Chapter Text
Everything was blank. And then not, with flashes of color, drowned down by blinding darkness, and back again. It was blurry too. Nothing meaningful, nothing sensical, nothing understandable.
It was like being underwater, where light shimmied through the undulating waters, at the bottom of which no light could ever penetrate.
He didn’t know. He didn’t remember. He didn’t understand.
He floated instead, with no beginning and no end, with no up nor down.
He was, but he wasn’t. It was and it wasn’t. It was pain and it was bliss. It was cold and it was hot, it was terrifying and it was welcoming.
Everything faded, and everything brightened.
On and on and on and on and on and on.
Until off finally came.
*
Someone else was there. Something else. Something cold and yet burning.
Full of blinding hate, so raw it felt like thousands of knives piercing through him repeatedly.
It was familiar, in the same way a recurrent nightmare was.
It felt like a distant memory, enough that Minato couldn’t precisely remember what it was, but it was familiar enough nonetheless that Minato didn’t want to remember.
It blinked, edged in and out of his awareness.
There was a library, too. A library he knew well. One he’d hidden in countless times long ago.
But the balmy warmth was nowhere to be felt.
Instead it was that burning cold and that blinding hate that filtered between the books and under the shelves.
It hurt.
But Minato was gone again before he could acknowledge that.
*
Jiraiya stepped out of the hospital, pausing at the gates.
The sun was steadily climbing the cottoned sky, and the wind carried the delicate cherry flower petals in a steady flight. The air tasted sweet, and Jiraiya took a full breath.
It didn’t dispel the bar in the middle of his eyes, or the vice around his chest. Not that anything had, in the past week. He started walking.
They’d started all of this on desperation’s door, staked it all on a singular ember of hope, and delved into what had felt like an impossible endeavor more times than he could count in the last three years.
They’d been like leaves in a current, shoved to and fro at the water’s whims, their trajectory uncontrollable for so long. What control they gained, was taken back by another setback, by another wrench thrown into their shaky progress.
After all this time, Jiraiya had thought himself ready to face anything. After the last three years and beyond, after the losses in war and the betrayals in peace, Jiraiya had thought his skin thick.
Perhaps not thick enough.
They’d gone out of the village with Jiraiya and Tsunade’s former teacher alive, and they’d come back with him pale and lifeless, with Minato finally breathing on his own.
There were few words, if any, that could describe the kind of emotions that had welled up in Jiraiya at the sight. Grief so stark it seemed to shatter his ribcage with each breath; relief and joy so tainted, both were even more painful than the grief; scarred by viscous guilt that seemed to stream through his body in lieu of blood, melting everything like acid and leaving him an empty, numb yet raging shell.
But none of it had appeared on his face. Not when as soon as the claws of the Shinigami had released Minato’s soul to focus on Sarutobi instead, the sight straight out of nightmares, and the first show of powerful, hateful orange chakra started leaking out of every pore of Minato’s body, and all his focus was wrenched away to that single task of ensuring they weren’t left with another tragedy of that fateful October 10th.
Minato’s original seal, the one Jiraiya could only guess he’d used when he’d first split the Kyûbi’s chakra in two, had been completely obliterated by the disturbance breaking the death contract dealt to his system.
It had taken deadly precision and pointed focus to wrest it back into place, to reconstruct it before nothing short of an Uchiha or a Wood release user could wrestle it back into submission. Fugaku had been close by, thank kami, just in case, but the malevolence floating around them like miasma had made Jiraiya wonder if even Fugaku might have been able to do anything. And considering the only wood user left in existence was a semi-traumatized, touch-starved ten-year-old who’d barely started mastering an ability he hadn’t chosen, the whole situation had not been particularly reassuring.
As he’d been repairing the seal, beads of sweat pearling on his forehead, Jiraiya could only hope that the awakening of the Kyûbi’s chakra here, wouldn’t stir its counterpart, sealed in Naruto’s body on the other side of the village. Despite Mikoto and Kakashi being with him, if the Kyûbi did manage to shred the seal apart, he wasn’t sure the two of them would be enough to protect Naruto, the people around and themselves.
