A/N: I listened, quite often, to Mordred's lullaby by Heather Dale for the beginning of the end *slaps on safety goggles* I didn't want to put this up just yet, because it's done in parts. But, since Naruto ended, I wanted to update something. The Temple of Izanami was done in parts, if you'll remember, because that chapter lasted 94 pages. lmao. So, I'm not doing that to you guys in one sitting. Idk about you, but I get to a point where I think a chapter can get too long. And this is already 8k! So. This is being done in parts. Enjoy the beginning of the end. Mwahahahaha! Preview of the next part at the bottom! Also, I think I found a calculation error in Minato's birthday. I may have to go back and edit that. lol.

The Wanderers pt. 1

"Little Demons"

The Fire Lord was dead, and Konohagakure was alive with it.

There were whispers in the streets. Quiet, at first, little rumors breeding in a dark corner before the mouths that bore them swallowed them whole.

Right in his bed, some said.

I heard his wife didn't cry. Not a tear.

Something new. Or someone. Gotta be. Even the Guardians are scared. Though I heard his death bordered on the supernatural-

You know that purist cult? The Brotherhood? That Councilman-you remember him? the Brotherhood member who got elected-he's gone into hiding again. Lost the country's favor. They know something is coming.

The resistance is coming, whispered another.

You're all idiots, said the florist down the street. It's been 18 years. The rebels are all dead, in the Bingo book and hiding, because there's nowhere left for them to go but the chopping block. You think your Uzumaki is any more of a hero than he was 19 years ago? He either cut his losses like a smart man and hid, or rotted away on the side of a road.

But believers never lost hope. The signs, the messages, had survived all these years.

The ninja are going to return. This village will know balance once again, promised an old shopkeeper who kept a picture of his long-dead jounin daughter tucked carefully away in an inner breast pocket. He was a quiet man. Someone who turned a blind eye when hungry orphans filtered through his market's aisles. When he was led away in binds later that morning by two masked Guardians, (treason, was the curt answer) he only hung his head and said, "Soon. They'll be back." He turned to wink at a man watching from under the shadowed tin roof of a boarded-up shop. He was a lithe, mysterious man. A man with one eye and a lazy glare. A shock of silver hair, streaked lighter with age. He frowned when the old man was tugged forward. Cracked his knuckles and stretched his fingers in his leather gloves.

He kicked off the brick wall of the condemned shop he was leaning against, disgusted. It still smelled like piss, from the dogs and cats and rats the shopkeeper had kept huddled in the display window. Pet Shop! The faded paint above the door still read. Kakashi fell into step behind the retreating Guardians, ignored by the curious crowd trickling out to watch, away from their fans and air conditioning, because something new and important was happening.

The Fire Lord was dead.

Kakashi pushed his way past a reporter ("Is it true the Hokage's Guardian unit has kicked its team leader over rumors concerning Daimyo Osamu's death?"). He silently slipped under the noses of gossipy civillians. He kept his eye trained on the back of the old shopkeeper's head. He could feel the cool metal of the shuriken star as it slid from his sleeve into his palm. Kakashi waited. No one looked at him. No one cared.

Because the Fire Lord was dead. Killed that morning in his bed. And the young son of Osamu the Fourth would be taking the title of Daimyo on this fine bright Sunday, the youngest Fire Lord in a century. The best story yet, that Kakashi had listened to over breakfast, was the tale of how a fearsome shinigami had slithered its way into Osamu the Fourth's bedroom to steal away his soul.

"For all his wrong-doings," the waiter had whispered.

And if Kakashi thought hard enough, if he looked into the white eyes of the odd Hyuuga clan member who ventured outside of their gates every so often, kept corralled in the village and tallied, if he listened and didn't hear their children playing under the afternoon sun, a monster stealing the soul of the Daimyo didn't seem all that impossible at all.

But Kakashi had still snorted into his morning tea and idly thumbed through his dog-eared copy of Icha Icha Paradise. Long out of print, and what a sad day that was, when the publishing company had cut its losses (wartime was money! If there was no author to pen the series, it was time to look to new horizons, especially when propaganda about Osamu's New Age could be sold!) and set the series free.

Pity.

He wondered what Jiraiya would say.

Someone spat at the Guardians and said, "Traitor." Kakashi looked up. The boys (they couldn't have been older than seventeen) didn't flinch, but their dark eyes, wide and wary, said everything. Doe eyes. Eyes that hadn't seen much more than a scuffle in the village streets.

It was dangerous business these days, being a Guardian nin inside the walls of Konoha. More dangerous than it was outside of it.

Not once did they seem to notice Kakashi, a shadow on the wall. The grip on their prisoner tightened. The crowd grew dense. A protest began to lick the walls of Konoha's downtown, ninja families longing for the justice the village had not yet seen since the end of the Fourth Great War. The voices rose high and and condemning. Someone shook their fists and shouted, "There's no freedom here. We can't even talk in the streets in peace. There is no peace."

"No peace!"

The guardians threatened the forming crowd with growls of "arrest" and "tear gas will be used for crowd control" and "this is your final warning".

Kakashi sighed.

To think, he had been about to disappear. He had almost decided to wander the streets aimlessly after his cold cup of tea to rid himself of the nervous energy that coiled his body tight, so he could stop looking around each corner; waiting, looking, hoping. Then he'd seen old man Ryou led away like a criminal for an off-handed comment.

Taken as treason, of course.

Of course.

Kakashi quickened his steps. A woman caught his eye, but he looked away from her and quickly slipped into an alleyway. Scaled up the apartment's fire escape and perched on its roof. He squinted against the weak morning glare, then wondered if he was getting too old to crouch on roofs like a gargoyle.

He chuckled.

