, tired, covered in blood after just killing someone and apparently not giving it second thought. But when he introduced himself, he was smiling. Genuinely smiling." Kousuke shot a glance at her. "Minato has two sides of himself, and I'm just grateful he shows his best when he's with us."

Kushina glanced back into the woods, where Minato had disappeared. Of course, Kousuke had known Minato during the war, and unlike her, he already knew Minato could act so cold. And maybe the three more years Kousuke had lived made him more sensible than them, maybe those few more years helped him understand.

"It's just ..." she began.

"Unusual to see him like that?"

"... Yeah."

Kousuke was pulling a lighter out of his pocket, but glanced at her again. "Hey."

Kushina turned back to him, and he smiled.

"He's still Minato. You know that, right?"

She forced herself to smile. "Yes, of course I do."

But as Kousuke contently lit his cigarette and breathed in the satisfyingly unhealthy smoke, Kushina couldn't force herself to believe what he had said.

It was nearly dawn when Kushina and Kousuke were released from their watch. Minato had been on missions for ten hours, but Kushina had long ago given up the hope of exchanging a glance or even a word with him. Instead, she was contemplating whether sleep or food was on top of her list, but was stopped by the squad leader before she could decide.

"I need you two and Tsume here one more day," the squad leader said. "With the little extra workforce we have at the moment, my squad soldiers can complete some vital missions sooner than we expected."

"And Minato?" Kousuke asked, casually as ever.

"He'll be going back to Konoha in a few hours. He just returned from his last mission."

"Where is he?" Kousuke asked.

"He went to the dorm tent, as far as I know."

The squad leader returned to his task, while Kousuke turned to Kushina.

"Just go talk to him."

Kushina was about to ask what he meant by that, but he had already turned and headed off in the direction of the chicken curry they had heard so much about from the ground guards. Kushina stood still, suddenly torn between finally being able to speak to him, but somewhat afraid. Slowly, she shifted her gaze at the dorm tent, and after a moment's hesitation, she walked towards it, and too quickly, she was at its entrance.

Trying to tell herself she was acting stupid helped her in lifting her arm and pushing the sheets away. It was dark and empty as everyone had been sent on duty, except from a small, warm candle light on a night stand. By the bed stood Minato, who had taken off his weapons and was taking off his jacket, which was stained with dry blood. He turned to place it on a chair behind him, and seeing his face gave Kushina a lump in her throat. He might've been gone for less than twelve hours, but he looked like he had been out for days. He looked tired.

It happened so suddenly that when Minato looked straight in her eyes, she froze.

And he smiled.

Kushina rarely cried, but something stirred inside her chest, and the lump in her throat grew. The smile was so warm and so genuine she felt ashamed with herself, but she fought it back and smiled, and forced herself to move out of her stone-hard posture.

Minato was pulling off his black T-shirt when she arrived at the end of his bed.

"How did it go?" she asked and tried to act as though her voice didn't sound as thick as it did.

"Went well, but I'm a bit tired," Minato replied, and tried to rub off a stain of dirt from his arm.

Kushina sat down on his bed, pulling her legs up and resting her head against her knees. "You should take a shower," she suggested.

Minato laughed, and the lump in her throat grew. "Do I really smell that bad?"

She gave him one of her strategically sly smiles that told him that no, he didn't smell like roses, and something stirred inside her again when he quickly, gently caressed her cheek with his warm hand before he pulled clean clothes out of his bag and headed for the shower.

Kushina pulled off her shoes, removed her top and mesh shirt and found one of Minato's large, grey T-shirts. She changed to a pair of cotton shorts she had brought and fell back on Minato's bed again, staring at the roof and awarding it with a loud sigh. She was confused, yet she could understand where his cold posture came from. Whenever she had seen him on missions, he had acted like normal – or what she thought of him as normal – and she began to think that had she, or anyone else, gone with him on the missions he had taken today, he would have been the same. It made sense to her that the only reason he became so cold, was because he had no one to protect as long as he was alone in killing; his mind was only set on the victim rather than the victim and his comrades, in which case he would take them into consideration almost more than the mission itself …

She ignored the bunch of papers Minato had placed on the night stand, listing up the names of shinobi Minato had either captured or killed that day. He had spent so much of his youth doing this - anyone would turn cold, most would even stay that way …

Kushina turned on her side and pulled the covers over her, and found herself grateful that Minato had managed to continue to appreciate the things that had used to make him smile, even in times of war. It was like Kousuke had said; he found no joy in killing, even though he had no problem doing it. But when he had met Minato, he had smiled. Kushina pulled the covers tightly around her and quickly dried off a tear about to run down on the pillow.

She had fallen asleep soon after she closed her eyes. Minato coming back from the shower had not woken her, not as long as he stood next to his bed, watching her and thinking she had acted a bit funny, but she had woken up after Minato had blown out the candle light and was trying to quietly sneak under the covers. She turned, and gave him a drowsy kiss on his cheek.

Neither of them woke up when Kousuke entered the tent, either, and remained unaware of his smile upon seeing the two of them sleeping next to each other, Kushina resting against Minato's chest.

I'm wondering what the hell Kishi plans for the next chapter. Did he really do what I thought he did at the end of the last chapter?

In which case I'm thinking omfg.

(Naruto ch. 660)