As intense as the effort had been, it at least hadn’t taken long, and soon enough, the clearing was engulfed in tight, surreal silence, the roaring in Jiraiya’s ears finally dimming.
Tsunade had already been bent over Minato’s body, hands glowing as she assessed his physical health, a seal filled with chakra at the ready in case it hadn’t worked.
And thank kami, it had, because Jiraiya had no idea what he would have done if it hadn’t. It had worked, and considering the lack of monstrous roaring coming from the village, nothing had happened to Naruto either.
The trek back had been solemn, and Tsunade’s empty eyes told him his own feelings perfectly mirrored hers. But it was done now. Done and too late for second thoughts.
It seemed forever ago, and yet, barely a week had passed. His teacher was dead, Minato seemed to be waking up. Jiraiya scoffed mentally. “Seemed” being the operative word. Tsunade hid her worry even better than she had for Kushina, but Jiraiya knew her too well not to detect it. Kakashi, in turn, had made himself scarce, and chose to spend time with Naruto instead. They were kami knew where at present, probably in company of the Uchiha boys, but Jiraiya didn’t worry. Between Kakashi and the eldest Itachi boy, nothing would happen to either Sasuke or Naruto, no matter what trouble they managed to get into.
He wasn’t surprised when he finally lifted his head, to find that his steps had taken him to the cemetery. Force of habit surely.
A lone figure stood in front of two headstones, shoulders hunched and head hanging, and for a heady moment, he was taken back to three years ago, when he’d found Kakashi, then a virtual stranger but for Minato’s tales, spirit all but broken, in front of the memorial stone.
He blinked, and the image was gone, revealing Sarutobi Asuma. Three years apart, and yet, this was still the same pain, reminding him yet again – as though he needed it – that the possible miracle back at the hospital, had only been possible through the harshest, cruelest pain imaginable.
Jiraiya sighed, and crossed the grass, stopping once he reached the boy. Well. Young man, now. Few reached Jiraiya’s height, but he wasn’t blind, and Asuma was no longer a child. Hadn’t been for a long time, surely, like most of his generation.
Asuma didn’t show any sign of noticing him. He’d borne the whole situation with far more grace than he’d have been in the right to. He’d taken time to step out of the mutism he’d welcomed his father’s declaration with, but Jiraiya didn’t think anyone could fault him for it. None of them had reacted particularly well after all.
He’d hidden his turmoil remarkably well since accepting the decision. Where Kakashi hid it all behind a neutral mask, Asuma wore a jovial air like armor, only belied by the pain his eyes reflected.
What was it with these kids?
Jiraiya placed his hands in the pockets of his haori, eyes trailing over the characters of his former teacher’s name.
“Your mother chose that epitaph for him a long time ago.”
This time, Asuma flinched, but didn’t look up.
“Fluttering, floating in the breeze, a single butterfly,” Jiraiya read, the words both familiar and foreign. He’d heard Biwako-sama recite that Haiku before, but the memories were distant, buried under the weight of years gone.
One thing though, had stuck with him, and perhaps it would help Asuma take yet another step forward. No one said he always had to muster that strength by himself.
“She believed butterflies to be the personification of a person’s soul, whether alive or gone. Something fragile, yet infinitely resilient. She told us one time,” he continued, the memory of the three of them, Tsuna, Orochimaru and himself, sitting at Sarutobi-sensei’s dining table, floated to his mind’s eye. Kami, they’d been so young. “That, like a butterfly, we shouldn’t be scared of change. That we should welcome the transformations life sees fit to bestow upon us if we wanted to grow and become the people we ought to be.”
Asuma let out a huff. From the corner of his eye, he saw him swallow, even if he attempted a humorless smile.
“Did she say how much it was supposed to hurt?” His voice was raspy. How long had he stayed here in silence?
“She stated it as a matter of fact.” Asuma glanced at him, expression tight, and Jiraiya fully turned to him. “Nothing of value comes without a price.”
Asuma looked away, a resigned sigh escaping his lips. Jiraiya didn’t doubt he knew that. But again, he didn’t think it made it easier to bear it.
Still, he stayed next to Asuma. Long enough that the shadows disappeared and the softer air of the night settled over them.