He shrugged, squinted into the crowd below, and threw his little star without further thought. It was a lazy shot, but it did what it was aimed to do: narrowly miss slicing off the ear of the first Guardian and embed itself at his feet. The kid yelped. Kakashi waited for them to move in their too-tight and too-uniform way that made Kakashi's eyes roll to the back of his head because it was so utterly predictable it wasn't even a fight anymore. Just some old man gone rogue in his own village serving two kids their asses before lunch.

Lovely. He let smoke bombs fly.

It ended in chaos, with the people screaming and yelling and laughing and trying to point at the figure through the fog, and old man Ryou slipping away. Kakashi had long ago disentangled himself from the mess, and was now watching from a street corner on the curb, smiling as he sat, enjoying the view.

"One of these days you're going to get caught."

"One of these days," said Kakashi amiably, "Which probably isn't today." Without looking up he paused to laugh and point at one of the Guardians fighting off an old woman trying to smack him over the head with her cane. "Did you see that? Did you? No?" He sighed. "You're no fun, Sakura."

"And you're a little old to be playing vigilante, Sensei," she shot back. But Sakura grinned, and Kakashi grinned, too.

Because playing vigilante at fifty-four was very fun.

Sakura huffed when she turned her head, green eyes narrowed against the sun. She'd grown beautifully, if Kakashi could say so. She was cut like a fighter. Enough muscle to go from stone-cold fox to I'm-going-to-murder-you-in-your-sleep in seconds. Kakashi could always appreciate that about a woman. There was a shadow of Tsunade in her, a ghost of her mentor, especially in the diamond on her forehead-a gift from Tsunade before she'd left to that last Kage meeting so many years ago. But Sakura's strength wasn't just in that diamond on her forehead, or the muscle in her arms. She needed that bout of strength, being a medic, still secretly a ninja in a village where ninja only existed on certain terms. A village that had stripped her of that title years ago. And he'd seen it on her-that strength of hers. He'd watched her little home-run clinic grow. Illegal, sure, when he'd helped her break in to the Hyuuga compound one night to treat an ill elder, but thriving. Now Sakura was a name the villagers in the streets knew when there was no one else to turn to.

Sakura's gaze had hardened into steel over the years, but Kakashi still found a softness beneath it. The girl he'd taken under his wing so many years ago. The girl who'd given her heart so foolishly and had to spend the war learning how to pick up the pieces of herself-how to grow up. Her face was more angular with age and shallow laugh lines that had never seen laughter, but it was a lovely face.

She'd stopped wearing her hair cropped short; now it trailed down her back in a ponytail. He almost missed the short, choppy look of her teenage years-the look that used to spark something wild in her face during battle. If she noticed he was studying her, Sakura didn't care, or maybe she did and she would hit him for it later. If he was lucky, Kakashi would survive it. But Sakura didn't seem to be thinking about all the ways to murder Kakashi for the way his eye roamed over the shape of her legs. Kakashi tried remembering her as a stick-thin thirteen year-old to make the subtle pull of attraction disappear. It didn't work, so he imagined a creepily smiling Sai melting out of the shadows saying, I know what you are thinking, Kakashi-sensei, and I do not appreciate it. Now that was a scary thought!

Sakura was bobbing her foot to keep the baby on her hip entertained, but Kyosuke was having none of it. He pounded fat little fists on his mother's chest. Nap time, Kakashi supposed, and squinted against the sun. Being as pale as Sai, Kakashi figured it was time to take the little vampire back inside. (And he was grateful Sakura couldn't hear his thoughts, but he still smiled fondly at the fussy baby and stood to ruffle his hair, which Kyo tolerated with a watery frown). Sakura sighed, looking out to a boy with dull pink hair. He was running in the street with a gang of children, swarms of them that had suddenly broken away from the excited crowd. He had dark eyes. They were crinkled in a rare smile.

Shun was such a serious child. An old soul, some might say. So it always surprised Kakashi, just a little, to see the little runt laugh and act like a kid. He probably hung around his father too much. It would explain the overly polite side of him that made Kakashi slightly uncomfortable (Sakura practically preened off of it), like he was speaking to a little assassin in training. Shun had developed the creepy impulse to smile blandly when he couldn't think of anything to say, or had something to say but was much too polite (or smart) to say it.

Sai spawn. There's one for the books. Kakashi chuckled again. Now that had been interesting when, sixteen years ago, he'd come to discover the budding relationship of his old team. He'd watched the young couple slowly evolve from afar, and could remember brushing on thoughts and memories of two boys he used to know and hoped he'd see again. He would often wonder if they, too, had discovered a balance with each other. Sometimes he wondered about their child. Was this child as serious as Shun? Curious and cranky as Kyo? Or perhaps defiant, like Satsuki, Sakura and Sai's oldest?

Sometimes Kakashi feared he'd never find out. But that was before he'd resigned. Thrown it all away, unable to stomach it, and unable to leave.

Now Kakashi had been resorted to waiting behind the walls for his lucky day. Which just so happened to be this very day. He hummed a little, before flinching and jolting.

"NO HITTING!" Sakura yelled when one of the bullies of the impromptu play group slammed into Shun ("He didn't even stumble! Shun had it! Can't always go charging to his rescue. Let him handle it. He can do it," Kakashi pointed out, cursing and holding a hand to his heart. If things kept up like this, Sakura may kill him one day). Shun only smiled back at his attacker and said something to make the bully scamper away, looking both confused and intimidated….and downright scared when he passed Sakura.

