Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I call upon the respective spirits of Tommy Vercetti, Carl Johnson, and Niko Bellic to fill my soul and inspire me to come up with a brilliant criminal act that will allow me to obtain the coveted licenses for the Naruto franchise.
*Second chapter of a double post. I can't help myself sometimes.*
I can honestly see how so many of the people I've met in my life are or were obsessed with power. It's disturbing, because I came really close to being like that time after time. I saw lots of people I loved die or get hurt. I had people that I grew to like have injustices heaped upon them because they weren't able to fix things on their own.
To be helpless, a bystander, to be able to do nothing else other than to be a victim or hope that someone else with the ability to change things does something in your favor, it's infuriating. I can only imagine how many friends and loved ones some people have seen die in front of them in a battle. Even worse, is actually being in the position to do something to help, but just not being strong enough to matter.
When you're a liability, and you know that you are, it hurts.
When you've spent the better part of your childhood being prepared to step onto a battlefield if need be, and then you find out that you're nowhere near ready for just what a real battle with real hardened ninjas can throw at you, it's a bit of a cold slap across the face.
In my case, because of what happened to me I was a primary reason for a lot of the bad things that happened to the people I cared about. Back then, I couldn't do anything. At the time I always thought that when push came to shove, if it really mattered, if the chips were really down, I could always win some way, somehow. I was a stupid kid like that. You see, I didn't realize just how disgustingly powerful some people were. You never imagine just what some people are capable of until you actually see the limits of what human beings by themselves can truly do.
People were afraid of jinchuuriki, because inside of them they had the power of the biju. No. That's not much to really be afraid of, because that's not really our power. The scariest thing to people never should have been jinchuuriki.
The scariest thing was when I ran into people that were so powerful that being a jinchuuriki didn't even matter to them, even after I figured out how to make that work out for me. My dad was a straight-up human. No kekkei genkai, no massive power sealed in him, and right up until his end I always felt like he was stronger than me. And that's exactly my point.
Even if I could draw from a source of chakra like Kurama, it didn't matter. For a long time there were still some people in the world that terrified me, and for the longest time I still didn't even know exactly what they could do.
Uzumaki Naruto – 'End of Clan War Era Memoirs'
Chapter 9: Gone In a Flash
Kurama was wary of his opponent? That never happened. No matter how big the bandits were, he usually just told Naruto to hurry up and beat them so he could go back to sleep. Even against Neji and Sasuke, he didn't really seem to care, and those guys had been tough!
Yeah, this guy was a grown-up ninja, but the gap between them wasn't that significant, was it? After all, Tenten was there too, so it was two-on-one. But it seemed to be more of a matter of the jutsu that the Senju Clan man used more than anything else.
That was one hell of a wooden wall. Testing it, he drew a kunai and stabbed into it. The tip barely pierced the surface of the thick fortification even with the force he'd done it with, 'He made these trees come up from nothing. That's not right.'
"It's my second most abhorred kekkei genkai that you blasted humans have come up with," Kurama declared with a growl, "Right behind Sharingan, then there's the Mokuton, which gives the user the ability to create and manipulate plants. Where the Sharingan can bind a biju mentally, Mokuton can bind a biju physically."
'Bullshit.'
"I never kid about the biju," Kurama repeated from their encounter with Shukaku, "If I say it you'd damn sure better believe it."
Realizing that through his entire mental conversation he hadn't been interrupted with a lethal blow to a vital area, Naruto turned around to face the man that had confronted them. Tenten though, asked the obvious question, "You didn't attack while Naruto's back was turned?"
"Naruto-san here isn't a bad little ninja to get away from that woman. For some reason Konan-san has an actual bone to pick with him," Tenzo said with an apologetic look on his face, "I don't though. This isn't something that I want to do, and the last thing I'd want is for you to see it happen or be involved. I have a heart you know."
Yeah right. If he had a heart he wouldn't be trying to kill him just for existing as a jinchuuriki.
"Then you wouldn't be doin' this at all!" Naruto said, calling him out on his excuse-making, his accent breaking in his frustration, "I'm tired of telling people… everybody in the village, and now people like you and the Konan bitch that this isn't anything I did! And I'm not gonna roll over and die just 'cause you don't wanna wait on me to fix this myself!"
Once more, Tenten furrowed her brow, not knowing what he was referring to in the slightest.
Tenzo sighed and tried to appeal to Tenten's base sense of reason, "Listen, if you stay out of the way and let me deal with Naruto-san I won't hurt you. I'm being nice. Konan-san wouldn't have cared. She would have killed you right along with him without giving you a chance because it would have saved more time."
Trying to protect the girl that had no stake in this was the reason that Tenzo demanded that Konan allow him to handle things himself. But if she got in the way he would break her as much as he needed to in order to complete his task.
As Naruto's back heel bounced impatiently off of the ground he seethed to himself. That was fair, even if it basically sealed his fate with fighting alone against someone that gave even Kurama pause. But before he could even say anything prompting Tenten to leave this alone, she threw a kunai straight at Tenzo that he caught between his index and middle fingers.
Naruto wanted to ask why she would do something like that when she had an out, when they hadn't been friends for that long in the grand scheme of things, but there was no time. That was the last straw to keep things from getting out of hand, and his legs carried him forward to get her front, per their team dynamic.
Tenzo flipped the kunai and hurled it back at Naruto's head getting the diminutive ninja to duck it without his stride being broken. As he leaned back up, Naruto's arms were concealed in a puff of smoke from the scroll he had in his pocket, allowing him to unseal a fuuma shuriken. Only unfolding two blades of it, Naruto dangerously threw it at Tenzo.
'That thing's not aerodynamic enough to hit me with only two blades open.' It passed right by him, but to his surprise it curved back around and he noticed a glowing blue string on his shoulder that led back to Tenten, 'No way!'
Back with Tenten she had a Chakra Strings from her fingers attached to Naruto's shuriken, allowing her to guide it herself with her fingers. The wire would strangle Tenzo's neck when it wrapped back around and would make him an easy target on its second pass, but he avoided the blade, ducking underneath it and forcing it to plant into the wall before the bit of subterfuge was complete.
Thrusting his arm out at the still advancing Naruto, Tenzo had a little surprise for him, "Mokuton: Daijurin no Jutsu (Wood Release: Great Forest Jutsu)!"
"Brat, move!"
"Naruto, substitute!"
A look of shock appeared in Naruto's eyes as he was speared with wooden spears that formed and branched out from Tenzo's arm. In a puff of smoke, instead of Naruto it wound up being a large target dummy that was skewered in his place. That damnable girl had unsealed a countermeasure to let Naruto escape a sure-death scenario.
Almost two months of training and constant teamwork made that type of communication work so sublimely. It was clear that Tenten was the distance support to Naruto's more direct up-close approach. She might have saved Naruto, but that did nothing to stop Tenzo's attack from continuing onward, forking into several more skewers that went after her.
With a gasp, Tenten cringed and flinched as she assumed her impalement was imminent, but all Tenzo did to her was pin her against the wooden wall with not an inch of space to move. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest when she saw Tenzo break off the tree attachment of his arm so that he could focus back on Naruto, 'Damn it!' "Naruto!"
"I'll get you out!" Naruto promised, wincing as he felt several more clones he'd made meet their end by Tenzo's hand, "Just hold on for a bit!" Any attempt to use his swarming style of taijutsu in tandem with his clones he tried failed. On this occasion however, he took a hard punch to the face that staggered him back while his clones kept coming.
"Don't!" Tenten grunted, stuck against the wooden wall in an awkward position that caused her to wince with every attempt she made to move, "Just… don't die!" There had to be something she could do to get out, but she couldn't even move her hands enough to make a hand-seal, let alone reach any of her ninja tools, "Please don't die!"
