Ehem.*

••• No beta, so I might have missed a few typos here and there.

••• I don't own Naruto.

Enjoy!

She felt so trapped.

Her body was stuck in its place, blood running cold and freezing in her veins. Her head pounded, that same ice cold blood feeling hothothot, burning, burning, BURNING--

He stood there, just within arms reach. His yellow spiked hair reflected the low sun's rays like strands of pure spun gold, oceanic eyes sparkling with confusion and...worry?

It was almost taunting, how close he was. It was as if she could reach out and touch him - but she couldn't touch him, couldn't feel him, because... because he's dead. Her father is dead.

Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

But, he's not dead, right? Because she went back. Everything was gone, so she went back to - to when? When was she? Where was she? She wasn't home. This wasn't her Konoha. This... this wasn't her home. She didn't belong in this time -this Konoha.

Something within her shook, creaking with pressure and tension - something inside that felt as if it would snap. Darkness crawled at the edges of her vision, rising from the depths of her soul because - because--

'I...I dont belong here. I don't - I dont belong here. I shouldn't - shouldn't be here, I SHOULDN'T BE HERE-'

"KIT!"

She jolted, Kurama's booming voice echoing painfully in her skull, "Kit, calm down. You can't panic here. Not now."

"Mirai-san?," Rin's soft, worried voice broke through the cold fear, and...

...and Mirai realized that she couldn't panic. She couldn't. Not here. Not now. These - these emotions could be pushed back, shoved away, because she couldn't handle them. She couldn't.

Not here. Not now.

He'd seen a lot of things in his life. Good things, bad things, beautiful and ugly things, evil and... more evil. He'd seen so many things.

He wasn't old and wise and experienced in many ways, but... he wasn't naive either, and he most definitely wasn't innocent.

Minato was... he liked to think he was a relatively good person. Of course, he'd done many things that most would consider to be unthinkable, but he was a shinobi. It was his job to do what nobody else would so that he could protect his village and his loved ones. It was his job as a shinobi to do the unthinkable, so that others didn't have to. He fought and killed for them, every breath of exhaustion, every bead of sweat that formed on his brow, every drop of blood spilt - it was all selfless.

He tried, of course, to be merciful. Even on the battlefield he did his best to keep as much blood off of his hands as he could, because he knew that with every kunai that hit its mark and every ounce of blood that splattered on his face and dripped thickly from his fingers - it changed him. The more lives he took, the more he changed.

And he didn't want to change.

But he knew that he was tainted with blood, and there was no going back from that.

So, instead, he tried. He spilt as little blood as he could, and the blood that he did spill was only to protect those things that are precious to him.

His village. His comrades. His students. Kushina.

Because he loved them, and he didn't want to lose them.

He hoped that, maybe, that one Iwa genin he'd happened upon, alone and trembling with fear, would someday grow to protect the gift of life to the best of his ability - because Minato had spared him. He had let him live, despite knowing that it would be frowned upon by the citizens of Konoha, should they find out...

Minato's loud conscious had triumphed in the end, and he let the boy go.

He could only hope that the boy would return that same mercy to another poor soul someday.

The world was truly a horrid place in many, many ways. Evil lurked in every dark corner, writhed in every shadowed crack, thrived in too many people. Shinobi and kunoichi alike fought and bled and suffered, pushing stubbornly through their pain on both sides of every equation - whether it be for the right reason or the wrong reason.

Endurance. Every shinobi must endure. Through every tragedy and every misfortune. Every death of a loved one, every kill - through everything, they endure.

At least, they try.

But shinobi are human, no matter how beastly they can be, they are above all human. And a person can only handle so much before they crack, then break, then shatter, collapsing to the ground in a million tiny pieces - until they pick up every single piece, one by one as their hands bleed, and build themselves back up again.

To restart the cycle.

Minato had seen many different eyes in many different people. He'd seen the eyes of a child, brimming with innocence and curiosity and wonder, sheltered and unexposed to the horrors of the world. He'd seen love and naivety in the eyes of a civilian girl, as she held the hand of her childhood friend, laughing and smiling as if the world around them did not exist. He'd seen anger and hatred and bloodlust in the eyes of shinobi, hardened, uncaring, cruel.

Then, there was experience and knowledge, hardened by war and the dark side of the world, yet still holding tightly on to their humanity despite that.

Those were eyes that he'd seen far to little of. Shikaku, Inoichi, Hiruzen, himself, and many of his friends had those eyes, and he so desperately wished that more shinobi still held their humanity.

