- Peter McIsaac: "See You on the Other Side"

54. Family

The fault for Kushina's painful stomach was, naturally, Minato's. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to avoid her in case she wanted to be alone (or felt like the opportunity was good to throw up on him) or be around in case she needed something. As a compromise, Minato left a blunt Hiraishin kunai on the night stand and stayed within range.

She was forced to leave the safety of the cold, dark bedroom when Kousuke showed up on the door only five minutes after Minato came home from an uneventful walk.

"Thought you were on a mission?" Minato asked as he stepped aside to let Kousuke in.

"We finished early, there was really no use for us," Kousuke said, suppressing a yawn. "Though the three of us just got a bunch of missions. Where's Kushina?"

"Oh, uh ..." Minato said. "She's been sick for the past two days. I'll go get her."

"No worries, I'm here."

Minato looked up to see Kushina lean over the handrail of the stairs with a gaze only a person who had slept for two days could have.

"Feeling better?" Minato asked with a pinch of guilt. Kushina mumbled something unclear in reply, but went down the stairs and entered the kitchen, where she dumped down on the first chair she reached and waited for them to join. As Kousuke looked at Minato with an expression of 'what's up with her?', Minato replied with a look of 'don't ask', and led the Inuzuka and his dog away from the hallway.

"So, what's this mission all about?" Kushina asked and straightened, testing whether or not she'd feel better that way.

"It's actually more than one," Kousuke replied and took three scrolls out of his flak vest. "As far as I know, Minato will be doing all of them, while the two of us will take turns as his partner. And there's a whole group of fifteen genin and chuunin coming along as well, including my team and yours, Minato."

He handed out the scrolls after checking the names written on the outside, and unrolled his own.

"Basically, we're doing preparation missions for the upcoming war," he continued, repeating the first lines on the scrolls. "There have been skirmishes near the borders and according to the Hokage's sources, our enemies are preparing for war. There's been some time since anyone really checked up on the villages around the Fire country, and it seems we're not on track concerning what they need or how they're doing. So we'll act as ambassadors for a while and communicate with these villages."

"Why's the third sending me on all of them?" Minato asked, skimming through the introduction while Kousuke spoke.

"He didn't say," Kousuke shrugged. "Anyway, I haven't seen which villages we're going to yet, but the third said we'll probably spend the next six months doing this ..."

"Hey, wait," Kushina interrupted. "There's one village where all of us are going, but it says Minato can choose if he wants to go or not."

"Oh, right," Kousuke said. "The third mentioned that. What village is that?"

"Boat village," Kushina replied.

Something inside Minato seemed to congeal. Kushina and Kousuke's continuing voices became distant as he searched the scroll for the name, and he found it on a long list of different villages and who would be going. There was no mistake, it did say 'Boat village'. And they were going there second ...

"Hey, Minato, are you listening?"

Minato looked up at a waving hand in front of his face.

"Sorry," he managed to say.

"We were just wondering why all of us have to go there," Kushina repeated for him. "Boat village is quite small, after all. What d'you think?"

"Dunno," he replied and looked down at the black ink again.

"What's the matter?" Kousuke asked, more out of curiosity than worry.

"It's just ..." Minato said, and realised he had actually never mentioned this to none of them before. It hadn't really come across him to talk about it either, since it had been so long since he was there and it barely meant anything to him any more. But at the same time, going back was something he never thought he'd ever get the chance to do.

He looked up at patient, curious faces.

"I was born there."

Minato and Kousuke exchanged two weeks worth of report papers after the visit to the first village, shuffling quickly through them. Kushina was busy talking to Rin; Minato wished he could have been part of a conversation too, as the tiring paperwork part of missions often became his job. It didn't help that apart from the three of them and the fifteen young chuunin and genin, the rest of the civilians on the carriage were drowsing off or fully asleep. A light breeze caught Minato's hair through the gaps between the wooden boards of the carriage, and the wheels creaked as the horses pulled the carriage in a comfortable haste down the uneven road.

"Is that it?" Kousuke asked after having read the last paper in his hands.

"Nope," Minato said, quickly reading through a request paper.

Kousuke sighed. "I really need a cigarette soon. How far away are we?"

"Dunno," Minato replied, looking up as though hoping there was a sign somewhere telling them how much longer they had to sit in the horse carriage.

"Whatever, just hand me the rest of the files," Kousuke said, handing back the read-through pages and waiting patiently for Minato to find the rest. "It's one thing that so many of us can go on one mission, but it's a pain in the ass that we have to control all the tasks, not just our own. And it's only C-ranked. Which is why I don't understand why the Hokage's willing to spend you on all these missions."

"You know why he asked me to go on this one."

"Well, sure, but I don't think Kushina and I couldn't have handled this on our own," Kousuke said, turning a page. "It's not like we're not jounin or anything ... I mean, I'm not complaining, we sure found out that fifteen kids are a bit to keep track on, I just thought the Hokage had problems finding enough jounin for the other missions."

"He's mentioned that, yes, but he wrote in the scroll that the Boat village would appreciate it if someone familiar to them came to aid," Minato said and put the last papers aside, and looked around him. None of the civilians had hair similar to his blonde; of course, some were old and might've been blonde once upon a time, but none of them had seemed to recognise Minato either. "Only those who travel in and out of the village get to speak to shinobi, but they haven't had any of us visiting their village for many years now."

"That's true," Kousuke said, thinking it through, and leaned back against the wooden boards. "Now that we're on the subject, how're you feeling about this?"