*
Someone must have ripped his heart out of his chest, and patch it back up. Except, it felt like that with every single organ, and some parts of his body he didn’t know existed. His soul too, probably.
Minato couldn’t move. Breathing hurt, and not breathing hurt too. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what moving would mean. And besides, all his limbs felt like lead and Minato wasn’t sure trying would even bring any result.
Minato just laid there, unmoving, all his focus and attention centralized on trying not to make breathing hurt. It didn’t work. Nothing else really registered.
He didn’t have the energy to wonder what had happened, or what was going on, or where he was, or the why, how, who… So he didn’t.
Minato just was. One thing he knew was that with patience, eventually it would make sense.
*
It took a while for that to happen. But like he’d thought, eventually it did.
Minato was still in pain, but it was manageable. He started hearing voices, distant at first, and then closer and closer, until he could make sense of some of what they were saying.
“ - didn’t think it would work.”
“I’m happy that it did, otherwise -”
“How long do you think -”
“ - difficult to say.”
“How is she?”
“- eaten by worry.”
He understood the words, but he lacked context. It was like trying to decipher a foreign alphabet he knew in passing, and it didn’t exactly please Minato, to be so thoroughly confused. But he didn’t let it get to his head, and instead, tried focusing on where his eyelids were. Surely, opening his eyes would help make more sense of the situation.
Sleep stole him away before he could manage.
*
There was a new voice the next time he woke up. One he knew, one he had missed, one he loved. It was lilting, and familiar, shaky yet firm, and full of love.
Kushina.
Minato wanted to open his eyes. He wanted to see her. He still didn’t know the what, why, how, who, when, where, but if Minato knew one thing, it was her.
He could barely make out anything, but fragments.
“Love you,” and “Jiraiya and Kakashi were…” and “three years” and “Naruto.”
His heart stuttered at that. Naruto.
Naruto. Naruto. Naruto.
His son! His baby boy, where…
Just like that the dam broke, and it all came flooding back, drowning him, pulling him under. The man with the mask… It was his fault; he’d attacked them, when Naruto was barely a few minutes old, and Kushina…
Was he dead then? If Kushina was speaking to him, he must be… He should be, right? He’d used the reaper’s seal to seal half the Kyûbi in himself, and Kushina had the Kyûbi extracted, so she must be dead too.
That last, single thought, threatened to choke him. Kushina didn’t deserve to die… It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t… And if they were dead, then that meant… Naruto was alone.
Distantly, he noticed Kushina’s voice getting frantic, yelling for someone or something or… Minato wasn’t sure because Naruto was alone, and Kushina was dead, and he may have saved the village but he was dead too, now, and Naruto was alone and…
He lost his train of thought as the darkness engulfed him again.
*
“What happened?” Kushina couldn’t help but snap at the room at large. Shizune and a horde of medic-nin had answered her desperate calls when Minato had started thrashing and let out pained moans.
Shizune didn't seem to be fazed by her tone, even as the other medic cowered, shrinking in on themselves.
“I think he might have started remembering what happened right before you two were technically killed,” she answered evenly, not even sparing Kushina a glance as most of her attention was focused on Minato’s chart, before she barked an order at one of the medic, something about a dose of something.
Kushina shook her head. “How could you know, he looked in pain!”
This time Shizune looked up, and Kushina almost felt bad for her outburst at the patient smile on the young woman’s face.
“You reacted the exact same way before you finally woke up.”
That took all the wind out of her sails. She did remember panicking each time the flashes started, and how they still managed to twist her dreams into tormenting nightmares almost each night, but she had not realized that was what she had looked like from the outside.
She looked down at Minato, his face now relaxed with the help of the medication Shizune had pumped through the IV line. If Minato’s memories were as bad as hers… It made something twist unpleasantly in her guts.
“Can you bring another cot here?” she asked, not looking up from her husband's sleeping form. “I’m not going to leave him until he’s fully woken up.”