She could barely move her fingers around to manipulate the Chakra Strings that Kankuro had clued her in on back in the desert, but she wasn't that good with them after only a few days. She needed more direct movements of her hands to get them to work for now, and her arm was stuck right down to the wrist.
After disposing of more of Naruto's clones with his melee Mokuton techniques, Tenzo turned to Naruto and shook out his wrist, "I told you I wouldn't kill her if I didn't have to. Killing kids isn't my thing. That just leaves you and me-." He had to give Naruto credit when he came at him again before he even finished his statement, "Alright."
Naruto charged at Tenzo with a look of focus on his face, 'If this is it… I might as well go hard,' With a hard tug of his right arm, Naruto's kunai flew out of the wooden wall, getting a scared eep out of Tenten who hadn't noticed that there'd been ninja wire tied to the ring the entire time.
The weapon flew forward through the air, past Naruto and at Tenzo who loaded up his legs to prepare a dodge and a counter that would kill the boy quickly to spare him pain. His timing was disrupted horribly when the kunai got something of a speed and power boost.
"Fuuton: Repuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"
Tenzo moved his head directly out of the way of the weapon that would have brained him otherwise and turned his head back forward to grab Naruto's forearm as he tried to clean his clock with a punch. Trying to throw the boy to the ground, Naruto posted himself upside-down with his other hand and in a stroke of inspiration put the kunai-spinning exercise into practice, allowing him to twist and smash Tenzo with a whirling kick.
Blocking the surprise taijutsu and stopping Naruto cold, Tenzo swung his leg around and kicked Naruto as hard as he could, sending him flying into the front wall of one of the buildings lining the street. Facedown on the ground, Naruto spit out blood, twitching and quivering for a few moments.
That hurt. That hurt like hell. He'd never been hit that hard in his entire life, in training with Kakashi and Kushina, in spars with Neji and Tenten, in a real fight with the Uchiha Clan. Never. He felt that if someone had been watching they could have seen the impression of Tenzo's sandal through his back.
Sighing at having to resort to hitting a child that hard to make him stop, Tenzo began to walk over to Naruto to continue, "I'm not going to stop."
'So…' Naruto thought to himself, grabbing a fistful of dirt as he tried to push himself up, 'This is what fighting Kakashi would be like if he wasn't holding back all of the time? It sucks.'
"Get up Naruto."
"I know…" On his knees, back turned to Tenzo as he rose up, Naruto started subtly making hand-seals, trying to hide them as his enemy drew closer, 'Come on mom, help me out here. Ne, Ushi, Inu, Inu, I!' Clapping his hands, he then slammed one hand on the ground with a sealing array appearing right beneath it.
Tenzo's eyes went wide at the sight of the array and the almost instant extension of the jutsu's formation right beneath him, a copy of the smaller array underneath Naruto's hand, "Uzumaki Clan binding Fuuinjutsu. Well I'll be damned."
It worked. He couldn't exit the circumference of the array after he'd found himself caught within it until Naruto lifted his hand up off of the ground. If his chakra had been significantly more powerful than Naruto's he could have broken it, but Naruto's clan was noted for its potent chakra and sealing knowledge, therefore it would be a tall task for someone else without both of those factors to break it.
"I forgot you were an Uzumaki," Tenzo admitted with a chuckle, "You really don't look like one I've got to say. You proved that though. I can't get out of this."
Wiping his nose clear of the blood from Tenzo's earlier punch to the face, Naruto sat down cross-legged on the ground, making sure to keep his right hand planted flat on the ground to maintain the seal, "Heh… gotcha. If Tenten wasn't stuck, this would be the time where she finished you off with enough sharp metal to start a scrap yard."
Tenzo genuinely applauded the effort. He had been caught. It was at that point that the clapping sounded off to Naruto, as if it weren't flesh and bone clapping. Before his eyes, Tenzo's body took on the appearance of wood.
A clone. All of that work, and it had been a clone they'd been taking on. One clone.
From the wooden wall that Tenten was pinned to, Tenzo's body emerged from it as if he had been a part of it the entire time. Without saying a word, the look in his eye was that of dead seriousness. Three hand-seals later, in his right hand he formed a spiral of water in the center of his palm that he fired right at Naruto, "Suiton: Hahonryuu (Water Release: Tearing Torrent)!"
"Doton: Doryuuheki (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall)!"
As the ripping bolt of water tore across the ground at Naruto, a wall rose in front of him, decorated with four bulldog sculptures, protecting him from the attack before he could get back up.
Tenzo's attention attracted by the wall, he didn't notice until after the fact that Tenten was gone from where she'd been stuck until right then. A panging sense of self-preservation forced him to fire up his chakra and protect himself, "Mokuton: Mokujouheki (Wood Release: Wood Locking Wall)!"
A large fireball set the wooden half-dome that rose from the ground ablaze. As it burned down to the ground, Tenzo surfaces from underneath the ground, glaring up at the perpetrator of the attack. It took him all of two seconds to identify the man at first glance, "Hatake Kakashi, the Copy Ninja."
"Tenzo of the Mokuton," Kakashi said, standing from atop the defensive wall he'd raised to protect Naruto previously, "I'm saying that because of all of the wood, obviously."
"Obviously," Tenzo deadpanned, "…Since the girl's gone, I'm assuming that Naruto-san isn't behind that wall any longer."
"Of course he isn't." Kakashi confirmed brightly, "Do you know how hard it was to track that boy down after he signaled for me? I tried to peg him by scent. Not the best idea when he split off his clones all over Twin Ridge Town to throw people off."
"I'll just find him later after I'm through here. He fought like his life was on the line, but that won't be enough," Tenzo assured him, "I was making him fight my clone to wait for him to tap into his biju powers, but he never did. Which one does he have?"
Instead of directly answering that question, Kakashi gave him what appeared to be an amicable smile behind his facemask as he revealed his normally concealed eye. He wasn't about to take it easy on one of the most powerful Senju Clan members of the modern era,
Slowly, he drew his White Light Chakra Saber from his back with masked intent, "…You know, I take personal offense to people roughing up my cute little runts. That's my job," With that being said, he opened both of his eyes to reveal the Sharingan in one of them, "I like it even less when they try to kill one of them."
Because of the unnatural process by which the two obtained the bloodlines it wasn't a legitimate faceoff, but for the first time in decades it was Mokuton against Sharingan.
XxX
(With Naruto and Tenten)
"I love Kakashi!" Naruto bawled as he and Tenten fled away from the scene of the battle that Kakashi had snagged from them, "I love that man so much! I'll never make fun of him behind his back ever again!"
"Are you alright?" Tenten asked Naruto, noting how roughed up he looked. There was still blood on his face and staining his shirt, but he wasn't paying any attention to his superficial blood loss, "That guy… what was that all about? We haven't done anything to the Senju Clan! The only real clan we've fought is the Uchiha Clan! Wouldn't that make them actually like us instead?"
Not only that, but Naruto was an Uzumaki! Tenzo's Wood Clone had confirmed that he knew that Naruto was one after he'd trapped him! Those two clans were incredibly tight with each other!
It was time for Naruto to get it off his chest. It wasn't fair that she didn't know why any of this was happening. They had only known each other for just under two months. Even if it was technically the right thing to do, to fight for your partner, it wasn't right that she didn't know the reason she was sticking her neck out.
Even if she chose to run away from that point forward, to hell with it. It was better that she did so and lived out of fear of him than if she died never knowing just what brought it on in the first place.
"Tenten," Naruto said as they continued to flee through the town to a safer area, "That guy, he's after me because of something I have, and what I am. I'm a jinchuuriki, and that means that I've got a biju sealed inside of me."
She almost tripped and fell out of surprise upon hearing such a thing, but a sharp grab on her arm by Naruto kept her upright, "What? That's possible? No way," A look to the side to see his face saw that he was dead serious. Naruto didn't lie. He may have embellished from time to time, but he never lied, "You're not kidding. Why didn't you tell me?"