"Little demons," she muttered, smiling when Shun ambled over. He took his mother's hand like a good little boy and greeted Kakashi with "uncle", which always made the retired jounin twitch, but he'd be a liar if he said he hadn't grown fond of the children over the years. Even the little vampire, who looked just like Sai and who never seemed to like Kakashi very much. Kakashi figured this because the baby was always throwing something at him, pulling his hair, climbing up him just to yell at him, or worse, spitting up on him. Shun had always just sat on his lap as a baby, content to chew on his sleeve, and the oldest, Satsuki, used to giggle at everything he did or said when she was that age. Maybe Kyo was just like that with everyone. Ten months old and already a cynic. Kakashi mourned the thought. Youth, he imagined Might Gai lament in tears (and it made him snicker), WASTED!

He just has my temper, Sakura had said once.

Bingo.

Then there was Satsuki.

"You seem to be missing one," Kakashi observed, to keep himself from looking to the right, as though he expected someone to round the street corner. No one did. Sakura noticed and followed his gaze. She sighed again.

"I know." Her face pinched. Sakura was still watching the corner.

"Sixteen and already a rebel, huh?" joked Kakashi, just to get a rise out of her. Sakura peeled her eyes away to scowl at him, repositioning Kyo, who whimpered and yelled at his mother before slumping against her chest and falling asleep.

It was a tough world.

"Ryou just got arrested for less," Sakura hissed, and Shun pretended he wasn't listening, but Kakashi knew he was. He determined, should things return to how they should and he was still alive and everything was left standing, that he would feel privileged to teach a boy like Shun. Kakashi could already see the potential in the seven year-old, brimming beneath his bright and calculating gaze. He only hoped it wasn't wasted, like Satsuki.

He turned to say something to Sakura, but that was when he saw the dog stepping out of the shadowed alley corner. Its ears perked at the sight of him. It had a limp, Kakashi noticed, and he felt his blood rush. He sprang to his feet. The dog wove through the crowds, the rallying villagers putting on a last-minute parade and march through Konoha's shopping district while the Guardians stood by warily. No one noticed the mutt. No one cared, because the Fire Lord was dead. When Kakashi looked back, Sakura and the children had already gone.

The dog limped past him, pausing to lick the torn pad in its paw. Kakashi's eye trailed past it.

"Found. And well," muttered the dog. "Two of them. There's a small one."

Kakashi said nothing, but his eye flicked to his companion in surprise before he resumed his usual bored look. The dog sat and scratched its ear.

"Fleas?" asked Kakashi.

"Hmph. Something's amiss. I can't shake it."

Kakashi's gut tightened. "Nothing goes smoothly for us, does it?" There were rumors. The Councilman from the Brotherhood had gone into hiding after Osamu's assassination. The protection for Osamu the Fifth, thirty years old that day, had been doubled.

"This village is making my fur stand on end. How do you stand it?" the dog growled.

Kakashi said nothing for a while. He scanned the crowd. Some stared back at him before turning away. "Go back. Make sure they get here safely."

"What do you take me for?" grumbled his companion. "I was just returning to report."

The dog rose to its feet, and trotted down an alley. When Kakashi turned the corner, it had disappeared.

By the pond near the house the old farmer knew, a boy made a deal with a devil.

Nights before the Fire Lord had been murdered in his sleep, a boy the world would come to know slipped out of his bedroom window and flitted through the forest, away from the prying, caring eyes of the fathers he loved, from the little sister he'd sworn to protect, from the walls that he'd once found comforting. The evening was young. A blush under the heavy sun, and beneath the cool shadows of the forest canopy, the afternoon warmth still lingered, like night would never come.

But night always came.

There was something different about Minato. His steps were heavy, his gray eyes were distant, as far away as his thoughts. A branch snapped. Lightning quick, he flicked his wrist, sending a shuriken star into the air to pin the unruly squirrel above. The forest quieted.

He used the squirrels as target practice as he loped through the shadows to Enma's pond. He had an eye streak going before he missed and struck one in the neck. He cursed, but fell silent when he saw the pond, abandoning his morbid game.

The surface was still as glass, just as he remembered it, just as it always had been and always would be. Minato stood frozen, alert, as if Enma might appear and sit with him, saying, "Talk. Relax." But Enma didn't appear, and Minato's mood soured. Days had gone by. He'd gone to the funeral. He'd endured the broken look on Natsumi's face. He'd held Ai's hand when she wouldn't speak and patted Takeo's shoulder, pretending the boy wasn't crying because Takeo didn't want anyone to see his tears.

Minato had taken the heavy hand Hiro had placed on his shoulder, so heavy Minato had still felt its weight when the old farmer left him to stand alone at the grave.

Then one day, suddenly, they were gone. Minato had heard a rumor about them moving off the mountain from Kotori, the merchant's daughter. When he'd gone to check, he'd paused by the side of the dirt road, heart in his throat.

Fire Nation Guardian nin. A band of five.

The door was flung open. The kitchen window broken, shards still clinging to the frame. Minato heard something break. Someone laughed. Someone else began to cry, a high pitched wail strung tight in the humid evening air. Yet another began to beg. Down the road, a farmer and his son had paused by the tall grass to watch, their cart forgotten in the dirt.

"Clear," said a masked nin, stepping onto the porch. Minato took a step forward, and the nin looked up to stare at him from behind the glassy black eyes of his rooster mask. He drizzled gasoline on the porch without turning his head. A hot gust of wind rushed forward with the stink, and Minato took another step.

"No." A hand was gripping his shoulder, holding him firmly into place. Minato looked back at the farmer. It was a face he didn't know, a tanned face, a hard face, but he could see the boy skulking behind, wide-eyed, afraid, curious. A part of the farmer Minato couldn't see.

"Don't make trouble for yourself." The farmer patted his shoulder with a sigh and turned away to scold his son for creeping too close to the Kobayashi house. Minato watched him take his child firmly by the shoulders.

"You get along now," said the farmer to Minato. "I'm sure your parents'll want you home."

Minato suddenly realized how very alone he was on the road.

