Chapter Eleven: Sasuke is just Ignoring Them All

"Aha! Jackpot!"

Minato shot his wife an amused look as she grinned triumphantly over the prize she had just liberated from Kakashi's pack. A small ink pot, a brush, and some paper. Anyone who knew Kushina at all would have shuddered in terror at seeing those in her hands. Except for her husband, of course.

"Naruto!" she called cheerfully, falling back into position walking beside her son. "Mommy needs your blood."

The yondaime craned his head around curiously, just in time to see the horrified-puzzled look on the younger blonde's face.

"Wha- my blood? Why?" he sputtered, eyeing the red-head warily.

Her grin didn't falter. "Fuinjutsu."

"What?"

"An Uzumaki that doesn't know what fuinjutsu is?!" she gasped, looking down at him in shock. Then she snatched her son in a tight hug and pat his head patronizingly. "My poor baby! Don't worry, Mommy will fix this!"

The teen looked up at him for help, but Minato could only grin back. Kakashi was heavy when he had the strength and endurance of a twelve-year-old. It was mildly irritating that he had to use chakra enhancement or he'd have dropped the jounin miles ago. Though it was good practice to get used to Naruto's chakra.

"Fuinjustu is the art of sealing, it is wonderful and glorious and the most powerful jutsu of all!" Kushina explained, still clinging to the boy. Not that he was exactly struggling to get free. "It's an Uzumaki specialty. You'll be surprised how fast you learn once I begin teaching you. Now, I need to add your blood to the ink so it'll use less chakra to activate and will be more powerful. Just a few drops."

"You can't use your own?" the teen asked, wrinkling his nose.

Kushina shrugged. "Well, I could. But then it would disappear when I went poof and destabilize any seal made with it. That doesn't matter if the seal is on me, but it might cause all sorts of mayhem if it were elsewhere. Usually they explode. Violently. Considering this is going to be on Minato's head-"

"What?"

"-we probably want to avoid that."

Naruto was quick to donate the necessary drops and soon Kushina was approaching her husband with a paintbrush. He eyed her uncertainly. "What are you doing?"

"Making it so you won't pop if someone pokes you with a stick." She wasted no time painting the Uzumaki spiral seal base on her hand and surrounding it with squiggly symbols only a fuinjutsu user would understand. Fortunately, the yondaime was one.

"That's the stabilizer seal? You changed it."

"Yeah, I can't do anything fancy yet, not without my notes and time to test it, but I have been working on efficiency. Using less of the clone's chakra, making it last longer and-"

"Okay, I give up," a very baffled looking Tazuna suddenly announced from his position behind the Kakashi laden Minato, "Where the hell did you two come from, and why are you all acting like it's no big deal two strangers just showed up out of nowhere?"

The elder blonde turned back to regard the bridge-builder seriously. He'd all-but forgotten the civilian until now because he'd been so quiet the whole time. Probably due to how utterly confusing the current situation was. Minato wasn't even sure he understood it fully himself, how was he going to explain it to a civilian?

He glanced over at Kushina but she didn't even look up from her seal work as she replied with a distracted, "Busy."

No help there.

"My apologies, Tazuna-san," the yondaime began, turning to face the client. "We forgot to introduce ourselves and explain the change in the mission parameters. I am Namikaze Minato, a...," well, he wasn't a kage anymore so he was a...? "jounin of Konoha."

He ignored Kushina's amused snort and the pink-haired girl's frown of consternation.

"This is my wife, Uzumaki Kushina, also a jounin of Konoha, and we will be assuming Hatake Kakashi's role as jounin supervisors to the genin team assigned to your mission. I apologize for any inconvenience this change causes you and promise it will not endanger the success of this mission."

"Old geezer should be thanking us," Kushina muttered under her breath. "If not for us he'd probably be dead by now."

"If not for us, Kakashi would have had both arms and probably have been able to take that guy," Minato hissed back quietly.

She merely shrugged in an 'I-regret-nothing' sort of way.

"... I still don't get it. Whatever, so long as you can keep me safe while I finish the bridge, you ninja can do whatever crazy jutsu things you need to do to get it done," the elder man replied, taking a long swig from the sake bottle hanging from his pack. Clearly he wasn't drunk enough for all this.

"You're a jounin?" Naruto asked, walking closer, but not quite ahead enough to be considered out of position. "Both of you?"

"Yep," Minato answered brightly. "I was Kakashi's jounin sensei when he was even younger than you are."

Sakura made a strange gurgling choking noise. "He's not-! You-! How can you be so blind?!" She buried her head in her hands, while Naruto gave her a confused look. Suddenly her head shot up and she turned to her blonde teammate. "Hey, Naruto, you want to be hokage right? Surely that means you know a lot about them...?"

"Eh? Why would I want to know about a bunch of old geezers? I just gotta be stronger than all of them and then I'll be hokage myself!" Minato couldn't help by smile at his son's bold statement. So much like his mother.

The girl looked about ready to throttle him, but tried one more time. "Well, you spend a lot of time up at the hokage monument, don't you... remember anything about them?"