"How?" Naruto asked in return, keeping his eyes peeled for an attack, "What, do we just wake up one morning and somewhere between morning training and breakfast I say, 'Hey Tenten, by the way I just thought you should know, I've got a biju in me. You know, one of those things like Shukaku?'"
"I'm not a biju or a thing weakling. I'm the thing and the biju. Either use my name or get it straight."
A contemplative look pasted itself on Tenten's face at the thought of something like Shukaku being inside of her friend if this was to be believed. Fuuinjutsu really was scary.
That raised the question of why he was telling her this to begin with. There was guilt all over his face and she could only roll her eyes at the thought, "You think I'm supposed to be scared because you've got a big chakra monster sealed inside of you? No way," She declared with a smile tugging at her lips, "You're way too puny to be scary."
"Oi!" Why did it always come back to the height? He'd get taller soon damn it, "I'm not that little!"
It was all in jest however, meant to break the tension between them, "Seriously, are you kidding? I've seen Shukaku. After living with you and seeing him, Shukaku is infinitely scarier. There's no comparison between the two of you for being frightening, and when your clan talks about seals people are supposed to take your word for it."
She was getting earnestly attached to Naruto and Kakashi as a unit anyway. After having no one with her since her parents died, something that hadn't raised an issue until that point wasn't going to shoo her away from people that she wanted to be around now of all times. Having experienced both solitude and having a family in the past, being with people was much better than being alone.
The two of them decided that any battle Kakashi was in would be way too intense to be anywhere near, especially when the person he was fighting had the ability to make a great wall of trees out of his chakra and split through the road with a torrent of water. The best option in this case was to cross over to the other side of Twin Ridge Town to give themselves fresh places to hide. It was a big town. There were plenty of places to go.
As they crossed the dam bridging the two sides of the town, Naruto felt like he was missing something when he felt one particular step he'd taken on the sturdy bridge collapse through. An entire extra segment of the dam had been mimicked by countless sheets of paper that managed to mask the illusion of them actually being parts of the structure.
Tenten caught Naruto's arm and pulled him back up onto the actual dam before he could fall to what was almost assured to be a pretty horrible death form that height, 'I almost fell! You warned me about half of the stuff that happened to me today, why didn't you warn me about that one!? We could have actually not taken the dam!' There were like six other bridges joining the two sides of the town.
Kurama was not willing to admit that he couldn't tell the difference between a worthless human structure and an illusion of a useless human structure comprised of paper, and he was more than willing to make up an excuse, "…I thought you had it."
'No, I didn't have it!'
As they recovered from the near-fall, Konan appeared from the remnants of her false environment. Her body seemed to come together from countless sheets of paper, as if they comprised the entire body composition of the beautiful woman and her black dress.
"Tenzo is too cautious," Konan declared, walking toward the two kids, "He insisted that the safest manner to deal with you would have been coaxing you to utilize your biju's chakra before shutting you down with his Mokuton binding techniques. He expected you to do so the moment you realized that you were in distress. You never tapped into any though did you?"
"I didn't even know I could," Naruto admitted, trying in vain to reason that he wasn't dangerous, "I don't know anything about biju or jinchuuriki or anything. Leave us alone already!"
Not a muscle on Konan's face even flinched, "You're in no position to be demanding anything of me little one," She said coolly, her eyes drifting to Tenten where they stopped and she herself stopped moving. Seeing her with Naruto stirred thoughts of times long since passed. Times that didn't end so well for her or the other person she saw in those thoughts, "You remind me of how I used to be. That's a shame."
Unlike how she regarded what she had to do to Naruto, she actually felt honest remorse for what she was about to do to Tenten. She wasn't Tenzo though. Her outlook on the world was much bleaker than his, and in that outlook kids got no mercy simply for being kids.
With a wave of her hands, dozens of the paper sheets floating around in the air from her previously disrupted trick on the eyes folded themselves into large shuriken, spears, and assortments of other weapons before. In response, Naruto fitfully formed a circle's worth of clones with their hands pressed together in front of their bodies, "Fuuton: Repuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"
Weaponized or not, paper was still paper. With clones to protect all of the available blind spots that a fatal attack could have come from, Naruto created something of a small wind storm in his endeavor to blow the deadly origami away.
A small smirk came to Konan's lips as he did this. Yes, it did what Naruto had intended it to. It protected him and Tenten from the more straightforward attack of her origami weapons, but in doing so it also kicked up the even more numerous stray sheets of paper littering the dam. Since she had manipulated the shape of every sheet of paper he'd seen since her introduction to him, he hadn't been conditioned to realize that every sheet was dangerous, folded or not.
A plume of paper rose up, keeping in flow with Naruto's wind currents until they suddenly turned inward and affixed themselves to the multiple versions of him creating the windy ruckus. From head to toe they were covered entirely in paper, to the point that their movements were bound and their noses and mouths were smothered.
Asphyxiation was a horrible way to die, even for a clone, thus they dispelled themselves prior, revealing that again to Konan's unwelcome recognition Naruto was gone, and he'd taken Tenten with him. That brat sure knew how to try and make himself scarce.
From what was supposed to be her blind spot she was assaulted by several clones only for them to be skewered with paper sheets that had still been littered all around. With a cast of her hand she engulfed Naruto and Tenten up to their waists in paper before the latter could reach for a pair of scrolls on her person. How did you fight millions of sheets of levitating paper?
His arms were free, but he couldn't Kawarimi his way out of it due to a particular tag attached to the small of his back amongst the rest of the papers; a Chakra Suppression Tag.
"As far as techniques go, Tenzo was your worst possible match short of the absolute strongest of Uchiha little one," Konan said to Naruto as the papers began to blanket his head, covering his eyes and ears as it crept down to his nose and mouth, "Right after that I think I rank as the next worst for you in my opinion. There was nothing you could have done to get away from both of us."
"Long time no see Konan."
In a Shunshin so fast that the person performing the jutsu appeared before the papers littering the ground stirred to register his presence, a man with shockingly bright blond hair and a flowing white haori stood in a crouch with a strange kunai in his hand. His mere presence by itself demanded Konan's full attention.
She almost couldn't believe who she was seeing. Why now of all times? To find him here, it was just her lot in life, "…Minato," The blue-haired woman said crossly, identifying her pesky interloper, "The last I'd heard, you were wandering through the desert. I'd hoped it would have been for forty years, but I guess I can't be that fortunate."
Minato stood up with a stern look on his face, flipping his kunai before pointing it at Konan, "So I was sitting at my inn out on the balcony looking out over the ravine trying to figure out where I was going to go next, when all of a sudden way back in the distance I saw a big extra chunk of the dam that hadn't been there before suddenly transform as if a paper mill had sneezed. And I thought to myself, 'Who do I know that could do anything like that?'"
Fighting him had not been in her plans whatsoever. Konan believed in her heart and soul, from the absolute bottom of it that she could overcome any ninja even if it took her life to do it, but against Minato, fighting him out of the blue was impossible. You didn't just run up against Namikaze Minato and defeat him out of the blue with no preparation.
"I wish I could say that it was nice to see you again, but I'd be lying," Konan bit spitefully, "I personally would have preferred to never see you again Minato."
"Now that's not how you treat a former fellow apprentice," Minato said with a frown, "We were all Jiraiya-sensei's students; you, me, and Yahi-."
"Don't. Say His. Name," Konan stated, ice water flowing through her words, "You left. You went away and became the famous 'Yellow Flash' all on your own. After you left, Jiraiya-sensei must have gotten bored with us, because we were nowhere near as strong as you were when he said that we were serviceable enough shinobi to take care of ourselves. You have no idea what happened after you two found better things to do, but maybe I can give you an idea."
With a motion of her hand, the copious sheets of paper covering Naruto and Tenten coughed them out and hurled them off of the dam.