The corners of his eyes burned, and Minato blinked, looking away. The Guardian nin had forgotten his audience. He lit a match.

Minato watched the Kobayashi house burn until the sky bled red.

When dusk fell, and the farmer had disappeared down the road, Minato watched a huddled group of missing nin march down the road, hands bound, heads bent. They'd been caught in the Kobayashi's basement, the farmer had told him. Arrested for treason. All that conspiracy against the government bullshit.

A man in the back stumbled, fell, his chin scraping along the rough surface of the dirt road and the pebbles beneath until his skin bled. When he looked up, he looked at Minato. Minato stared back.

"Get up. Up!" A Guardian twisted the prisoner's binds until he cursed, yanking him upright by the wrists. Another glance, another stumble, and Minato began to wonder if he'd seen the man before.

"Hey, hey kid!"

The Guardian with the rooster mask was staring at him, annoyed, finished with the day. His voice broke, clipped off near the end with his shout, and Minato was struck by the realization that the fool couldn't be any older than he was.

"Nothing to see here. Go. Home." The Rooster laced his words with a hidden threat, an imposing stance that Minato could see the flaws in with one bored, sweeping glance. His fingers tapped restlessly against his hip.

But Minato hadn't argued. It wasn't the time to argue. It was getting late, and if he didn't hurry, someone else would be walking up the road, calling for him. Minato turned away to follow the road north up the mountain. It was then, when he could see the shadow of his home looming in the dark, that he remembered the face of the prisoner. He'd seen him once before. Some faraway time when Enma had introduced them. He couldn't even remember what they had said to each other. Minato watched him as he led down the road.

But it wasn't just this one face Minato remembered. It was many. It was Enma and his family. It was the orphan Minato remembered from the summer he was nine, who'd snuck into the Academy at the mountain base to learn and escape, only to be arrested later for impersonation. No one ever knew what happened to that kid.

It was everyone.

When Minato reached the door that night, he could smell miso soup. He could hear his fathers singing with his sister, together in the kitchen, and he could have been dreaming, watching watercolors slide and move across a painting as it built a picture he wished existed.

Then Father noticed him and the spell was broken. Dad tossed a hearty "get in here, kid, before the soup's gone!" over his shoulder and Mikoto ran to open the door. Minato stepped inside.

He didn't look back to the road. Later, when the smoke climbed past the trees, his fathers would call him into the living room, pull the curtains, and played pi-sho until Mikoto fell asleep in Father's lap, lulled by their betting and banter. Dad led Minato to his room, a firm hand on his shoulder.

Nothing happened for days.

Not the day after. Or the next day. Or the day after that. At night Minato would remember. He would remember the clearing. He would remember how Enma was swallowed by fire, and how he'd almost killed his Father. A fear so horrible it burned his chest would ignite in him. He'd watch his hands until he fell asleep, as though he'd miss it if he didn't stare long enough.

But nothing ever happened. Not the day after. Not two days after. Or the third or fourth day.

Enma had been dead for nearly two weeks when it happened.

It had been a terrible morning. It began with rain and lightning storms. Dreams of yellow eyes and dripping teeth hovering over his head. Minato had felt like a mouse caught in the claws of a cat. Lightning shattered the sky, and Minato had woken with a jolt. He woke to darkness, a burning throat, and cold sweat. Somewhere, Mikoto began to cry, and he could hear Dad's heavy footfalls, heard him curse when he bumped into something, as he wandered through the hall. He heard the door to Mikoto's room open, snap shut, and Dad's low voice rumble through the early morning gloom.

"It's okay, I got you."

He listened for a little while. Waited until he could no longer hear Mikoto's shuddering breaths, and Dad trudged back to his room. He started to snore, and still Minato laid awake. Lightning flashed again, and not long after, Minato's door opened, and Mikoto wriggled into his bed to latch onto his side. Sleepily, he'd trudged into his parents' room to drop her there, but instead, he'd fallen asleep with them.

He dreamed.

Minato dreamed of a voice that hissed and said, It is because you have my heart. Open it. End this wretchedness.

He dreamed of steel and woke alone, next to Mikoto, the rain falling in a light whisper. He heard the front door open, his fathers talking in low voices. When they appeared in the doorway, Minato watched them closely.

"Today's your lucky day, kid," said Dad suddenly, and the smile he wore was grim. Minato's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Get your things," Father finished for him. "We're leaving the mountain. Today. We want you ready by dusk."

And so the day passed in a flurry of activity. Of Mikoto whining and complaining because she didn't want to clean her room (Minato didn't blame her. It was a mess).

"I don't need anything but Miki anyway!" she'd cried.

And Minato packed everything in a knapsack neatly. He dropped it in an empty corner of his room and looked at it there. And suddenly something inside began to itch. Tick away like a clock, and he couldn't stand still any longer, packing everything away so neatly until it seemed the room hadn't been his at all. It was funny, he thought. He should have been excited.

Isn't this what he'd wanted?

Minato slipped out the window with a, "I'm going, be back later!" tossed quickly over his shoulder. The sun was sinking low.

"We'll be done in a couple hours. Don't wait until it gets dark," Dad called back.

Minato didn't answer. He only ran.

That fateful evening, Minato plopped down by Enma's pond and thought of his Dad. The night after Enma died, he'd whispered I hate them. I hate them. He didn't deserve to die that way, and Dad had sat at the foot of his bed, looking worn and tired, as if he carried the brunt of his son's anger on his shoulders and the weight had grown heavier than he'd expected. Later, Minato would guess he had carried it; all of it. But then, that evening, it only made Minato angrier.

"I know it's hard," Dad said quietly, placing a gentle hand on Minato's shoulder.