When silence met her declaration, she sent a challenging glare to the remaining medics, including Shizune who didn’t even look tempted to argue, and simply gave an assenting nod to one of the medics. Kushina’s shoulders relaxed, and she sent a grateful, shallow bow to Shizune, who gave her that small knowing smile Kushina kept being at the receiving end of since waking up.
The cot was brought in the room no more than five minutes later, and after seeing Kushina struggle to push it as close as she could to Minato’s, Shizune took over, then helping Kushina on it. She’d started reeducation over three weeks ago, and she was doing better, but her strength, and her balance, wasn’t yet fully back. Thinking of returning back to a full training regimen threatened to give her a migraine.
But that was for later.
She took hold of Minato’s considerably warmer hand, now that the Shiki Fûjin Kai had released him from certain death.
Kushina was still unsettled after the Sandaime’s visit, weeks ago. She remembered a wave of dizziness, then of fury, coursing through her veins with all the violence of a bush fire.
She hadn’t even thought of that jutsu, not by a long shot. Even among most circles of seal masters of Uzushio, it wasn’t exactly a popular one. Partly because its counterpart was already rare enough to be used only in exceptional cases — Kushina could recall only a handful of instances since its creation — and partly because releasing someone from the Shiki Fūjin required another person to sacrifice themselves. And anyone who had chosen to use the technique likely knew exactly what they were getting into, given its difficulty, and wouldn’t have expected to be saved.
Then to hear that it was the only solution they had found for Minato – the fact that they had found something at all was miraculous in and of itself – but to top it all off, that it was the Sandaime who was planning on giving up his life for Minato’s…
Shizune had to threaten to sedate her once the minute shock wore off.
She swallowed. She wasn’t sure whether she should be grateful he’d told her at all, with how reluctant he’d looked. Her anger had boiled like the magma of a volcano, ready to gush out with an explosion , until she had seen his face and it had all petered out like a faulty explosive seal.
When she had been brought to Konoha, the man had been an anchor, for his patience and kindness. With Mito-san, he had been the first person to welcome her with open arms, and she had known without an ounce of a doubt that he didn’t see her as only the replacement vessel for the Kyûbi. He had been there for her when no one was, answered all and any questions she had on Konoha’s customs and ways of life, and generally accompanied her until she found a ground to step on in her new village.
He was a fearless and powerful shinobi, a great Hokage, and a good person.
She’d known his news must not be good when he’d come to fetch her from Minato’s room, over a month ago, but this had not been what she’d expected. He had not left until Kushina finally understood his reasons, and was close to tears.
Now, Hiruzen was gone, and Minato’s recovery was no longer so precariously improbable. But the lump in Kushina’s throat hadn’t gone.
It wasn’t fair, was it? That she needed to say goodbye to a father figure in order to see the love of her life well and safe. It was a cruel choice, one that wasn’t even hers to make, despite affecting her so much.
She wondered what she would have done, had it been up to her. The mere thought made her sick to her stomach.
Sarutobi or Minato.
Either way, she felt selfish, and miserable. The guilt was the worst. It didn’t let her sleep, and poisoned her all waking thoughts, ever since that conversation.
She felt guilty for being relieved that Sarutobi had chosen for her, she felt guilty about being happy to see Minato again, and she felt guilty about resigning herself to losing Sarutobi in favor of Minato.
Kushina went for a hug after that devastating talk, and she held on a bit longer than necessary. Sarutobi had been surprised, but had returned it, thankfully.
She’d researched as much as she could, had even delved into Minato’s and her seal research, which had been, thankfully spared in the last three years. But she’d known that it wouldn’t yield any results.
Not with such a rare jutsu. She’d research anyway, but with a heavy heart, full of anger and grief she couldn’t lance.
And now Sarutobi was dead, and Minato was saved.
Kushina hated herself for being happy.
*
Get away from the Jinchuriki.
Stay with Naruto. I’ll be right back.
I can take it with me, he’ll die with me
Tell him what you want him to hear. We won’t see him in a long time.
Blood, and pain, and screams, and soft breathing. Warmth escaping and cold replacing it, a love so strong it was blinding, a torrent of grief only made stronger because of it.
Again, again, again, again and again.
The bubble broke.
Kushina’s voice again.