Though most of Naruto's body was covered, when he saw Konan hurl him over the side, Minato's brain took in the boy's features in slow motion. Eyes widening in horror, he touched down on the dam before bolting over the edge after the falling children.
It was a long drop before they hit the craggy bottom, and Konan had thrown them far enough away from the structure that even if they were able to think about it they couldn't latch onto the wall with their chakra to try and stick to slow themselves.
Minato careened through the air until he got close enough to grab at Naruto's shirt, but he found that the boy shoved Tenten into his arms instead. A smile instantly planted itself on Minato's face as he flashed away with her, and then right back to retrieve Naruto and return the two children to the safety of the dam. He quickly looked around only to find that Konan had taken the opening of chucking Naruto and Tenten off of the dam as an opening to leave and avoid a confrontation with him.
That was fine. He wasn't really spoiling to fight an old friend anyway. There was something much more important right in front of him at the moment.
"Why'd you do that?" Minato asked Naruto, standing behind him a decent distance away as the boy tried to slow his heart rate down after taking an unwanted plunge, "I was going to get you both, so why'd you have to make sure that she was first?"
Naruto shook his head, sitting on the dam, eyes wide and affixed to the ground from the near-death experience as Tenten laid on her belly in a similar state of mind, "Hah… hah… because none of this had anything to do with her. It's not fair… that she got caught up with my stuff. I knew you would'na jumped if you didn't have a way to get us both. Even if you didn't, you getting her was good enough for me."
Minato smiled warmly at him, not that Naruto could see it, 'That really is my boy,' Kushina did well with him, "Yeah, actually even if I didn't have a sure-fire way to get you both I still probably would have jumped anyway. Fathers are kind of supposed to get like that when it comes to their sons."
With that being said, Naruto's form visibly stiffened. His head craned around while Tenten rolled over to her back to actually take full account of the person that had saved them. Looking at the sleeve of his shirt that Minato had firmly grabbed to tag him, Naruto saw a strange formula array and looked back over to the man.
It was almost too much for Tenten to take in at first, "…M-Minato-sama."
So this really was him? The jolt of yellow that he vanished and appeared in to get them away from their would-be death plunge, his physical features, and Tenten's reaction to the sight of him were all the confirmation Naruto needed after the man himself acknowledged that he was his father.
"Wow," Minato said, eyes full of wonder as he tried to come up with the words to say. This entire turn of events had been unexpected, and he'd taken it all as it had come, from seeing Konan to realizing that she was about to kill his son, to having to save his son, compartmentalizing it all to handle one at a time. Now that it was over, he was overcome, "You… the last time I saw you, you were such a little thing Naruto."
Naruto's mouth moved, but nothing came out. He didn't have the slightest idea of what to say. Seriously, that was his father? The man seemed to glow or something. Either oxygen deprivation from before had gotten to his brain or he was losing it.
All he could do was act.
Stepping forward, Naruto tentatively held his arms out as if he wanted something but didn't know what to anticipate from the man in front of him. Seeing that Naruto wanted a hug almost brought a tear to Minato's eye and he couldn't move forward fast enough to embrace his son.
Which was what made him such a prime target for a quick knuckle jab to the throat.
Minato had been stooping down to hug Naruto on his level and quickly shot back up, holding his throat, rasping, and sputtering after enduring the blow. Tenten could only watch with a dry look on her face, "Oh, you were really serious when you said you were going to punch him in the throat when you saw him."
"Of course I was, 'ttebayo!" Naruto said, pointing emphatically at Minato, "Did you think I wasn't ever gonna come see you old man? Did you think saving my ass one time made up for ten years of never seein' your face once? You better recognize!"
"I thought you were going to give him a chance!" Tenten argued in Minato's favor after Naruto's miniature tirade, "You said you would in the desert!"
"All I did was hit him! I never said I didn't want anything to do with him at all!"
"You just punched one of the strongest men in the world!"
Naruto looked over at Minato who still seemed to be trying to clear his throat from the pain of the shot. One of the strongest? Really? "Are you sure? Because Kakashi would've never let me hit him, even if we were that close." Squinting as he appraised his father, Naruto's face twisted up in thought, "Huh…"
Minato rubbed his throat one last time, biting back a tear as he cleared his throat, "Wait, what about Kakashi?" How did his son know Kakashi? As a matter of fact… "Naruto, why are you here? You should be back on Uzu no Kuni with Kushina."
"Uh, sometimes I take really enthusiastic walks."
"…We're about 700 miles away from the east coast of Hi no Kuni." In other words, he was a long way away from home.
"Really enthusiastic walks."
XxX
(A While Later – Minato's Inn)
Kakashi wasn't sure how he'd expected a fight with someone named for a skill known as 'Wood Release' to go, but he had to say that he hadn't been expecting enough trees being grown from the ground to fill six full city blocks just to give the man a tactical advantage.
Thank goodness Minato hadn't been in town alone. That battle might have gotten out of hand otherwise.
Because creating a miniature forest wasn't out of hand in of itself. Not by Kakashi's standards.
After seeing a woman and countless pieces of paper fly through the air, Tenzo pulled out of the fight just as Jiraiya arrived to turn the tide further in Kakashi's favor. If he could find Naruto once he could find him again later, so Tenzo backing off for the time being didn't surprise Kakashi very much.
"Thanks again Jiraiya-sama," Kakashi said, wincing as Jiraiya applied bandages to his bruised shoulder and bicep, "Between Shukaku and Tenzo, well I guess you could say it's been quite a week."
"No, thank Minato," Jiraiya said, unrolling the medical bandage around the younger man's arm, "He was the one that first saw that something seemed to be up, and he made me go with him. Trust me, if it was up to me I probably wouldn't have budged from where I was doing research and I would have missed that it was you altogether. Do you know how many battles happen in this town? This place is outlaw central."
"Battles involving trees growing into the air in the middle of crowded business hubs?" Kakashi asked, turning his head out of the window to squint across the ravine at the side of the town he had been fighting at, "I think you can still see it from here."
"The more high-level the fight, the less reason for me to feel inquisitive and poke around," Jiraiya drawled, "Like I said; thank Minato." He emphasized with a sharp tightening of Kakashi's bandage before he patted him a little too hard in his recently wounded shoulder, "So you brought Minato's kid did you?"
Getting up, Kakashi nodded to the older white-haired man as the two of them headed out. A big part of Jiraiya wanted to see the whole father/son meeting, and he had never even seen the boy to begin with. Kakashi on the other hand was willing to wait things out back with his primary responsibility in protecting the cart now that he'd achieved his overreaching mission parameter of getting Naruto to Minato.
XxX
(With Naruto)
Minato had gotten the entire rundown of what had happened from Naruto while he had been walking with the kids on their way back to the ramen cart. He let him in on what had happened to warrant his departure from home. Minato had never had such a stroke of intent to kill someone quite the way that he had when Naruto had told him of the masked person who had put everything in motion. From there, Naruto explained how he'd met Kakashi, and why he had been asked by Kushina to seek Minato out.
Much to Naruto's consternation, Minato had requested to examine Naruto's seal right there on the spot. He was not disappointed by his wife's handiwork.
"Incredible…" Minato said with a hapless smile and a shake of his head, "She had the guts to try and double up on a Four Symbols Seal to make her own. Your mother is about as subtle as a stick of dynamite," He remarked, amused as ever at Kushina's technique. Despite the absence from his beloved she hadn't changed a bit in terms of her philosophy on ninjutsu, "You must have something really nasty inside of you if she had to use a seal like this. It's supposed to steadily leak the chakra of whatever's inside of you to mix with your own."
Rolling his eyes at Tenten and how she was amused at his dad poking and prodding at his stomach, Naruto gave his own two cents on the matter, "Mom said that the Four Symbols Seal would have only kept Kurama inside of me, and that he was too strong for a seal like that."