He said it like he'd known firsthand, as if he had lived this very scenario himself, but Minato didn't know how Dad could know anything, when it seemed he and Father never left the mountain Minato was born on. They were quiet people (sometimes), who enjoyed quiet things and ate too much ramen and tomatoes. When he was younger he used to admire the way his fathers noticed everything, how they stopped for tiny miracles everyone else walked past every day without care; or how they noticed the slightest change in the wind, or how the number of birds on the side of the road had increased without looking back, as if the birds were watching and they knew. Now, Minato wasn't sure how he felt. So Minato hadn't said anything. He was too angry to speak.

There was the demon locked away in Dad, "the family secret", and Father's Sharingan, but beyond that, he didn't see how they could know much of anything at all if all they had ever done was hide and live quietly on the mountain.

Thoughts of his parents turned into thoughts of just his Father, and Minato frowned, remembering the bounty hunter and the way he'd spat the name Uchiha like a dirty cuss word. There had been moments Minato wanted to ask about it, but he never could once Father turned to listen. So he tucked the name away along with another name he'd once forgotten: Sasuke.

His chest felt too tight, and his fingers twitched with a spasm. He needed to move. Do something, Sitting so still almost hurt. Nearly burned.

Angry with what he didn't know, and angry because Enma was never going to sit at the pond and talk to him again, Minato began a new game. Dad had finally begun to show him the wonders of shape and nature manipulation, and in his palm, Minato gathered wind.

But today he wanted to do more. He experimented with it, just to take the edge off. He wondered, since Dad could condense the energy and mold it until it formed the shape of a shuriken, if maybe he could add his own spin to it.

Ten minutes later the energy he'd gathered exploded, unstable. He was off; he'd handled it too boldly and not cautiously enough, and he'd paid for it. Minato bit back a scream. The energy had torn into his arm, flaying him open from wrist to shoulder, and if he looked he could see veins, bone. Minato cursed, sick, stumbling blindly into the pond in an attempt to walk away. He fell. The water burned. It seared. He watched the water turn red with bleary eyes. Everything seemed to swim together until all he could see was blood-murky water. Above him, the sun was sinking, shadows shrinking the fire-red hues away.

And that was when, after years of being there but never really being there at all, it started.

It started with a whisper.

Minato…

It called to him as he bit out harsh orders to the one clone he'd managed to create, but it disappeared, too drunk off its creators pain, to stay solid.

Minato…

He knew this voice. Because it had called to him once as he slept. He watched his arm slowly pull itself back together. Minato cried out in pain and shuddered.

Minato…

He remembered dreams of foxes running through the wheat. Nights where he woke too warm and afraid of something he couldn't remember. Minato would dream of a different him bursting free through his chest, leaving Mintao to die on his bed while the new Minato cackled and sped away. He'd wake gasping and cold. When he was younger, he would need to creep into his fathers' bed in order to sleep again.

He shook his head, groaning in pain.

Then he felt the heat in his chest, and Minato gasped, splashing clumsily in the water, trying to get away, away, from what he didn't know. He imagined his chest butterflied open, because surely it was splitting from the burning heat, just like in his dreams.

The fear came back. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Minato…

Minato tripped over rocks jutting out of the pond's sandy bottom, and fell into the water face first. But when he surfaced, he did not see the sky. Or the trees. Or the pond. Minato saw only red, teeth, and steel.

His eyes watered from the fetid heat that gusted past the demon's jaws, its teeth pressed against its steel prison.

It stank like wildfire, like brimstone. It burned.

Minato stared, frozen in place, floating in a stinking pool. He could feel that terrible rip and roar in his chest; that sinking, unbridled feeling of something inside him waiting to burst right out of his skin. It crippled him, and for a moment he was too stunned to be afraid. The demon grinned. Minato trembled, but he didn't move, or run, or look away. He didn't try to.

"So you have come at last," the demon rumbled.

Minato swallowed, urging his muscles to move, move, until he slowly pulled free from the lock in his own muscles. He stood, slipping before rising to his full height, wondering where the depth of the water had gone. He didn't answer. When he was small, Father had told him some demons spoke in riddles. Minato wasn't very good at riddles, which had always irritated him. Minato bit his tongue. Tried to think rationally. He cast a curious glance to the seal pinned to the prison bars. The sight jolted him, like it was something he knew but had forgotten. The fox salivated. Its hunger rushed to the floor to join the pool Minato waded in. Its eyes followed the path of the boy's gaze.

"Do you know what it is?" asked the beast.

Minato looked it in the eye. He wondered if the fox was like a wild animal: something that attacked if you looked it in the eye. A shiver crawled up his spine. For a long moment, he was quiet.

"What will you tell me if I say no?"

The fox laughed. "You don't trust the wisdom of a being as ancient as I?"

"I think," said Minato slowly, "if you were as wise as you say, you'd do whatever you could to persuade me to get you out of here." He pointed at the steel. The fox licked its teeth in thought.

"Oho, you're just as much of a brat as your father."

Minato felt himself gain a little courage. "Which one?"

The demon hissed out a laugh. "Smart-ass whelp." It pulled back from the steel, melting into the shadow of its cage until there was nothing but the gleam of its eyes, bobbing in the dark.

"But there is something about you...something you do not share with them," sighed the fox, and it loomed closer to its steel bars until the tip of its snout pressed through the cracks. it drooled.

Minato took a step back, frowning.

"I had not imagined that you would be afraid."

Minato' stared at it impassively, something he'd seen Father do over and over again when he did not want to betray how he really felt. "You don't frighten me."

The fox laughed. "Don't i?" It swayed behind its cage, clutched at its steel bars and let its claws drag down the metal with a terrible screech. Minato's stomach dropped, but he did not waver.

"But there is something you and I yet share."

Minato grimaced. "We are nothing alike."