It took some time for Minato to answer. For some reason, he felt nervous.

"Honestly, I don't know."

"Well, you did choose to go," Kousuke reminded Minato as the carriage bumped down the narrow road. "Knowing you, there must've been something to it."

"Curiosity?" Minato thought aloud. "The fact that all my relatives live there and I've seen none of them since I was seven?"

"You don't look very curious," Kushina butted in. "No offence, but you don't exactly look excited."

"I am a bit nervous," Minato blurted out; he had up till this point planned to never admit it, but at the moment, he didn't feel like making up how he was supposed to feel about this. For him, he had taken missions for the sake of the missions themselves; this was the first time he had been given the opportunity to go on a mission for the sake of something completely different.

Family.

The carriage had dropped them off about a mile away from the Boat village, and only then had the drowsy passengers who remained seated as the horse trotted away looked up to get one last glimpse of them. As no one but the composition of very different shinobi had left the carriage, Minato assumed he had yet to see a familiar face.

Kousuke managed to gather the group of chuunin and genin and followed a sign saying 'Boat village' while he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and searched for his lighter. Minato took a deep breath and followed.

"My father told me he had a conversation with a business man not long ago," he told Minato and Kushina, while the younger shinobi were listening curiously behind them. "He had been to the Boat village sometime last year and said he met quite a few from the Namikaze family."

"I reckon they don't remember me?" Minato asked, not bitterly; he had been so young – hadn't he been four? – when his father had decided to move to Konoha he could barely remember the house they lived in. It was only appropriate that none from the Namikaze family knew who he was.

He appeared to be wrong. "They knew very well who you were, at least," Kousuke said, found his lighter and lit his cigarette with a content smile. "If anything, they seemed proud to have a shinobi in their family. See, even people who've never met you like you, Minato. How d'you do it?"

To walk one mile took less time than Minato had hoped for. He had tried to gather whatever thoughts he had running up in his head without luck and wasn't sure how he was supposed to approach his little family matter. What on earth was he supposed to say to people he hadn't seen for fourteen years, and who probably had no idea he was about to appear on their doorstep? He could only picture the awkward situation where he stood before people who knew him only through rumours, while he had trouble distinguishing his own aunt and cousin from the rest. A cousin who he, if he remembered correctly, had spent almost every day with until he had moved, and had last seen on his father's funeral. Would they be offended if he couldn't recognise their faces?

As the first house came into view, something inside Minato panicked, and he tried with all his might to remember anything about his cousin that could help him recognise him.

"Hey, relax."

He felt a hand touch his arm, and looked down to see Kushina's eyes look back at him with a mix of worry and resignation. Minato didn't like to have to be calmed down, but decided it was at least better than the dark, accusatory glare of a food poisoned girl.

"I am calm," Minato said, but couldn't even convince himself.

"They'll be happy to see you," Kushina said certainly.

"Right," Minato replied, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. They passed a few houses, and not unnoticed; if Minato had been the last shinobi to enter the village, it had been fourteen years since any of the villagers had seen a shinobi. He couldn't blame the glares as eighteen of them passed their homes after all this time. One boy stood staring wide-eyed over the garden fence before he turned, ran into the house and yelled at his parents.

Minato could in one way remember the village, even though he had few visual memories of it. There were small, white houses with blue frames, well-kept gardens and white, wooden garden fences, low enough to show off every plant and decoration the habitants had worked hard to put up. It was warm, warmer than Konoha, but the flat sea provided a delightful breeze, and the atmosphere was somewhat familiar. There could be heard children's laughter, waves against rocks, and – Minato wondered how he had forgotten it – the sounds of seagulls.

He was so busy taking in everything he had forgotten that he was for a moment oblivious to all the stares turning towards him, until they had to stop to prevent stepping over a thirteen year old, brightly blonde boy. He was standing by a mailbox with a few long forgotten letters in his hands; the boy was looking up with a gaping mouth, staring right at Minato.

Minato, and many of the other shinobi, found themselves staring just as curiously back, because didn't the boy look very familiar –

"Whoooa," the boy said. "I know who you are."

Minato didn't get the chance to say anything back before the boy turned to his house and yelled, "Hey, brother! Get out here!" It was only then Minato realised that he had never seen the boy before, but he had seen many of his features before – on himself. It was, however, nothing compared to the man who came out of the house. It was something like the image Minato had seen in the mirror that morning.

"Mitsu?" Minato said before he could stop himself, not sure if the young, familiar man at the door step really was his cousin or just someone who looked very similar; but the man grinned, and it hit Minato that he had also forgotten that the two of them had often been mistaken as twins, even though their features had become slightly different over the years.

"I'll be damned," Mitsu smiled. "I was hoping you were coming." Mitsu turned to the hallway and shouted, "Dad!" When he got no reply, he sighed impatiently and yelled louder, "Hey, Dad!"

"What!" came a shout from inside the house.

"Konoha's here!" Mitsu shouted back. "And guess who's with them!"

The first day in the Boat village turned out to be completely different than the previous southern village they had visited. Although Minato had expected something of a family visit, he had never pictured a family reunion. It didn't take long for Mitsu's younger brother to disappear from the house and return with what seemed half the Namikaze heirs, along with other villagers of different families. What was supposed to be a check-up of the town and reviews of necessary measures before the war quickly became a garden party.

In many ways, Minato appreciated the concept of a family. In other ways, it was overwhelming. But he was certain of one thing; he had missed it.