Nodding in understanding, Minato could see why. From Naruto's description, 'Kurama' was the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox of legend, "I'll bet."
"I like him," Kurama declared inside of Naruto's head, "Look at his face. He's still smiling but I can feel it. He understands the awesome majesty of my powerful power. Tell him the best part."
Naruto did just that. Though why Kurama thought that this was the best part was beyond him, "If Kurama's power didn't have a way out, I would have blown up in the middle of the village a few days later and killed everybody. But even after that, with the whisker-marks and the guys that could use Mind's Eye of the Kagura they figured out what I had pretty quick and were gonna extract Kurama."
CRASH!
Still pleasantly smiling at his progeny, Minato's face didn't even register that he'd put his own fist through a nearby brick wall out of suppressed rage. Needless to say, Naruto and Tenten were terrified. They didn't even see his arm move to throw the punch, "Sorry about that. My finger slipped. Go on buddy, continue."
"Old man, did… did you just hit that wall?" Naruto asked, pointing at the spot directly behind Minato that now had a nice new hole through it to someone's property.
"No," Minato replied courteously, belying just how fast and strong he really was. He didn't want to scare either of them after all, "Did either of you see me hit the wall?"
The younger ninjas looked at one another with Tenten just shrugging before Naruto answered, "Well, no."
"Then if you didn't see me do it, I didn't do it," His bruised and scuffed knuckles said otherwise, but Minato's philosophy had always been that if someone didn't see you do something that you didn't want them to know about, it didn't happen, "Alright?"
"I don't think it works like that, but o~kay?" Maybe Minato was that strong after all, "Anyway, ever since then me and Kakashi have been working on a bodyguard contract with this old man that makes awesome ramen and his daughter, and I met Tenten while we were doing that, and she came with us, and-."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me process all of that before you go on too far," Despite that, Minato couldn't help but grin. He could just see the Kushina aspect inside of the boy and it made him miss her in the worst way, "Tenten, don't think I don't remember you. Are you still only happy when you have a kunai in your hand?" He asked jokingly.
"No," Tenten muttered bashfully after being put on the spot. Clearly he remembered her love affair with all of the ninja tools in the world that he'd shown her back when he trained her, "…It's more than just kunai now."
What was she being all modest for? Naruto didn't know. If it was him, he'd have been spouting off in his own favor. Luckily he lacked all of the modesty that Tenten apparently had and he was willing to bloviate in her stead for her, "She invents her own ninja tools that work… and they're really good."
Suddenly Tenten found her toes very interesting when she realized that Minato's smile was directed at her, "Well I'm happy you've been with Naruto here to help him out." All she could do in return was mumble, "Naruto, how has your mother been?"
It was a question that Naruto had been waiting on and wanted to answer, but he found that he didn't know how, "Mom's just… mom," How else was he supposed to put it, "It's not like I knew what she was like before you left. You were never there at all so I don't really have anything to-…" He trailed off upon realizing how malicious that probably sounded, not in tone but in content.
He didn't mean to be that blunt or callous. It just came out that way. He knew how what he'd said sounded right after it had left his mouth.
You couldn't take things back after you said them, whether you meant them to sound a certain way or not.
"Old man…" Naruto said after a few seconds of stillness and silence, "I didn't mean-. I mean, I want to think you would've been around if you could've, but you just weren't," He didn't know how else to put it, "She told me about you all the time, about why you couldn't be with us and why we couldn't be with you, but I want to hear it from you."
Tenten grabbed Naruto's sleeve and waved at him and Minato before taking off onto the rooftops by herself, "I'll go ahead and check on Ayame-chan and Teuchi-san. It's supposed to be my turn to take your shift anyway isn't it?"
She didn't even wait for an answer before hopping off to do as she said and to give her friend and her first trainer some time. She wasn't about to be a third wheel for any longer than she had to be in that scenario. It wasn't her place to be there.
All she could do was wish her partner luck. It had been a tough day thus far physically, and it didn't seem like things were going to get much easier from an emotional standpoint.
Minato had figured back from the bit of training that he'd given her that Tenten was a smart girl, and he was very grateful that she had some ability to read the mood because this was something that should have been kept between he and Naruto. Not that it was a big secret, it was just personal business.
Outside of a storefront, the two of them sat down, Naruto looking over at Minato patiently as his father stared straight ahead, hands clasped on his knees as he thought things through, "I'm sure you know that a female clan ninja wedding outside of the clan unless otherwise approved is a bit of a black mark. I don't want you to think that's the only reason I couldn't stay there. That by itself really would have been nothing, and if it really was they would have cast her out and let me take the two of you. That's not why I wasn't around."
Naruto just shrugged and kicked his legs from where he was sitting on the bench, "I don't know anything about it then old man. That was the only reason I ever got. It was the only reason anybody ever threw in my face when it came up."
Kids would hold it over his head and say that it was what their parents had told them about him and why he was so different. Even Kushina never really went any further than that in why Minato wasn't with them when she was telling Naruto stories about him.
She never disputed that it was the big reason why, and if enough people keep saying the same thing about you for a long enough period of time you start believing that it's actually true.
"It's a little more complicated than that. I promise," Minato assured Naruto, pointing at the Hiraishin formula on his shirt, "That's one of the big reasons; that I know Hiraishin. It's a legendary Senju Clan jutsu, and other than me the only person that could ever perform it alone was Tobirama Senju, the second strongest member of that clan ever. And they took offense to that. You probably know the drill; an enemy of the Senju is an enemy of the Uzumaki."
Which included him, because he had 'stolen' their jutsu, mastered it when no more of them ever could seem to, and because he was trying to break apart the ninja system that currently had them sitting at the tippy-top of the heap.
All Naruto knew about was the Hiraishin thing for the most part. It was the first thing that always came up when Minato was spoken of, "You can teleport anywhere with it right? Anywhere you marked already?" Naruto's eyes lit up at the thought, "Man, that's got to be awesome."
"It is," Minato admitted with not a hint of shame, "And the marks don't ever go away either. If you wanted to keep me from teleporting to that shirt you'd have to rip it at the formula, put it somewhere that I can't teleport to like a caved in passageway, or destroy it altogether. I can actually brand people with it too, but that's not nice. To make sure it stays I've got to get it pretty deep on their actual bodies."
"I don't get it."
"Well I have a jutsu that grinds into people on contact, so if I hit them with it and mark them with my chakra at the same time, if I don't kill them that brand isn't going anywhere. Ever. Tattoo-style."
"Ouch."
"Yep," He reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair as he picked up where he left off with explaining, "But like I said, Hiraishin's not the only reason. The other reason is because of what I want to do. It's not really a safe idea to pitch to more of the hardened types out in the world. I've made a lot of friends with the idea, but no one ever wants to do anything to really move forward with it. A village comprised of all sorts of clans. A way to bring so much of the hostility and constant killing to an end."
Cue a blank look from Naruto as Minato continued to jabber on about something that was clearly going over Naruto's head.
"I want a system where all sorts of different ninjas can live and work together. Where kids aren't expected to fight tooth and nail on the battlefield like grown men. Something that can demolish the boundaries between the clans of the world," He saw a look of abject confusion on the boy's face, "You never heard anything about it? I thought Kakashi would have told you at least."
XxX
(With Konan and Tenzo)
"You had Naruto-san in a situation where you could have ended his life and his biju would never have factored in, but you retreated from Namikaze-san," A combat-disheveled Tenzo pointed out as he and Konan returned to a Senju post in Hi no Kuni, "So he's really that powerful then?"
"If I had continued to try and focus on asphyxiating Naruto, Minato would have had more than enough of an opportunity to kill me first," Konan replied tersely, "He is not the kind of person you can split your attention on even the slightest bit."
Konan didn't want to talk about that man, but Tenzo had been in a conflict of his own when he'd noticed her departure. If he hadn't been aware enough he would have been caught in a less than enviable situation of having to fight Hatake Kakashi, Jiraiya, and if he somehow overcame them both he would then have to content with Namikaze Minato.