"Aren't we?" laughed the fox again, and it huffed a burning breath of air that scalded Minato's cheeks. His eyes watered. The pool rushed at his knees in agitated waves. In its waves, he could suddenly see flashes of Enma, his face bursting in the bubbles. He clenched his teeth. Trembled.

"They never did tell you what to expect did they? They must have thought they were protecting you during these terrible times. Poor, pitiful, humans. Your world continues to rot beneath you."

Minato said nothing, but he found himself taking a step closer. He thought of the secrets his parents kept so closely, and wondered what the fox meant. What it would say next, what it could possibly know about him. His heart beat harder, faster, and an old anger bubbled in his gut.

"Tell me what ails you," said the fox, "what frightens you." Minato frowned. His heartbeat quickened.

"I don't-"

"Do not stand before a god and lie to me."

Minato sneered. "You are no god."

He saw the harsh outline of its smile seconds before it spoke, a Cheshire wink in the dark. It laughed. "Perhaps you are right. I am older than any of your gods. Tell me, if I cannot see right into your very soul," it began, and Minato shivered. "what cancer eats away at you while you sleep."

"I'm leaving," said Minato abruptly, too quickly, but then the demon began to speak.

"You cannot leave it behind," raged the beast, but still Minato turned.

"Tell me, Minato! Answer me!" And the waves rose higher, and Minato could hear Enma's voice in their crashes. He paused, letting a wave rush over him, just to see the face in the waves. Something old and primal caught his heart. He let out an anguished shout.

"I cannot be cleansed. I cannot be cooled. Stronger than fire, hold me and I'll eat you, do not be fooled. What am I?"

The hairs on the back of Minato's neck stood on end, and suddenly he knew: all that awaited him here in this cell was something far more sinister and frightening than he'd ever known. A chill ghosted over his skin in a cold rush. Pure, unbridled panic. He had to leave, or face something worse. He could remember his father's face, and Dad's, chastising him for not listening, for daydreaming during meditation.

"Listen, kid," Dad had said. "You'll need it one day."

Minato counted the beats of his heart. He closed his eyes and he tried to imagine an exit, but when he looked, there was none. He stumbled away, slapping his palms against the walls of the prison, as though sheer will might conjure up a door. He tried to remember the meditating lessons he'd taken with Dad, all those times he'd fallen asleep or hadn't listened because he figured none of it could be that important anyway. He closed his eyes.. He felt like he was ten again: striking Tsuki in the eye, and feeling that terrible panic, that something black that crawled over his skin and through his chest. Behind him, the demon's eyes burned, and swirled, like fire.

"LET ME OUT!" And he was ten again. Running, running, from Tsuki's terrible eye.

"What am I, Minato?"

He could scarcely breathe, and Minato spat ragged words, fearing to look over his shoulder. He slapped both palms on the wall, leaning towards it. It didn't move. Nothing happened.

"Nothing. You're nothing."

"What dark things do you hide away at night? Keep preciously close so you will not lose its luster?"

"Leave me alone."

Minato didn't need meditation. He didn't need to relax. He needed out.

"You know the answer," said the demon, and Minato hurried along the wall, frantic. He tripped in the demon's stinking pool.

"No. No. No, no!" He was beating the wall now, the muffled thuds of his fists loud and echoing. The pool at his feet suddenly began to swirl, and he paused to look. It bubbled until it rose like a fountain of spray, and from its mist, a figure reached out to clasp Minato by the shoulders. Minato sucked in a breath through his teeth and swallowed his heart.

The Kyuubi growled as Enma's apparition leaned in close to murmur in Minato ear.

"I am Hate."

...

"Where is Minato?"

Naruto wandered into the kitchen, haphazardly throwing bunched clothing into a knapsack. Kosuke, the toad, squatted on a kitchen counter, tongue lashing out to wrap around the bag once it hit the floor. He swallowed it with a loud belch. Mikoto had wrapped herself around Naruto's waist as he moved, whining about her room. He continued on with his task with the practiced ease of a patient parent. Mikoto had grown bored of her little game with Kosuke, trying to stuff as many toys and clothes as she could down the toad's throat. Kosuke wasn't complaining.

Naruto distractedly placed her on the kitchen counter, running quick fingers through her hair.

"Just gimme a minute. Almost done. Did you finish your room?"

Mikoto pulled a face. "Do we have to go? I don't want to clean my room anymore! I think Kosuke might throw up if I feed him more." As if on cue, Kosuke keeled over from the counter he was squatting on, landing face first on the linoleum. He groaned before flopping miserably onto his back. Mikoto giggled, and, after eliciting no reaction from the toad after poking his bulging belly (Kosuke smartly played dead), she grew bored once more and began to hum while Naruto turned his attention to the remaining contents of the fridge. She held Miki up high, trying to swat at the moths fluttering over her head. Naruto paused to look to the door.

Evening was fast approaching, and with each second that trickled by, Naruto grew more restless. He could feel it prickle his skin, bite a hole in his stomach. On the kitchen counter, Mikoto began to sing, swinging her feet, some old kid's song Sasuke had taught her. One Sasuke remembered his mother singing when he was small. The back door was left open, wide like a yawn, sucking in the damp heat and insects. Naruto turned his head to watch Sasuke finish boarding the kitchen window over the sink. Their eyes met before he placed the final board.

Naruto remembered that afternoon spent in the rain, so close and tight, and Sasuke's hand reaching for his own to clamp over his wrist when the dog had disappeared down the road, and in a grim voice had said, "Guess it's time."

Naruto had looked at him then, and slowly, laced his own fingers with Sasuke's. It was a promise. It had always been a promise; the road where their fates had meant to travel down with the conception of Minato, with the death of the Konoha elders, with the end of the war they both still dreamed about at night. They had turned back to the little house they had restored together so many years ago, to the little daughter and grown son they had inside, and Naruto had felt a grave sort of bravery grip his heart.

