AN: New chapter.

Minato was working late tonight so it fell to her to send Naruto off to bed.

He went down easy, was tired out from a day of 'training' with Jade. She had really just put his Academy skills to use in a few games of tag mixed in with sparring with Shadowkhan. It had taken hours but she had tired the ten-year-old out.

With him in bed, she started on the chores she wouldn't let Minato do. For the past few days, the blonde had been more than a little on edge. It was hard to notice but most people didn't know him like she did. She pinned his weird mood on Kushina back to being gone on that mission.

"I should probably make sure he didn't pass out in his office again." She had carried him home more than once when he had first started the job, had either dumped him on the couch or straight into bed depending on how many days it had been since he had last been home.

"You know the drill." She wouldn't be leaving the house empty, had filled the shadows with her Shadowkhan.

She dropped through the shadows in the house without a show. She was simply in the kitchen one moment and standing in the Hokage's Office in the next.

Minato at least wasn't asleep at his desk, was actually working.

"Hey." She took her usual seat on his desk, watched him for the usual signs of exhaustion/lack of sleep. There weren't any so far. "You almost finished here?"

"Almost." Minato didn't even glance up from the papers in front of him. The stack was at least small, would likely be done in the next hour. He wrote something on a stack of papers off to the side, his notes on the day most likely. "The Hidden Cloud is still trying to say the attack was unmotivated…" Blue eyes finally did look to meet red. "Now they're calling for you to surrender to them."

"Not going to happen." There was no smile on her face, no taunt. She was stating a fact in that moment.

"I know." Minato lifted a hand, preempted anything else Jade would say. "But their new demand is exactly that. We either turn you over for 'attacking' those two or they'll take matters into their own hands."

"So they want a war?" As much as she didn't like it, Jade had experience from the Third Shinobi World War. It wasn't insane to say that the entire conflict had lasted far shorter than the previous two because she had been on the side of the Hidden Leaf.

"They want an advantage for the next one. They want the secrets to your power." Minato set aside his pen. "The stories about you never went away Jade. Most people outside the Hidden Leaf still consider you-" Despite himself, his thoughts drifted to what Nagato of all people had told him.

"That thing plays at being human, at caring for the people Kushina cares for. It is a monster. A demon who's only interested in destruction."

"-a demon." Minato couldn't help but watch her, settle into old habits from when Kushina had first introduced Jade.

Even knowing what he had, he hadn't trusted her at first. Who would when she came out of that mysterious Uzumaki temple, carrying an exhausted Kushina on her back? Even if Kushina vouched for her time and time again, it had taken a long time for him to trust her like he did now.

It didn't help that Jade had leaned into her terrifying appearance at first, had all but terrorized the village when she had seen how Kushina had been treated.

"Oh no. Who could ever possibly think that? Me? A demon?" Her 'horror' wasn't even halfhearted. Closer to quarterhearted. She dismissed the title. "Anyway, what do you want to do about this whole 'Hyuga Affair'? I'm still watching the Hyuga Clan and everything I hear points to them waiting on you to do something. Want me to bring Hiashi in for a meeting?"

"We've had enough meetings." Minato could live his whole life without speaking with Hiashi Hyuga again. "At this point, I'm hoping this all goes nowhere. For all the Raikage's complaining, his Shinobi aren't dead and they were caught red-handed. The fact remains that they were the ones who attacked a Clan Heiress. I've considered just having you throw them at his feet and give a warning about not trying this again but that won't go over well."

"But it would be funny seeing his face."

"True. But then we could also have a new war on our hands. I'm not willing to put the village through another as long as I can avoid it. Even with you on our side, I don't like our chances. I'm confident in the abilities of my Shinobi but for every one of us, we'll be battling at 5 to 1 odds. The other Shinobi Villages haven't forgotten the ending of the last war." He gave yet another pointed look to Jade.

"And you still have me." Jade's smile was uncanny, inhuman. It was gone, was back to normal in the next moment. "But, you're the boss. Well, you're my boss's hubby." She dropped off the desk and to the floor. "Anyway, I really just showed up to check on you, make sure you weren't trying to sleep here again." She made a show of looking him over. "You plan to get to sleep tonight in your own bed, right?"

"Yes Jade." Minato could only shake his head at her usual playfulness. "I'll be done in an hour."

"I'll hold you to that." Jade laughed before she twitched. "…Huh." Jade cocked her head to the side. Her red eyes narrowed. "Him again."

She commanded the shadows in the room to converge over the door, create a portal. "Don't overwork yourself Minato."

She waved goodbye as she left through it.

She headed back home.

Well, not directly.

She appeared outside the door.

Her eyes were for the man who waited outside it.

AN: I wonder who's the visitor. I definitely don't know. Not at all.

Review/PM if you want.

Peace.