It drifted to the edges of his awareness, like it was pulling him up, like yet another wall separating him from the surface had tumbled down and he was getting closer each time he heard Kushina’s voice.
Kushina, he thought, but his voice reacted and he felt the vibrations of his groan in his throat.
Her voice stopped abruptly, before it spoke again, and he felt something warm. Her hand in his.
“Minato?”
Yes! I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Kami, he wanted to see her. He wanted to embrace her, kiss her, stay with her.
He remembered everything. Every gruesome detail, every spike of terror he managed to hide, every taunt and snide remark, every threat liberally dealt by that orange-masked monster. It was all etched in his mind, like a burn seared on the skin. Minato didn’t panic this time. It had plagued all his nightmares in such vivid, gory details, that he had felt himself back there again, forced to go through it all over again. But even if the horror was still very present, the novelty was gone. It was like getting used to a repulsive after-taste. Which meant the panic was gone, despite the nightmares leaving his heart in tatters and his insides cold.
At the price of a great effort, Minato managed to squeeze Kushina’s hands, and she stopped speaking. Her shock was almost palpable.
“Minato?”
He squeezed again. It came easier this time, and he tried opening his eyes. They fluttered, but closed again under the assault of the light, and before he could blink, Kushina’s hand was gone, a click, and it was back again.
He had a guess of what she’d done, and his next attempt at opening his eyes confirmed it. With the light off, it was easier, and despite it being dark, the outside world finally came into view.
“Minato?” He turned his head. Or tried to, it was stiff as hell, and he only managed to move a fraction. But at least he could see her.
His eyes immediately prickled.
Kushina.
Her flaming red hair, her silver eyes, and despite the worry lines on her forehead and the dark bruises under her eyes, she was as beautiful as the first time he’d seen her, and every day since. And more importantly, she was alive.
Hope and fear were equally battling for precedence in her expression, until their eyes met, and it all crumbled.
“Oh kami, Minato,” she breathed, her voice cracking and his own tears rolled down his cheeks. She didn’t hesitate one second to get out of her chair, even if her movements were stiff, before cupping his cheeks and kissing him. It stole his breath away.
Kami, he’d missed her. “Kushina,” he gasped, sounding very much like someone had fun lacerating his vocal cords.
She sobbed-laughed, a big teary smile pulling her lips as she caressed his hair.
“Yes, I’m here. I’m not leaving, I promise. I’m not leaving.”
The last words were muffled as she peppered kisses all over his face and Minato could do nothing but cry and will his arms to just obey. He wanted her in his arms, he wanted to make sure, to know for sure she was here, to hear her heartbeat, and feel her warmth that meant she was alive and here and… she kissed him again and Minato melted, tears still falling.
It was absurd because he could see that she was alive, but Minato’s heart was wild and he needed that reassurance.
“I love you,” he said when they came up for air. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry, so, so sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
She shook her head, kissing his nose, before pressing their foreheads together. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.” He closed his eyes, simply feeling.
“Come here,” he said eventually, caving. She didn’t waste a second, and in the next moment she was next to him on the small hospital bed, his arm finally obeyed, albeit shakily, and wrapped around her back, while her face was pressed against his shoulder and they were holding hands over his chest.
The memories assaulted him, of her seal leaking as she was suspended between two rocks and the stranger mercilessly signed her death warrant, of her covered in blood and still restraining the Kyûbi, of her throwing herself in front of Naruto, of her talking to their infant son, and crying, crying, crying because they would never see him grow.
He nearly jerked forward, despite his entire body feeling like lead, and Kushina’s added weight on him.
“Naruto,” he gasped. “Where’s Naruto? Is he-”
Kushina shushed him gently, up on one elbow before he could blink. “He’s fine, he’s alive and well,” she told him, brushing his cheek with her thumb with infinite care. Something flashed on her face, something subtle that Minato didn’t have time to make out.
He nodded shakily, the terror receding slowly.
Minato had ended up at many terrifying junctures in his shinobi life; their job was naturally hazardous, and with the war, it had been a matter of everyday life, the possibility of having someone he cared about snatched away in a moment’s notice. Losing Obito and Rin had been devastating; he never stopped worrying about his team, and having such fear realized had nearly broken him.