It was time to leave the mountain. The wait was over.

Soon, he hoped, soon, Minato and Mikoto would never have to live in fear and isolation for who they were. They would never have to leave pieces of their ancestry behind, never known, never felt. They would know.

Naruto locked eyes with Sasuke from the kitchen window, and Sasuke walked up to board it, but not before his eyes said everything he could not say then, and Naruto leaned back to let the board patch up the window.

It was all he needed.

Mikoto began to sing.

"Mori no fukuro ga iimashita, watashi wa mori no mihari yaku."

The forest owl said

I am the guardian of the forest

Naruto swept a glance over the kitchen and living room, more at ease, but beginning to feel the creeping kind of sadness that came with leaving a home. Soon, it would look as though ghosts had taken up residence. Everything would stay, but everyone would be gone. Nothing would be left but the spirit of the house, and the children it had once held.

Minato was still missing.

Mikoto sang, "Kowai okami-!"

Fearsome wolves-!

Naruto closed the fridge, wandering out back to the back porch. "Minato!" he called, leaning against the railing, looking over to where Sasuke was watching the trees. An owl cried, a cricket chirped; it all hung low and stagnant in the summer heat while Mikoto sang. No one answered. Sasuke let his hammer drop. He lifted the bandana that covered his blind eye to swipe at the sweat that had gathered there. He opened it wide, and it burned back bright and sightless, like the moon.

Kosuke hopped out onto the porch to croak, "Last I saw, he was headed down the deer path in the wood." Naruto nodded, looking away, but Sasuke gently caught his arm. Ahead, the forest shivered with a hot breeze.

"It's alright, he knows to be back before nightfall-"

"Kitsune nado-!"

and Kitsune and the like! Mikoto cried over her father's words, still singing.

Naruto shook his head. "He should be back by now-"

"-Kosasenai kara ne ne shina!"

Won't be allowed to come near so sleep, sleep! Mikoto belted out, twirling Miki in the air and watching her fathers through the door.

Sasuke eyed the treeline. "Minato!" He waited a moment before his fingers blurred with quick hand seals. Naruto watched. Waited. When Sasuke looked up and his hands curled at his sides, Naruto grimaced.

"Dammit," Naruto cursed.

Mikoto spun and yelled, "THAT'S A BAD WORD!"

Sasuke sighed. "That's right, baby, don't repeat it." Then he leaned in close to say, "He couldn't have gone far-"

Mikoto continued her song. "GOROSUKE HOOOOO!"

"He knows we're leaving." The nervous pit in Naruto's stomach returned. It gaped wider, irritating him.

"HOOOOOO!" sang Mikoto loudly.

Naruto crossed his arms, Sasuke's hand firm on his shoulder. It crept up his shoulder, gently clasping the base of his neck. Naruto tried to regain his thoughts through the chatter, the noise.

"HOOOOOO!"

So close. They were so close to leaving the mountain. How long had it been since he'd seen beyond it?

"HOOOOO!" Mikoto yelled, wandering outside.

Sasuke's face pinched. "Naruto, I'm sure he's fine-"

Naruto pulled away from him. "MINATO!"

"GOROSUKE HOOOOOO!"

"Mikoto!" Naruto chastised, turning sharply. His voice died, and with it, the night quieted.

Mikoto had stopped singing. She hugged Miki close, small and shivering under the porch light, under the shadow of the figure looming by the porch railing. Mikoto was looking up at her brother, wide-eyed, silent. Minato stood in the dark, away from the light that spilled from the house, hunched and crooked, his shadow tall and reaching, as crooked as the boy it stretched from.

Naruto frowned. "Where have you been?" He jumped onto the porch. Minato watched him and said nothing. Sasuke resumed collecting the spare planks of wood, but Naruto noticed how he'd slowed, listening.

"Around," Minato bit out, his gaze pivoting toward his little sister. Mikoto took a step back and looked up, as if the entirety of Minato couldn't fit in her line of sight.

Naruto scowled, wondering if the sky had gotten any darker. It looked darker. Minato had been gone too long.

"Yeah? Well, you could have stuck around and helped get the rest of your stuff together. We have to go."

Minato fixed him with a glare Naruto returned stubbornly, before Naruto shook his head, sighing. He rubbed at his face, as though his hand could smooth away the stress.

There wasn't time for this.

"C'mon, kid, we're running late."

"For what?" challenged Minato, and he stood a little straighter, eyes bright. "I'm not a kid anymore, Dad. You got something to say, say it."

Taken aback by his son's venom, Naruto paused. Mikoto streaked across the porch to pin herself behind Naruto with a cry of "Hide me!" He distractedly patted her head.

"What's wrong?"

Minato chuckled dryly, running his fingers along the porch railing. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Naruto watched him closely, noticing the quick jerks of Minato's movements, the steady rumble of anger in his words. He held up a hand in mock surrender.

Naruto thought he understood. He'd never not been able to understand the root of his child's anger before. He wouldn't admit there were times, far and in between and happening now, that he was wary. Worried. Unable to grasp the full meaning, like he was missing part of the picture Minato had drawn.

"I know it's hard-"

Minato rolled his eyes, moving away from him. "Dad, come on, don't talk me down."

"I'm not, I'm not."

"You're being mean, Minato," Mikoto babbled. Naruto patted her head again to shush her. Minato ignored her.

"You are!" Minato accused, and he trembled. "You think you can just get me to follow you when you never tell me half the shit that's really going on-"

"Minato." Naruto wondered if everything he'd ever feared about being a father was beginning to bite him in the ass, strike him down where he stood.