He had to be assured without question that he couldn't have succeeded in that environment. Even if he was one of the biggest guns of the Senju Clan, there wasn't a way for him to power through that situation.
"Whatever you think you know about the Hiraishin, I can almost guarantee you that you're not prepared for his adaptation of it," Konan assured him, "However your clan expects solo users of the jutsu to perform it, the way he uses it has to be different."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because that's how he is. It's how he always was," Konan insisted, "If he doesn't create the technique himself, he'll make it so that he performs it in a way that isn't like anyone else's version, just to stay a step ahead."
"You seemed to have a grudge against Naruto-san. Is it because of Namikaze-san?"
As much as she didn't want to admit that her approach to handling Naruto was colored by some kind of personal grievance against him, she would have been honest in saying that it wasn't the case. She honestly had nothing against him. Unfortunately, he still never had a chance in the department of winning her favor. It was his parents that she had issues with however.
How could one child be born from two people that she so severely disliked for separate reasons? And how could that child have a place in her life somewhere where he could be a major problem? It was impossibly bad luck.
Then again, if one were to ask the blue-haired woman herself, impossibly bad luck was the trademark of her life.
"There were three of us. Myself, a boy named Yahiko, and Minato," Konan said, "Three of us that trained under Jiraiya-sensei at the same time, all orphans. He got us from different places, picked us up for whatever reason, and trained us as ninjas so that we weren't sitting ducks to be killed in some godforsaken crossfire."
He worked with them, they all did missions… it was nice for a while. Then he said that there was nothing he could teach Minato anymore, and Minato left to do his own thing, leaving Konan and the third student Yahiko with Jiraiya. It didn't take too much longer for Jiraiya to declare the same to them, and from there Jiraiya headed onward.
That was when things began to fall apart again. But that wasn't something that Konan liked to think about.
"So what now?" Tenzo asked, as Konan was still his senior even if he felt that he was more powerful than her, "I'll regroup at the base, report to Tsunade, and get an order from there. What about yourself?"
"I'm going back to Uzu no Kuni," Konan said resolutely, "If Naruto is with Minato now it's too dangerous to go after him without a complete understanding of what Minato is capable of. There's only one person I can go to for help. And I will get something useful, even if getting anything from her would be like getting blood from a stone."
XxX
(With Naruto and Minato)
"You want me to get Kushina," Minato said to Naruto, getting a fervent nod from the boy who was ecstatic that he was being understood, "…I never would have thought that things would get that bad. I did everything I did, and I left you behind because otherwise you wouldn't have had anything. You might not have had me, but you had your clan."
Kushina was more than likely a prisoner by now. Nagato was still the clan head, so he would never hurt her, but he wouldn't simply let her be either. He had a duty to the Uzumaki Clan first and foremost, and that responsibility overrode anything he might have felt for a childhood friend.
After hearing Minato's reasoning, Naruto frowned and shook his head, fists forming at his sides, "I… I feel more for Kakashi and Tenten than I did for anybody at home," He almost felt ashamed to admit that, but it was true. The only clan member he'd spent any actual time with over the years had been Karin, and she and he had never been close, "Mom was all I had."
"Naruto," Minato said, stooping down to set his hands on his son's shoulders, "If there really isn't anything there for her or you any longer, I'll get Kushina out. Kami knows I always wanted her, you, with me anyway. I just didn't want to make her choose between her duty to her clan and staying with me," She did love her clan, would have done anything for them, and endured her only child's exclusion from their society. Putting her son on the executioner's block for nothing was simply one bridge too far however, "…Now I figure it would have been better if she'd have broken all ties from the start."
Why not? All of those ties seemed to decay over time anyway after he'd left with the express purpose of preserving said ties. The only thing leaving Kushina and Naruto behind seemed to do was make things painful for them over a longer stretch of time.
So he was going to get his wife out of there, one way or another. Nothing would have made him happier than all of them being together, except of course them all being together with a permanent place to settle down.
"I can't make up for what I wasn't around to do before," Minato said, "But I can start doing the things for you and Kushina that I always wanted to now, and that means that first and foremost I'm going to get her back to you."
With a hopeful grin on his face, Naruto punched into his own palm and bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet, "That's what I'm talkin' about old man. Let's get goin' now! We can-!"
"I can't take you Naruto," Minato cut him off before he could get too excited about walking into the den of the 'enemy' to snatch back his mother, "Getting in there isn't going to be easy. The Uzumaki Clan are the only ones aside from the Senju that are capable of erasing my markers, and they got rid of the one I had on Kushina after I left-."
"But I live there! If anybody can handle it, it's gotta be me!"
"-And you're a target Naruto." Minato said, giving the boy a firm, brain-rattling shake to make sure he realized this, "Konan is going back to Nagato now. Those two were close even before I married Kushina. This isn't going to be stealthy. If I'm good and if I'm lucky I won't have to get into a fight until I get into the village, but more than likely they're going to know I'm there five minutes after I reach shore."
All of this was just affirming to Naruto why he needed to go, "So you need help? I can help," Minato once again wouldn't budge on this matter, "Why not? I'm a ninja too. I've seen and done stuff too, just like you or mom. I can handle it."
"No one should ask you to handle it Naruto. This is my fault. All of this happened because I am who I am," Minato insisted resolutely, "If I wasn't I wouldn't have had to leave. I would have been there to be a husband and a father. No one, mask or not, would have ever gotten the chance to stick Kurama-san inside of you, and this wouldn't have ever been an issue."
"Kurama-sama you worm. We're not equals." Kurama chimed in from inside of Naruto's head before putting on his pragmatic shoes so to speak, "The man is right boy. You were just handed your ass by the Senju and the paper woman. The only thing you'll do is slow him down and place a gigantic bullseye on your chest… or stomach actually."
'I know it's not smart,' Naruto groused internally, mentally picturing himself standing before Kurama's cage and staring down at the water pooled around his ankles, 'I know. But she's my mom, and he can say that it's his fault from the start, but she's mine. This is about me, and he's going to go off and clean up my mess for me? I'm just supposed to sit back and have him tell me everything's gonna be alright?'
Kurama didn't bother stating that it wasn't his mess to clean up either since nothing that had occurred was really his fault. That was just too easy. Instead he struck at a different point, "In my own limited experience, that's generally what fathers do." He said dryly.
'But…' Despite his attempts to dispute with his biju tenant, he knew that Kurama was right. Just looking in Minato's eyes he could see how much it meant to him to finally have a chance to fix his family life in some way. On the other hand, "…What am I supposed to do?"
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Naruto's stomach that Kurama quickly picked up on with his own sensitivity in regards to negative emotions. He could see inside of the boy's heart, and it was more than just a misplaced and stubborn desire to finish what he felt he'd started. It was more than just a feeling of helplessness, sitting on the sidelines.
He had a creeping sort of paranoia that Minato would take his mother and leave him alone without either of them. It wasn't a prominent one, but he still had something of an abandonment issue.
"You've already done your share just by finding me," Minato insisted with a comforting smile, "So let me do the rest. Don't you have a contract to uphold with some people you're protecting anyway?"
Yes Naruto did, but it was only a sixty day deal, and those sixty days were almost up. When that contract lapsed… well, he didn't want to just leave like that, with nothing but a goodbye. But this was bigger than that. They were in a place where Teuchi and Ayame could pick up brand new bodyguards just like that. They could probably throw a rock into the air and it would come down within five feet of some kind of fighter-for-hire.
They deserved a ninja escort that would keep them as their primary responsibility at all times. Naruto couldn't earnestly say that he could be that person for them if they were looking to renew, and the thought of something like today happening again scared him.