But there was nothing, nothing that could compare to the cold, primal fear of seeing Naruto in danger. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but one look at his baby boy, and Minato was gone, utterly in love with that little squishy thing Kushina and him had made. He was theirs and they were his.
It had only been at the price of well honed battle instincts and boiling rage, that the sheer force of his fear hadn’t taken him out, when he had seen Naruto threatened with that kunai.
If Minato had to die a thousand times in the same excruciating pain as he just endured to save Naruto, he would do it gladly.
Kushina’s reassurance went a long way, but he wanted to say more, ask more. Where Naruto was, if they could see him, who was taking care of him right now. He wanted to know so many things... but it was getting harder to focus, more so when Kushina went back to laying half on him, and all he could think of was how comfortable, how warm it was, and his eyes were getting heavier, and heavier…
“Sleep, Minato. I’ll be there when you wake up.” There was a kiss pressed on his cheeks, and Minato sunk back in the infinite darkness of sleep.
*
Minato’s ears were ringing.
Distantly he knew both Kushina and Jiraiya-sensei were looking at him like he was an explosive tag ready to go off. He couldn’t blame them. That was exactly how he felt.
He understood all the words that had just been said, by both his former teacher and his wife; but the sentences themselves didn’t. They didn’t register, and the reality they depicted was foreign, absurd, frightening.
Frightening and yet, it was giving them a crazy, insane, unhoped chance. Minato wondered why it was making him feel sick to his stomach then.
It was a bitter, bitter chance.
“Minato?” Jiraiya-sensei asked, with the same wariness one would approach a venomous, injured snake. Kushina put her hand on his shoulder in silent comfort, and his gaze trailed to her.
She had that deep sadness etched into the subtle lines of her face, and something burned cold in her eyes. It was the same thing tainting most of her smiles, what he had not been able to decipher or make sense of before he finally got to ask the question that had been plaguing him before he’d even fully woken up.
How were they alive?
Not that it didn’t fill him with overwhelming joy, seeing her healthy and smiling, even if her smile was dimmer than it used to be, when his nights were still plagued by bloody images. But the question needed to be asked.
Minato had thought about it; over and over in the few hours he had woken up after that first time, as Kushina still laid peacefully on his chest and the day wasn’t yet starting; and he couldn’t find a single explanation for this kind of miracle.
So as soon as she’d been awake, awoken by Jiraiya-sensei’s visit, in fact, he’d asked.
Kushina seemed to have been prepared for it, because the gutted look of last night, even if it had been there for such a brief moment, most people would have missed it, was no longer evident on her face. But Minato knew her too well for that. Jiraiya-sensei’s expression had been tightly controlled. Too tightly controlled, in a way that told Minato it was a sensitive topic. He hadn’t liked the implications before they got to explaining, and he hated it even more now, especially when worry had replaced all prior emotions and Minato couldn’t seem to shake off his own shock to reassure them.
Three years and a half. There were so many feelings that surfaced whenever he went back to those five little words. Denial, incomprehension, grief, gratefulness…
Kushina’s survival was a miracle, the result of a desperate attempt, followed by prodigious skills and magnificent demonstration of medical ninjutsu genius. He certainly wasn’t good at medical jutsus, but he understood enough to know it could have very well ended up differently than Kushina being able to be there and squeeze his shoulder.
Minato swallowed and brought his hand up to cover hers, heart hammering in his chest at the thought he could have woken up three years in the future, alone, and with the kind of news they had been forced to give him.
Another knife in his heart at that thought, and he dislodged her hand from his shoulder to take it between his instead.
Minato’s survival wasn’t a miracle at all. His chance to live came at a price Minato would have never chosen to pay, had it been up to him.
Sarutobi had given up his life for his, and Minato felt as if he had stolen it. Every breath made him feel like he had killed the man himself. There was a loud, vicious “why” screaming in Minato’s head and nausea gripped his stomach.
What had he done to deserve someone else’s life?
Minato jerked when Jiraiya-sensei broke the silence once more, as if he’d read Minato’s mind.
