Chapter Six: Time Passes and Some Stuff Happens

It was about a month before anything more interesting than D-rank missions happened; well, unless you counted the amusement of seeing Kakashi try to explain why his arm was in a sling and would be indefinitely the morning after that eventful night. His excuse? He fell out of a tree while trying to help a cat down.

When Naruto called him a liar and demanded to know what the weird glowy black marks had been about, the jounin had grown quiet for a moment before warning them to stay away from fuinjutsu-using trees. He refused to say anything else on the matter after that.

Minato and Kushina had spent most of the time thinking up ways to improve the stabilizer seal Kushina had come up with to strengthen the clone bodies, as well as come up with a few ideas on how to deal with the whole twelve-year-old body issue. Minato decided he was going to have to get... creative with Hiraishin, and Kushina's simple answer was, as always, fuinjutsu.

'Yeesh, stupid cat. It got what it deserved,' Kushina muttered, as they watched said feline be strangled by its owner.

Minato didn't comment, but she could tell he agreed. 'So, what do you think they'll get next?' he asked, mostly to stave off boredom.

'Babysitting? Weed pulling? Does it matter? It's all mind-numbingly dull,' she grumped back.

Naruto must have thought the same thing as he pitched a fit at the sandaime when presented the same dull list of options as last time. Shockingly, the old man agreed to his request and assigned the fledgling genin team a C-rank mission.

'Yes! Escort mission! At least we'll get a chance to travel outside of the village,' Kushina cheered.

'I'm surprised the third gave in so easily,' Minato replied. 'Isn't it too early for C-ranks? Kakashi's arm is still in a sling...'

'Pffft, that boy's been doing C-ranks since before he could shave-'

'Kakashi shaves?'

'-one-armed shouldn't be difficult for him,' Kushina said, ignoring the interruption. 'Now shush, the client is coming out.'

Tazuna the bridge builder was not what they were expecting. When he made that crack about Naruto's stupid face, Kushina was right there urging her son along with his plan to murder their client before the mission had even begun. Minato wanted to face-palm.

So it was with that auspicious beginning that Kakashi's team seven set out on their first C-rank mission.

'Ambush.' Kushina and Minato pointed out at the exact same time as the odd puddle on the side of the road came into sight. Seriously? Were they even trying? Wait...

'That's... a ninja technique,' Minato pointed out slowly.

'Well, duh.'

'There aren't supposed to be any enemy ninja on C-rank missions!'

'Oh,' Kushina replied, sounding worried. 'Oh, crap. Kakashi's arm is still sealed.'

'Yeah... that might become a problem.'

The two could only watch anxiously as their son's team tread right into range of the ambush spot. Naruto wasn't facing the right direction to see the ninja reveal themselves, but they did see the long barbed chain that descended in loops around Kakashi.

"One down."

Two voices spoke as one as the attackers came into view and pulled tight on the bladed coils around the one-eyed jounin. Kakashi was shredded into bloody ribbons, causing Sakura to scream in horror and Naruto to yell out. Kushina was having a panic attack of her own.

'KAKASHI'S DEAD?! He can't be dead! I-... He-...!'

'Kushina, calm down! He's not dead, he used a Kawarimi no Jutsu,' Minato hurried to assure her. 'These guys are not that good, and there's no way Kakashi'd just stand there like that.'

'What?! That sneaky little... NARUTO!'

Minato felt dread as the two attackers dropped their barbed chain around his son next. "Two down."

'MOVE!' both parents urged as the orange-clad ninja froze up in fear. Time seemed to slow as the sharp loops fell into place and began to constrict...

The shuriken that came out of nowhere to pin the descending chain coil to a tree was like a godsend, and Minato allowed himself a sigh of relief. Cutting it a bit close there, Kakashi?

Except it hadn't been Kakashi. They discovered this as Naruto looked up to see the Uchiha tossing a kunai to help further stick the shuriken to the tree. Sasuke landed lightly on the two shinobi's arms, grasping onto the chain mechanism and kicking out with both feet right into each of the enemy nins' faces.

The two mist ninja weren't done yet, however, and quickly recovered. The must have hit some sort of release on the chain, because it suddenly dropped away and they split up, running toward different targets. One toward the client, and the other back toward Naruto.

Again their son froze up, but this time the Uchiha had chosen to go defend the client (Rightfully so, Minato had to admit. Naruto should have been able to take care of himself.) and couldn't help out. Where was Kakashi?