Someone as strong as Konan or Tenzo could attack again while he was with them, and the next time someone did come after his throat they would more than likely try to get at them to get to him. Many ninjas didn't have a problem with causing civilian casualties if it would get them to their target. That was one reason why so many people died when they weren't even combatants. Total war was extremely popular.
"I'll tell you what you can do more than anything else," Minato told Naruto with the utmost seriousness on his face, "Get as strong as you can. When I come back with Kushina, everything's going to get out of hand… fast."
"But I already train, every day, with clones when I learn a new jutsu!" Naruto replied, waving his arms around.
"There's-, wow really?" Minato was stunned for a moment before shaking it off, as impressive as it was there was a point he needed to make, "There's something else you can start doing not involving any jutsu. Something that no one else can do," He reached out and pat Naruto on the stomach, "You know more about your seal than you think you do. Your mom, when she created it she'd never used it before had she?" Naruto shook his head, "That's what I thought. You know just as much about the seal now as the two of us. More actually since you're the one with the seal on you."
"Eh?"
"Yes. You're an actual jinchuuriki. Who knows what you could be capable of?" Minato explained, "We don't know. No one has ever actually studied a jinchuuriki before. There have been so few, and they had their respective biju removed so quickly that no one has any idea what they're really capable of other than the danger factor of the biju being randomly released and going on a rampage."
Naruto thought he was beginning to get it. He had Kurama inside of him. There had to be more than its share of effects for such a thing, even if no one had documented them out of fear of what a jinchuuriki represented, "I… understand."
"What I'm saying is, that if you're a jinchuuriki I want you to be the best one that you can be," The powerful blond man gave the boy a gentle shove to rile him up and encourage him, "You say you're going to find a way to get Kurama-san out of you without getting yourself killed, but until you do you're going to be a target. There's only two ways to offset being targeted. You can either be hidden away-."
"Fuck that!" Naruto let slip before covering his mouth. Parents were supposed to hate kids cursing, especially that harshly.
"-OR," Minato gave him a hard look for using such language in front of him as a warning to refrain from doing that in the future, "You have to get so strong that no one has the heart to take you on or send anyone after you. Ninjas are afraid of the idea of a jinchuuriki to begin with, but you've got to back it up when push comes to shove. I know that you can figure this out, and you won't be alone. You have Kakashi, and Tenten, and when I get back you'll have Jiraiya, me, and your mother. And I can't wait until I actually get to introduce you to my other contacts in the world."
The big cheesy grin he gave Naruto upon bringing up showing him off to the friends he'd made across the Elemental Nations simply radiated pride and happiness. He really was ecstatic that Naruto had come to him, even under circumstances that were less than desirable.
"I have full faith in you," The man said with a content sigh, "You've come this far just to find me. All I'm asking you to do is wait for just a little while, and believe in me when I say that I'm going to get Kushina and bring her right to you. You don't have to see me as your father, I've missed so much of your life, but I look at you and I still see the baby I left in Kushina's arms in Uzu."
"What about Tenzo and that Konan lady?" Not that Naruto was wary of having to deal with either of them again of course.
"They'll have to track you all over again from scratch by the time they regroup, and neither of them will even think of trying anything until they believe that they have a way to get around me to get to you." Being one of the most dangerous men alive had its perks from time to time. One of them was that people were extremely wary of almost anything that had to do with you, "That aside, I don't think Konan will be leaving Nagato's side for quite some time now after this."
"Old man…"
This time, Minato didn't receive a blow of any sort to any part of his body when moved in to hug Naruto. The physical gesture wasn't returned, but as he'd said before, Minato didn't need that at the moment. Just having Naruto there and knowing that he was alright and growing well was more than he'd ever expected to see anytime soon.
"I believe in you Naruto, so I'm asking you to believe in me. Even if you don't now, I'll keep doing what I have to in order to make you feel that way. Be safe."
XxX
(Elsewhere in Twin Ridge Town)
"Thanks for all of the work," Teuchi said to Kakashi with a smile as the two shook hands, "What can I say? It was terrifying," He admitted at times with a shiver, having traveled in directions at Kakashi's behest. It wasn't like he'd had better ideas of where to go to scare up business, but he'd seen a full-scale ninja battle and a biju attack in a two month stretch, "I think I've been turned off of traveling for a good long while though."
After living in one place his entire life, moving around to test markets elsewhere around the Elemental Nations seemed like a great idea to gauge the popularity of his ramen in other places. It had been working out just fine as far as a business venture went, but the dangers out there simply overrode the intrepid traveling merchant's spirit that he'd initially set out with.
These shinobi types didn't mess around when it came time to get themselves into fights. Ayame could probably deal with it since she was young, but he was way too old to be alright with sticking his neck out like that, or even letting his daughter do it.
There were a few days left on the 60 day contract before it expired, but that wasn't enough time to move to another area, and the ramen purveyor wasn't even sure if he wanted to step foot out on the open road again after everything he'd seen thus far.
"Understood," Kakashi completely understood. Life on the road was rough and a sure-fire way to ensure that it ended earlier than it had to, "So what do you plan to do now if you aren't looking to move around?"
"Well there's no shortage of chances to do well in a place like this, and it's not like I'm hard-up for money if I'm hiring ninjas and traveling internationally right?" Teuchi asked rhetorically with a deep laugh, "I'll set up a shop here. Maybe expand elsewhere later. Just… not anytime soon. Not until things out there get a little less crazy."
Looking over at Tenten who was being given a monster of a bear hug goodbye from Ayame, Kakashi figured that now was as good a time as any to set out, "Right then. Well we'll be in touch. Take care and stay safe."
"Hey, we're not the ones that are going to be picking fights with other ninjas pal."
"Good point."
With that, Kakashi's contract came to an end and he set out with Tenten to find a place in town to stay for the night.
He kept quiet, nose buried in a brand new book that Tenten had never seen him read before as he led his young charge on through the town to find a place to stay for the night. She kept looking over at him as if she wanted to say something, but if she didn't have it in her to bring whatever it was up, he wasn't going to be the one to start any sort of uncomfortable conversation.
That wasn't his style unless he was out to embarrass someone.
Eventually she couldn't keep from speaking any longer, "So since Naruto found Minato-sama he isn't going to be with us anymore is he?" Mentioning that brought up another point, "…You're not going to keep me around now that you don't have to for Naruto are you?"
"That's not how this works," Kakashi remarked, "The second I taught you anything, you became my responsibility until I think you're strong enough to protect yourself. That's how Minato-sama was taught by Jiraiya-sama, and that's how I'm going to teach you."
"It's not how you were taught?"
"I'm a bit different," Kakashi said, turning a page in the book that he couldn't stop reading, "I don't follow Minato-sama because he trained me. He trained me a while after I started following him because I truly believe in his dream, even if it does seem impossible."
"You mean the 'village without borders' thing? The place with peace between the clans all working as equal ninjas?"
"So he told you?"
"A bit."
"Well that's basically the gist of it. It's all you need to know about it for now to have a good enough idea," Kakashi assured her, "But Naruto won't be staying with him. It's more dangerous for Naruto to remain with him than to stay with me. It's a reason why he didn't take you with him when he first trained you."
Tenten's brown eyes lit up at the unsaid suggestion that came from her current guardian. Did that mean what she was taking it to mean?
"Comin' in hot!" As if he'd been running all the way across the town to get to them, Naruto landed in a near trip and a crash, stumbling before playing off the clumsy touchdown. He turned to Kakashi and Tenten with a sheepish grin and held his hands up behind his neck, "Yo."
"Yo yourself," Kakashi replied, motioning for Naruto to fall in step with them, "So what did Minato-sama say to do?"
"He told me to follow you and listen to everything you say until he comes back," Naruto reported matter-of-factly, "
"You don't seem too happy about that," Tenten pointed out, feeling a bit of offense at how completely unenthused Naruto seemed to be at their continued partnership of sorts, "Any reason why?"