Never did he imagine that he would see that knowledge, that experience, that battered and scarred humanity in the eyes of a child.

And she was small - exceedingly so, her meager height barely reaching the edge of the Hokage's desk. She stood with a certain tense posture that made her impossibly thin limbs seem that much thinner. Her fingers trembled at her sides, the ends of her limp golden hair brushing the shaking digits as it tumbled down her back and shoulders, and blue eyes peeked from underneath long bangs, impossibly wide as they shook with curiosity and anxiety and terror.

(And for some reason he couldn't comprehend, he felt he'd seen those eyes before.)

Her deep gaze locked with his own, and something strange flashed within that sea of blue - a swirling mix of what he could only identify as a conflicted and doubtful sort of... recognition.

Cold worry dropped like a dead weight in his chest as her breathing picked up, choppy and shallow with panic, and her pupils dilated, a sea of black ink drowning the deep blue with waves of hysteria.

His brows furrowed and he quickly dropped to his knees, gently grasping her shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting way, but she flinched back violently at the contact, as if his touch had burned her skin. The panic in her eyes seemed to flare, all sense of awareness and coherency being stripped from her gaze with the rush of emotion, making her body tremble ever more.

Rin, who had been standing quietly in the corner, rushed from her spot, placing her own gentle hand on the girl's shoulder, face scrunched with worry over the blonde's rampantly panicked state, "Mirai-san?"

And just like that, the barely five-year-old girl's oceanic eyes snapped with clarity, and a forcefully calm facade slipped over her soft features with such practiced ease that it was disturbing. A certain blankness that is only achieved in the most war torn shinobi settled in the depths of her sapphire eyes, every sort o. pain writhing beneath the porcelain facade - the kind that was riddled with scars and torn with fear and horror- and he couldn't help but wonder why.

Minato paused.

Was the girl afraid of him? The thought didn't really occur to him until now. Of course, he was a well-known and respected shinobi, in Konohagakure at least, but in other places he was someone to be avoided. A Flee on Sight order was tagged next to his name in the Bingo Books. He was one of only a few to have that warning, which of course sparked some essence of fear in the hearts of much of the Elemental Nations.

But he'd found her in the middle of nowhere. She was alone, injured and dying, completely and utterly helpless. What was left of her clothing, having been torn and ripped from her in her desperate situation - which they also didn't have any information about - was in Konoha's color and style, but her hitai-ate was practically unheard of, and her overall identity matched no records found in the Archives, at least not in her age group.

She was a shinobi, though, which posed as a problem and a threat. They'd zero knowledge of her abilities, origin, blood, or knowledge. They were frankly in the dark, as far as he knew, and since he had no information on the subject of her upbringing, it wasn't at all a preposterous thought to assume that she had at last heard of him - or had been warned to stay away from him.

The majority of shinobi did not spare anyone, after all. Even children.

Her fear, in Minato's eyes, could only be explained away with simply assuming she had gained knowledge of his identity.

But did that warrant a near panic attack?

He didn't know, but it... worried him. He and his team had saved her life ,yanking her away from the cliff where she teetered on the brink of death, so it only made sense for him - and his team - to care for her in a distant sort of way, he supposed.

Despite himself, he also acknowledged that fact that she was also a child, and that in itself made him much more adverse to her being in danger of any sort. He had always had a soft spot for children, and she was so young. Too young, younger than even Kakashi was when he began active duty, and she was already fighting out in the open - she had been thrown out into the line of fire completely alone, with nobody to back her up, to keep her safe.

Potential enemy or not, it infuriated Minato. Desperate country or not, putting a child so young directly into warfare to fend for herself was preposterous and made him livid. They had no right to send her out so that she could be hunted down and fed to the wolves that were her enemies. No right!

There are so many cruel people in the world, and not all of them are interested in simply killing their target - no, some are sick in their ways, torturing and prolonging the deaths of those that oppose them. They felt no regret with their actions. They gave no mercy.

The only thing that they gave was pain. Any sort of pain that they could possibly trigger was a source of joy to the sick bastards and a child--

A child should never be subject to that.

Minato snapped out of his daze as the girl straightened her tiny shoulders, almost defiant in her disposition, and set her gaze straight. She locked her endless eyes stubbornly to his, as if she was resisting her fear, and her mouth set into a grim line--

But he could see it, he could see the fear and uncertainty and sadness within her, but her gaze held strong and her body stood in full attention, sturdy despite how dangerously thin she was.