Naruto frowned, squinting as he folded his arms and thought hard. "Oh! Now I remember... I was going to go paint the faces again when I got back! Thanks for reminding me, Sakura-chan!"

Kushina perked up at the mention of mischief. "You are? Can Mommy help? I claim the yondaime's face! That face belongs to me, and I'm still upset they never got my permission to put it up on a mountain for everyone to see."

Naruto didn't quite understand that last part, but he did get that his mother was offering to help him with a prank. No adult ever did that! "Sure! We can get more paint on the way home!"

"Excellent! We can drag Minato along too! What do you say, dear? Paint a mustache on the yondaime's face with me?" the redhead taunted, turning her big round lavender eyes on him.

He sighed. He was pretty sure this was her teasing him for being unable to grow any facial hair. "If only to keep you two out of too much trouble."

Sakura threw her hands up in frustration, giving up on trying to make Naruto see who his father was. Instead she asked a question that had been bothering her for a while. "If you two are married, how come you don't have the same family name?"

"Because he's just too damn nice!" Kushina growled, rolling her eyes. Her annoyance was spoiled by the embarrassed blush on her cheeks and slight smile she couldn't quite squash.

Minato saved her from having to explain. "Well, while we were dating, Kushina once told me that she really regretted that she'd have to give up her Uzumaki name once she got married. It's one of the only things she has left tying her to her clan and home village. I don't have a clan, I was an orphan and the name 'Namikaze' was given to me by the caretakers. So, since it wasn't all that important to me, I told her when I proposed that we could have a matrilineal marriage. I had to keep my last name, though, since I'd already made quite a reputation for myself, but Kushina kept hers and all our children would take the Uzumaki name."

He peered down at the kids to see if they understood all that, and was slightly disturbed at the sparkly dreamy fangirl eyes the pink-haired girl was giving him. Naruto, predictably, looked confused. "Matriliny-what?"

"Matrilineal! It means the husband joins the wife's family instead of the other way around, baka!" Sakura shouted, raising a fist. It didn't get a chance to land on her teammate's head, however, before a chakra chain lashed out and caught it.

"Don't. Hit," Kushina growled, actually leaking a bit of killer intent to get her point across. "He's not an idiot for asking that. Hell, I didn't even know what the word meant until Minato explained it to me, and I was a lot older than Naruto is. You and me are going to have a few words about the proper way to treat people later."

Gulping, Sakura nodded as her wrist was released and the elder kunoichi went back to finishing her seals. Minato had to suppress an amused chuckle at the irony of Uzumaki Kushina giving someone else a lecture on 'non-violence'.

They were just in sight of their destination when Kushina suddenly announced she was done. She handed two paper seals to Naruto with instructions to give them back to her the next time time they were summoned in combat, before skipping up to her husband with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Minato knew that look. That could mean any number of things, good or bad, for him. Usually both.

Using the one arm that didn't have seal ink all over it, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him passionately enough to make it borderline indecent given their current company. Not that Minato was aware enough to remember that, he was just irritated that his arms were full with carrying Kakashi and he couldn't wrap them around her in retaliation.

They separated far too soon for his liking, but he had to reluctantly admit, now that he had a moment to think clearly, that this was hardly the time or place for such things.

"Take care of the kiddies for me," was all the warning he received before his wife slammed the seal on his forehead and activated it.

"Kushina-!" he started, eyes going wide, but she'd already exploded into a cloud of summoning smoke, the bunshin's chakra having been depleted. He had to remind himself that she wasn't gone, just returned to the seal. Ever since she'd offered to kill herself to seal the kyuubi, his semi-irrational fear of losing her had gotten worse.

"Should... I make another clone?" Naruto asked uncertainly.

Minato took a deep breath before beginning to move forward again. Forcing himself to see the logic of the situation instead of the emotions that wanted to go get her back right that very moment. "No, she can't get out on her own. I'd have to go back to help her and I'm busy carrying Kakashi. Besides, it's probably not a good idea for you to be constantly maintaining two bunshin and exhausting yourself. You look alright, but I want to wait until tomorrow to see how much of a drain we are on your system. I didn't fight as much, I should be able to stay until Kakashi wakes up, at least."

It was with that slightly more somber mood that they reached their client's home.

A/N: Okay, there's chapter 11. Which I'm still not very happy with, but it gets us to the next point. Poor Minato, at least now you know Naruto doesn't get your memories since that kiss didn't scar him for life. I can guarantee you Kushina's thoughts during it weren't PG-rated. XD

He might verify it in the next chapter, but I might forget. I've been sick lately so my ideas for the story have been more slippery than usual.

Anyway! Everyone should go read Drunken Space-Time Ninjutsu by my good friend Igornerd! It is awesomely hilarious and is a very interesting take on the whole time travel plot bunny.

Also Chance for a Prophecy by Dorcyy. If you haven't already read that, you definitely should, one of the best time travel Naruto fics I've read yet. :3

And just one more: Hands of Time by Duesal Bladesinger. Because of this, I will forever think of older Sasuke as a nanny-maid. Just sayin'. XD Also time travel, but who doesn't love those kinds of fics?

What can I say? I read a lot this past week and a half or so.

Thanks for reading! :3

-Py