Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto. Them's the breaks.

Chapter 9

"So we meet again, Uchiha-chan."

I recoiled. I felt a bit constricted, having those vertical pupils on me. If Orochimaru-sama had scared me the first time I'd met him, now that I knew his power he terrified me. I'd been calling him Ninja Voldemort in my head until now. Can he tell? I hadn't heard of anything such as a casual mind reading jutsu, but one could never tell with the sannin.

"Good afternoon, Orochimaru-sama."

"Now, now, no need to be so stiff. I hear we are fellow disciples of Hokage-sama, no?" That thin smile from last time was back. "I hear you've made quite the impression on him"

"You praise me too much, Orochimaru-sama"

"Oh, hardly. It has been some time since I've seen someone quite as... promising." Does this man ever blink? "Say, kouhai-chan. Since you've been working just so hard all this time, you must be in need of materials. I'd be delighted to lend you some. In fact, here you go"

He handed me a thick scroll (Where was he keeping it before?), bound by a thin purple string. I was too nervous to say anything but "Thank you, Orochimaru-sama!" He disappeared without a trace. Yet, like some strange and horrifying version of the Cheshire Cat, I could still see that thin smile of his. After what seemed like an eternity, I blinked, and it too was gone.

I was distracted the entire way home. On one hand, getting a scroll from one of the Sannin was a rare oportunity. On the other, both Uncle and Auntie had made it very clear the man was not to be trusted–not that the clear snake motifs did him any favors in that regard.

Now that I was away from Orochimaru-sama and his very distracting gaze, the whole meeting smelled of a setup. Even tired as I was, I was still an apprentice shinobi, and thus hardly ever bumped into things while walking. Not to mention he was an S-class ninja. No one just bumps into someone like that; noticing and evading me shouldn't have even been a factor at that level.

Which just brought me back to the first point: I clearly had his attention, but was that a curse or a blessing? And what will Uncle and Auntie think of this scroll? Will they take it from me? Part of me wanted to hide it to avoid confiscation. I was just so curious to look into the scroll's contents... but also afraid. Could he have hidden some trap in the scroll, perhaps a seal? Or even fake information.

In the end, my indecision settled it for me. I reached the house without having made a choice, and so met Uncle and Auntie with the scroll in plain view.

Minato was happy. He finally had some actual time off from the office, and he intended to spend it with Kushina. To top things off, Hinote was out of the house–much as he loved the girl, she seemed to have an oddly unfortunate timing to get up and barge into their room at night.

He arrived at the house and checked his hair. Same mess as ever... Knocking on the door, he waited for his fiancé to arrive. When she did, he produced a single, pure white lily.

"For you, my dear." He gave her his best dashing smile.

Her face began to acquire that beautiful sunset color he loved so much.

"Minato!"

"I was passing by the Yamanaka shop and couldn't help myself..."

"Well, aren't you sweet and attentive. Well, we have the house all to ourselves..."

Minato swallowed.

He stared into her violet eyes, dove into those depths. She was looking at him too, and he could see the blaze inside, the flame he had noticed in her soul way back in their school days. Not that she hadn't changed at all; the tomboy from back then had become a stunning beauty. Minato felt like the luckiest man in the world.

"Oh! Hinohino!" Kushina's eyes widened.

The spell of that moment crashed into a million pieces.

Uncle and Auntie were talking in the front porch distractedly, though they had to know I was there – both were sensors, as far as I could tell. Quite an overpowered ability. I wonder if there's a way to fool it? I'd have to ask Sarutobi-sensei when I next saw him.

"Hinohino! We weren't expecting you- so soon!" Someone who knew Auntie less would think she was perfectly composed–she was a ninja, after all, even if she wasn't particularly guarded right now–but I caught that stumble.

"Anyways, you look troubled. Anything happen?" Uncle was perceptive as always.

"So, ehm… I met Orochimaru-sama on my way back..." I fidgeted.

Auntie was immediately upon me.

"He didn't do anything to you, right?" Seeing her this worried, I couldn't believe I had ever thought of keeping this from her.

"He gave me this scroll…" I handed it to uncle. Also, what kind of fool takes an unidentified scroll from a powerful ninja they have reasons to suspect is up to no good, then keeps it in secret? Tempting though it was, the scroll was not worth it.

At least not before having it checked.

Minato frowned. He hadn't found anything suspicious about the scroll. No seals, no poison, no subversive messages, no sneaky jutsu, no faulty methods. As far as he could tell, it was just as advertised – study material.

Orochimaru hadn't ever been one to take many students, though. Aside from Anko, Minato couldn't remember a single one. The man was all research and no teaching, quite different from his master. And it showed, in this. It read more like personal notes than a didactic textbook, with quick references, open questions and the occasional rambling.

The future Hokage set it down, sighing. He was overdue meeting with Kakashi about his Chidori. Ever since that live demonstration, they had been mulling over Hinote's question. The more Minato thought about it, the more sense it made. It was an assassination jutsu, but as his team knew very well (much to his chagrin and guilt), things went wrong in a battlefield. Any additional flexibility was welcome.