And despite her lack of words, Minato nodded - out of respect for the fortitude in her eyes, or acknowledgement for her bravery, he didn't know, but he nodded to her nonetheless before standing to his full height and turning once again to his Hokage.

If she was at all intimidated by him now, she didn't show it.

The dark eyes of the Sandaime met his own, before Sarutobi cleared his throat abruptly, dark eyes flitting to the girl with a strange glint of wariness in his gaze.

"Minato-kun will be removing his cancelling seals, Mirai-chan," he said quietly, "The process itself should be relatively short, so sit still for as long as you are able, alright?"

The Namikaze stifled an amused chuckle when Mirai bristled, seemingly irritated at the childish tone he used, but she sat nonetheless, huffing as she rolled her left sleeve up to her shoulder. Minato knelt in front of her slowly, inwardly frowning in interest as her eyes darted around his form, eyeing each of his movements with apprehension.

'She sees me as a threat,' he thought sullenly. He didn't understand why she was so afraid of him. His reputation was something to consider, of course, but just didn't warrant this much distrust, especially from a kid.

With a sigh, he shook away his thoughts, retrieving a brush and inkwell from his pouch. Gently, the Namikaze lifted her wrist, using the brush to slowly swirl the black ink with his free hand. Raising the saturated brush, he brought it just above the heel of her palm, each stroke deliberately slow and gentle as he inked characters on the skin of her inner wrist with practiced ease.

"Mirai-chan."

Hiruzen's rough voice prompted the child to rip her eyes from Minato's brush - from his movements that she'd been watching with tangible paranoia.

The simple action of turning her head away from him seemed to take every bit of her willpower.

"Considering your skills as a shinobi, you have...," Hiruzen started, shuffling through a thin stack of paperwork, "...a couple of options. You're at the appropriate age to enter the academy, if you so wish. Beginning anew would be healthy for you, and you could freely move your way up through the ranks from there."

He raised a brow, "Your second option is that I simply reinstate you with a chunin rank immediately - your skill is about that level, so that wouldn't be a problem."

Mirai stiffened. Her body coiled defensively, and at the sudden jerk of her arm, Minato's brush streaked a line of cold ink across her forearm. Her head snapped back to him, blue eyes widening dangerously at the icy feeling of the ink.

She flinched violently as Minato wiped the smeared ink away with a tender thumb, and the little blonde's blue eyes pierced his own, a feral, defensive, and desperate sort of terror swimming beneath the ocean of sapphire and cobalt. The black of her pupils seemed to narrow and sharpen animalisticly, and molten lava bubbled dangerously around them--

--Then, suddenly that menacing fire that burned red behind the sea of blue snapped away, as if it was never there to begin with, and she breathed a deep, steadying breath.

A wave of sorrow flooded Minato's chest.

...This child...was so broken...

A small, wobbly, and painfully plastic smile stretched across her face as she turned back to the Sandaime, clearing her away the tightness in her throat, "I would like to continue with my shinobi career as soon as possible, Hokage-sama. Being reinstated as a chunin would be preferable, please."

Minato paused. The way the girl had addressed the Sandaime was ill-mannered at best, bordering on insolent and disdainful. Interestingly enough, Sarutobi didn't seem to bat an eye at her stark disrespect, a certain glint in his dark eyes as he leveled his gaze with Mirai. It seemed as if he was testing the waters, testing Mirai, in a way that hinted that he wasn't speaking to a child - more as if he was gazing at an... equal?

Confusion flooded him, and his eyes flitted between the child and his Hokage repeatedly as they stared challengingly at eachother, a silent and subtle battle of sheer will passing between the two.

And through it all, Minato could only think, 'What the hell?'

"Damn it," Kurama cursed, his tangible fury shifting uncomfortably in the recesses of her mind, "He backed you into a corner."

'I wasn't able to negotiate with him. I had to make a choice in the heat of the moment without being given time to even think about what would be the best option,' she seethed, gritting her teeth furiously, 'this just reaffirms that this is not the same old man. He's playing with us. Testing his limits. He might be the Hokage, and my age is regressed, but he doesn't know what my abilities are - he's attempting to see just how far he can get me wrapped around his finger. The fool! He knows how sensitive this mission is, and yet he's dropping hints out to the Yellow Flash like candy!'

"Something needs to be done about boundaries," Kurama said candidly, deeming it unnecessary to acknowledge the way his container refused to speak her father's name."If he doesn't watch his mouth, you may have to shut him up with less than pleasant methods."

"Watch it Kurama," she warned, rubbing her forehead in agitation, "This just got a whole lot harder."