Just as blade tipped gloves tore into young flesh, a flash of silver intervened. Faster than Naruto could see, the two attackers were reduced to an unconscious pile on the ground with his jounin sensei standing over them looking almost bored.

'You let my baby get cut! I'm gonna cut your face, Hatake!'

'And poisoned,' Minato added helpfully, knowing that poison-tipped weapons were standard amongst mist-nin.

'Pfft, fuzzy-face has that covered, but I'm still taking it out of his hide!' There was a pause while they watched Kakashi explain the poison situation to Naruto, who promptly took action. 'No, Naruto, don't stab yourself! Bah, I swear these people know nothing of jinchuuriki!'

'Probably because they don't,' Minato said. 'We're not all Uzumaki, we don't deal with jinchuuriki and fuinjutsu on a regular basis.'

'Well they should be!'

Kushina fumed all through Tazuna's explanation of why he was being hunted by ninja, and when he tried his little guilt trip regarding what his family would go through if he died because the leaf-nin refused the mission, she growled, 'They should tie him up and see if this Gatou fellow will pay money for him.' Her husband was fairly certain she didn't actually mean that.

After the decision to continue the mission was finalized, Kakashi took Naruto aside and handed him a scroll. "Naruto, in case of an emergency I want you to have one of your bunshin take this scroll and activate the seal inside. After that, the clone should know what to do. Only in an emergency, though. It hasn't been tested enough yet to know for certain if it will help instead of kill you, so... use it at your own risk," the jounin said with a smile.

'That's where it went...', Minato mused.

'Where what went? Are you paying attention to this, Namikaze? He just gave our son a scroll that might kill him upon activation... who does that?!'

The yondaime laughed. 'No, it's just a simple storage scroll.'

'A storage scroll?' Kushina asked, confused. 'Why would he give a warning like that over a stupid storage scroll?'

'Because inside the storage scroll is the Hiraishin blade. Why else would he say to activate it with a bunshin?'

There was about a two second pause while Kushina processed this, then: 'NARUTO! This is your mommy speaking! Activate that scroll RIGHT NOW! Do it!'

Of course she was unheard, and Naruto merely took the scroll almost reverently from Kakashi before piping up with an excited, "Yes, Sensei! I won't let you down!"

'So, how long you wanna bet it is before he uses it?' Kushina ventured, giving up on trying to shout to Naruto through the seal.

'He's your son. Not even a day,' Minato replied.

A/N: Phew. So, I took a little break from writing on Saturday to play Skyrim. Otherwise this chapter might have gotten out sooner. That's okay though, I found a really neat MinaXKushi +Naru fic to read to inspire me to write more! (Seal Shatter, by Quill of Molliemon, if anyone is interested.) You know what also inspires me to write more? Reviews! (Hint, hint, nudge.)

Heh, shameless propositioning aside, I seem to be getting quite a few questions regarding a couple things I should clear up here so people stop being confused. :3

1) Short Chapters. I feel really badly about this, but I just can't write long chapters right now. I simply don't have the time/motivation to devote to epic length chapters, and if I didn't make them so short, they'd never get posted. I need the quick feedback from chapters or my will to write dies and I move on to another plot bunny that probably won't be 'good enough' to post here. That being said, people are more than welcome to clone my plot bunny and write their own version of this if they want. I'd really appreciate a heads up on it so I can read it though. :D Also, credit in the first chapter, but I kinda assumed that was a given.

2) Kakashi, Sandaime and Co.'s reactions to Minato and Kushina. Honestly, they're just trying to get the crazy possessed shadow clones to sit still long enough to verify they're actually who they say they are. If Minato had gone in chapter four instead of Kushina, he probably would have talked it out with them instead of breaking the seal in a fit of impatience and running off, and this whole mess would probably well be on its way to being sorted out by now. But Kushina was sent, and crazy wacky hijinks ensued, and that's where we are now. (Seriously, the other way would have been boring. D:)

3) Stagnating? Uhm... I don't think the story is stagnant. Actually, I'm pretty sure I have the opposite problem where I move too quickly in too few words and forget to put in stuff like details and descriptions. The story only seems to be moving slowly because they haven't gotten out for reals yet, maybe? Eh, that'll be fixed soon, I promise. Seriously, they get out for realzies like... next chapter-ish. :D Look forward to it. I know I am. (Cue Kushina's mad laughter in the background.)

Welp, this A/N is getting much longer than I had planned so I'm gonna stop now. I love all my readers! See you guys next chapter! :3

-Py