And then there was Rin. She hid it well, but the girl had taken Obito's death hard. Harder than anyone, save perhaps Kakashi. Minato was at a bit of a loss as to how to help her. No one ever taught shinobi how to help their colleagues deal with the mental and emotional attrition of the job, and there were no outside specialists to help either. Perhaps it's time to expand Tsunade-hime's program, and include mental and emotional health in the training. The Slug Princess herself could have used some help.

All of that compounded with the growing friction between the clans. Some of it was natural, as the village developed and space, economic opportunities, and political clout became disputed. On the other hand, something seemed strange with the speed at which the conflict grew. Someone is agitating the clans. But who? The war was officially over, but black ops were still very common between the various hidden villages.

Minato sighed again when he looked at the immense pile of paperwork the Third had given him. He really needed to treasure his time with Kushina while he wasn't Hokage yet. Sure, Kage Bunshin could be used to lighten the work load, but Minato had found them to be ineffective for the more complex parts of political work. Kage Bunshin only spread the mind thinner, not further. And so, he was stuck with his pile of paperwork.

At least it's me here, he thought with a sudden chill. Who knows what Orochimaru might get up to, with the power of the Hokage. That man was trouble.

He stared at the scroll.

Hinote had tried to hide it, but she'd been very excited to look at its contents. Something is wrong with this girl, he thought, amused. He remembered, a couple of weeks before, how his four year old adopted niece had asked him to meet the Hokage–not because of his battle prowess, or to ask a favor, but to discuss his old writings on the nature of Chakra.

"Teeny bibliophage", Kakashi had called her, and with reason. Every bit of time she could, she spent in the library or in his study, reading. I guess there is no harm in it, he decided. Better give her access to a safe book rather than risk giving her the impression it contained some arcane knowledge she could only obtain from its writer. Also, it is pretty good, he admitted begrudgingly.

I spent the rest of the week studying, mostly. I was making progress in my studies of fūinjutsu, albeit slowly–being unable to put the concepts to practice was a hurdle. Still, I was becoming more and more proficient at constructing simple, bidimensional arrays. Auntie said I could start helping her with explosive tags pretty soon, which was very, very exciting.

There was also the matter of my newly-acquired study materials. Ninja Voldemort's text was quite interesting. It read more like the study notes of a genius student than a textbook, and so required quite a bit of work to decipher. There was no clear formatting to it, and the writing some times bordered on the cryptic. Works from other writers were referenced in passing, and it fell to me to locate and consult them.

Thankfully, most of what I needed was available in the library, and I had practically moved there (much to the amusement of Kakashi-san). Still, I had to consult with Uncle on the meaning of a passage more than once a day.

Which brought me to another point: uncle was smart. Not book smart, necessarily, but a weird sort of intuitive genius. He seemed to know most of the concepts referenced on an instinctual level, like some sort of blond ninja Ramanujan. He wasn't always the best at communicating it, however–sometimes all I could get from him was "Well, you just move your chakra like a tiger, you know?", which did not help a lot.

There were a couple of pauses to my studies, however. Rin-chan and Yomogi-san had decided we should have our sessions more frequently, since Rin-chan had a mission coming up next week. We did some more precise experiments with my chakra's corrosive nature, but mostly focused on its interaction with medical chakra. After all, this was the part that required Rin-chan to be present.

I was especially nervous once they started asking me to channel chakra into Rin-chan. She said it was safe, and she knew what she was doing, but I still remembered what had happened to Haku. I flat out refused to do it, in fact, until Yomogi-san told me investigating it was the only way to avoid further incidents. Either way, I didn't sleep that night.

Yomogi-san looked like she had got some interesting data out of it, but she hadn't yet shared with me. Didn't want to influence me, she said. As close to a blind study as we'll get, I guess. Chakra had a mental component, after all, and one's view of it could influence its behavior in major ways. I just hoped we weren't taking too much of Rin-chan's time… she did have that mission soon, and needed to prepare.

Another source of my interludes (this one unplanned) was Guy-san. He seemed to have taken a liking to me, and came by almost daily to train. Which was quite welcome–I needed to keep up with my bukijutsu if I was ever to fulfill otou-san's expectations. It wasn't like I could use ninjutsu, dōjutsu, or even fūinjutsu, so I had to lean on hand-to-hand techniques for combat.

I liked to think I was making progress. We were still doing drills on basic maneuvers, and my age limited how much conditioning I could do, but I felt my forms were improving day by day, bit by bit. I felt stronger, more prepared to face the world. It was a pretty great sensation, even if it came accompanied by muscle aches. Beats chemo any day.

A/N: Well, this took some time... No idea what to say about it. I'm still not perfectly satisfied, but I've already taken way too long.

Reviews are very very welcome, as are any guesses. What could Ninja Voldemort be up to? How long a game is he playing, if he's playing a game at all?