"I got ordered by my absentee father to listen to the orders of another guy that isn't even my dad," Naruto said with an underwhelmed drawl, "It kind of hurts. I wanted to go and get mom out myself. The whole time I thought that when I found him he'd take me with him to get her back!"
It really stung at his heart. He promised himself that he'd save Kushina. He figured that he would be going to get Minato's help and then they'd charge on back in there and get the job done. But now he was being kept out altogether. Was he really that weak? He knew there was a significant gap between Minato and himself, and pretty much every other ninja he'd met today, but that didn't matter did it? Kids that were ninjas were still ninjas.
And as a ninja his place was supposed to be in the fray, because that was where he was needed. At least that was what he thought.
"You don't understand just how powerful your clan is Naruto," Kakashi pointed out, "The adults know fuuinjutsu better than you do. Your major tactical advantage on the mainland against other ninjas has been your active use of fuuinjutsu in combat."
True. It was how he managed to beat the Uchiha Clan members that had outnumbered him while he'd been fleeing with Hinata. It was how he outmaneuvered Tenzo's Wood Clone a matter of hours ago. His bigger wins that mattered seemed to come due to some use of seal knowledge.
Fuunjutsu: get you some.
Even so, there would have been something that he could have done. He believed that with all of his heart. He had to. It was then that he got the blunt reality check from his current tenant.
"The only benefit you'd have given that man was if he used you as a flesh-and-blood meatshield."
'Kurama you suck!'
"No, you suck. That's why you're not going." The grin he could see inside of his head was taunting him. Kurama was certainly mean-spirited, "I'm great. Just the thought of me being inside of you scares people into trying to kill you."
Well he could take a little less pride in making Naruto a target couldn't he? And with that, Naruto decided to fire back, 'That still means that you suck too because you're inside of me. If I still suck and you're inside of me then you suck by default because that means that you being sealed inside of me doesn't do jack for me.'
"…" Kurama had no response to that, because he felt that technically Naruto had a point. It pissed him off extensively, "Oh and you think you just ran up and got in Shukaku's face that fast all by yourself?"
'You mean I didn't?' Naruto knew that something had been up with that, because he had never moved that fast before and could never duplicate it in training again no matter how hard he tried. He also hadn't been bleeding down his face at the time, so the red-tinted vision was another odd thing he hadn't been able to explain. Apparently Kurama was privy to what had happened, 'Whatever.
If he knew something and hadn't been telling until this point he had to be baited in, and Kurama was a prideful S.O.B.
The responding roar inside of Naruto's head was not kind, "Even stuck inside of you, I have more power than you could ever possibly imagine. I affect you without you even realizing it. The marks on your face, the way you healed so quickly after your fight with the Uchiha boy? Me. And those are just the tip of the iceberg."
'Good!' Naruto mentally chirped with a grin spreading across his face, 'I'm looking forward to working out just what we can do together.'
"You're damn right you're-. Wait, what? No. I don't help humans! Hey! Listen to me, I'm not helping you! My power is my power, and you can't have any! HEY!"
Naruto deigned that dear old dad could have this one, and he wouldn't raise any more of a fuss than he already had. In the future though, if he thought he was going to keep Naruto out of what his son thought was his own business as well, he'd be sorely mistaken. By the time Minato saw him again he'd somehow have a handle on just what being a jinchuuriki was all about and what it really meant… somehow
He'd never let himself be left out of something as important as getting his mother out of Uzu no Kuni ever again.
For now he had to believe that his father was exactly who everyone constantly claimed that he was, and that he meant every word when he said he'd bring them all together soon. That was the only kind of man he'd truly believe in to get her out of there.
"I think I know what we should do next," Kakashi declared out of the blue, getting Naruto and Tenten's full attention as he clapped his book shut audibly, "Now that you've both met him, there wouldn't be much of a better time to actually show you two just what Minato-sama has been trying to do for over the last decade."
"The village thing?" Both Naruto and Tenten said in stereo.
"And that right there is why I'm going to show you," Kakashi insisted brightly, "Because just calling it 'the village thing' shows me that you both don't quite get it. I'm not the only one that follows instruction from your father Naruto, and Tenten you aren't the only child in your sort of situation. This is bigger than either of you know."
"Wait… I'm confused," Tenten said, getting an agreeable nod from Naruto.
"Well that just means that I have something to explain to you on the way."
"On the way to what?" Naruto asked, "You're being super-vague."
"I just told you Naruto. You really should open up your ears and listen for what's underneath the surface."
Naruto knew an insult when he heard one from Kakashi by now. Some of them were more subtle than others, "…I take back what I said about you earlier Kakashi. I'm totally gonna make fun of you behind your back again later."
"Oh I'm so heartbroken. Just look at my face. Can't you see what you're doing to me Naruto?" Kakashi deadpanned, "Because your opinion just means so much to me."
From a rooftop somewhere behind them, Minato concealed himself from even his underling Kakashi's notice, smiling as he watched the people with his son head off together. It wasn't the choice he wanted to make for now, but it was the best one he had at his disposal.
Feeling a hand pat him on the shoulder, Minato looked back to see that it was Jiraiya, "Time to go," The older ninja said, "We've got to start planning to save your mysterious significant other after all don't we?"
Minato bid his teacher a smile before frowning, "Jiraiya-sensei, Konan's going to be with Nagato whenever we show up. I just thought that you should know that first and foremost before you volunteer to follow me in with whoever else we can get for this."
"That doesn't mean anything," Jiraiya said with a heavy sigh that showed his displeasure with being on the opposite side of the girl he'd trained. Still though, freelance ninjas that knew each other oftentimes ran up against one another in the field, "I already know she hates me for leaving, and she clearly chose the side that she wanted to be on. Besides, if this all works out, we won't have to fight at all, so it could work out that way right?"'
"…"
"…Yeah you're right. When do things ever work out like that?" Jiraiya groused before noticing that Minato was still looking after Naruto. It wasn't hard to piece together what was going through the man's mind, "Hey, Kakashi's got him."
"I just met him, and now I've got to leave him again?" Minato said before letting out a bitter chuckle, "He doesn't hate me yet, but even if I come back with Kushina…" He trailed off out of fear of the thought of Naruto never warming up to him, "…And what if I don't come back with her at all?"
"You don't really think you aren't going to pull this off do you?" Jiraiya asked, getting a shrug of the shoulders from the blond man, "Your miniature clone is going to be fine, and he won't be hard to find again. Just think; the next time you see him you'll have the family you always wanted back in one piece."
That thought made Minato smile.
With that, Minato and Jiraiya disappeared to elsewhere in a sudden flash of yellow.
And that's it.
Minato is found, and rather soon things are going to get somewhat real. It's kind of hard to get a real handle on what Minato's character is supposed to be, so I need to start getting in the man's head. I need to start going around wearing a yellow fright wig and running everywhere to simulate speed… or as much speed as I can generate. In hindsight however, that's probably not a good way to get a character.
It's probably a decent workout though.
So next time, Tenzo and Konan's failure reaches back around, and all sorts of other good stuff to build the situations for the first major conflicts of the story. I said this story was going to be long, and I'm doing this straight out of my head, so it's coming right off of the cuff if you know what I mean. If you want me to let things blow up into a worldwide storm of rightfully epic proportions, let me do my thing damn it. I'm building a world to be changed here.
Either way, in other pressing news, Grand Theft Auto V, September 17th. I must have it. It's more of a need really. A petty need, but a need nonetheless. I haven't had a new game in well over nine months.
Shisora, if I am to believe what you told me in messages and I didn't dream it, you will soon be my new greatest American hero. After the whole beef jerky thing I have full faith in your abilities.
Now I am going to train by playing Grand Theft Auto IV until sunrise. I need to get my aim at throwing helicopters at particular people very good by the time I get to the multiplayer. I've got people counting on me to be as good at causing simulated urban mayhem in V as I was in IV.
Kenchi out.