Mikoto clamped her hands over her ears. "Minato! Stop saying bad words!"

"Shut up, Mikoto!" Minato snarled. Mikoto shrank away, eyes wet.

"What has gotten into you?!" And then the house wasn't so quiet anymore, even with all the ghosts waiting to be left behind. Not with Naruto's raised voice vaulting over the property in his anger. Not with Minato slicing a vindictive hand through the air and snarling something about "stop lying to me" while Mikoto succumbed to loud tears.

In the silence behind them, Naruto couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

"That's enough!"

All talk ceased, and Mikoto tore away from Naruto, burying her face in Sasuke's thigh. Sasuke leveled Minato with a hard stare. Naruto tried to quell the doubt surging in his chest.

He couldn't help the second glance over his shoulder. There was nothing to see but the trees. He looked back to the porch.

Sasuke had had enough, and Naruto saw this little family he'd built divide. Minato stood alone, and Naruto wanted to reach out to him.

Minato pushed his hand away as Sasuke rattled on.

"-eighteen now. You want us to treat you like an adult? Act like one."

"Who's Uchiha Sasuke?" asked Minato suddenly. Naruto cocked an eyebrow, for once at a loss for words. Sasuke's face twisted.

Naruto reached for Sasuke's wrist, but Sasuke either didn't notice or didn't care. "Where'd you hear that name?"

"Hold on-"

"You name's not really Akira, is it?" accused Minato. "All my life that's been your name, but it isn't who you are at all!"

Naruto counted five heartbeats. Five heartbeats before someone spoke.

"Where-?" Naruto asked finally, voice lodging in his throat, but Sasuke cut him off. Mikoto watched, a spectator to something she didn't understand.

"If there's something I haven't told you about my past, it's because I have a damn good reason," Sasuke gritted out.

Minato barked out a caustic laugh. "Yeah, okay." He turned his back to his family, running both hands through his hair. He gripped the strands and stood like that for a moment, like a man afraid that once he let go, he'd just turn around to see something worse.

"Minato-" Naruto tried.

"You're even worse!" Minato shouted, jabbing a finger at Naruto. It hurt, oddly. Like someone was reaching into his chest and dragging a nail over his bones. Naruto swallowed. Sasuke's hand gripped his shoulder, the tips of his fingers digging into skin. He could feel anger beneath it all. It rattled him.

"You act like you know all this crap, like you know what it's like, but ever since I've been alive I've never seen you leave this mountain. I've never seen you fight for anything! All you do is hide! You're a coward!"

Naruto's stomach hollowed out. Sasuke's fingers dug deeper.

"If you knew half the things he sacrificed just to keep you safe-"

"It's alright-" Naruto muttered, numb, too tired to be angry.

"No," Sasuke snarled, "It's not."

Minator ignored them. "At least Enma was going to do something. He believed in something. What do any of you believe in?"

"Everything we've ever done, we've done it to keep you alive-!" Sasuke cried.

"Let him be."

Sasuke whipped his head towards Naruto, face pale with anger. Naruto braced a firm, comforting grip on the back of Sasuke's neck. Beneath Sasuke's skin, he could feel the surge of his lover's heartbeat, the pulse of his blood running hot and angry.

"Minato," Naruto began carefully, but he didn't get to finish. A howl split the night, and from the road, a dog hurried across the lawn. Naruto froze, that terrible sense of dread creeping icily over his skin. Sasuke grabbed Mikoto by the waist to place her deep in darker shadow behind him. Minato's eyes narrowed.

The dog limped into the lamplight, a wolf-faced mutt. It sat in the grass to bleed by the porch. Blood dripped from its jaws. Mikoto whimpered, and Naruto scooped her up quickly.

He cursed, inching closer. Sasuke's left eye was already spinning, scanning the trees behind them, with Minato rigid and tall beside him.

"Five minutes," wheezed the dog when Naruto kneeled before it. "You have….five minutes. Maybe less. Wasn't...quick enough to return. It's come. It's come!"

"What has?" Naruto wondered. The dog grinned in a way only a dog could, baring yellowed teeth.

"Revolution," growled the dog. "Our time is now. But something sinister comes. I can smell it. I can feel it. I'm running from it." It snarled suddenly, clenched and trembling. "Take your pups. Leave this place. Now. Never look back. Kakashi will be awaiting your return. I...I cannot come with you."

Naruto nodded once and called for Kosuke, who was at his side in a blink. From across the lawn, he met Sasuke's eye.

Sasuke's good eye spun, and Naruto could almost feel the way his gaze raked over his skin. Knew its intent, its urgency. Sasuke turned away to look back at the trees. He stood too tall. Too stiff. Naruto gripped Mikoto tighter. He suddenly realized how small she was in his arms.

Naruto adjusted Mikoto, raising her up on his shoulders. She gripped his neck too tight.

"Time to go."

Preview "The Wanderers Part 2: The Black Fox"

Thieves, hissed the fox as Minato stepped lightly onto the porch. Mikoto was singing. He'd forgotten his shoes again, because he could feel the rough wood beneath his feet.

Stolen half your life, boy. Hidden it from you. And Minato could feel it, feel the energy of the fox, as if it was gliding over his skin in a coil. Taken pieces of who you are so you would never rise to become more than what you already are.

Sweat beaded on his brow. His upper lip. His heart, he thought in a sudden wild panic, was going to burst. His family, he thought, was a lie.

A/N (November 10): I just realized the scene with Minato and the Kyuubi kind of reminds me of Teen Wolf's scene with Stiles an the Nogitsune. This was not intentional, and it hit me today. It's bothering me. I thought I could wait to change it, but I couldn't. I put more of a spin on it, elaborated a little more on the demon's thought process, and paralleled Minato's fears to the demon, and his hate that he knows he harbors.