“He gave his life freely, Minato.” Minato looked up at the stern, though not unkind, voice of his teacher. “Don’t disrespect his sacrifice by doubting that.”
It wasn’t that Minato didn’t understand; because he could, and he did. But it was another matter to manage believing it.
“It feels like theft,” he said forlornly, unable to spell Sarutobi’s kind eyes out of his mind. Jiraiya-sensei sighed, but Kushina pulled him closer.
“No one could dissuade him, Minato.” Her voice was soft, but unyielding. As she brought their foreheads together, Minato closed his prickling eyes, breathing in and out deeply. She still smelled like herself, like the tiare flowers oil she used on her hair, despite the hospital’s stench of antiseptic diluting it.
“He wanted to do this for you, and he did. You can repay him by living your life fully, and do all the things he knew you could do, as a Hokage and as a person.”
He knew she was right, he knew it, but…
“There was a funeral. I wasn’t well enough to go then, but we’ll go to the cemetery together once you are cleared out of the hospital,” she suggested, bringing her hand to cup his cheek and Minato found himself relaxing. She always knew what to say, to allow a ray of light penetrate the dark recess of his own head.
It burned, to have this knowledge that he was only breathing and awake because Sarutobi had to die.
But Minato was also a genius, and very much in tune with his own emotions. And as much as it hurt, he knew there was nothing he could do, not even attempt the Shiki Fûjin Kai in turn, because when his own body had still been anchored to this side of life, Sarutobi was all gone, trapped inside the Shinigami, and nothing short of an Edô Tensei would bring him back.
So he breathed in and breathed out, ignoring how shaky it was, as he tried to calm down and swallow past the guilt and grief.
“Give it time, Minato,” Jiraiya-sensei said and as Minato brought his attention back to him, he could see his own emotions reflected back in his teacher’s eyes. There was something else there too. Resigned acceptance, recognition that as stubborn as the Sannin were, their teachers outranked them all and all he was left to do was accept his decision.
Minato would just have to do the same.
But as Jiraiya-sensei’s comment fully sunk in, Minato looked down at his lap, an unpleasant, uncomfortable reality pulling him back. Three years and a half.
“Do you even have a theory?” Minato asked before he could stop himself, and realized belatedly that a little more context would have helped, if Jiraiya-sensei’s minute bewilderment was anything to go by. He quickly caught on though, and he sighed.
“Not really; besides being almost certain your Hiraishin must be involved.”
Minato frowned, shaking his head. “It travels through space, not time.”
Jiraiya-sensei nodded, conceding the point, but he looked far too serious for this to have been idle musings. “I wondered if the Kyûbi’s chakra might not have been involved.”
As far as outlandish tales went, this was one he hadn’t heard yet.
Minato raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “What does it have to do with the Hiraishin?”
It sounded more like a mystified children’ story, or perhaps even a bad joke, than reality, and by Jiraiya-sensei’s wince, he knew it too.
“You sealed half of it in Naruto, half of it in yourself; is it so crazy that both parts might have resonated together?”
Minato frowned, mulling it over. Chakra was not meant to be split, and that if it happened, the two parts could resonate together wasn’t so crazy. But this? Disappearing without trace even though Minato had not even tried to use Hiraishin, then reappearing three months later in the streets of Konoha? Where were they during those three months? Why had they reappeared precisely then and there? And how did they not die during that time? How had they not long died from their injuries?
“Do you remember anything?” He looked up to find a hopeful look on his teacher’s face. “Anything that could explain what happened?”
Minato felt a bit out of his depths. He remembered too many things, if anything. But all of them were painful and came back more in blinding, gutting flashes than anything else. He swallowed, shaking his head.
He must have made a face, for Kushina squeezed his hand, brushing her thumb over it and Jiraiya-sensei immediately leaned back. “Don’t worry about it Minato, we can try and think about this later.”
He tried to smile at that, but it felt more like a grimace than anything.
It made no sense; there was no reasonable, logical explanation behind this…
The Shiki Fûjin Kai, and Tsunade-sama’s medical ninjutsu paired with Hyûga Himari’s byakugan, made sense. Insane sort of sense, but still enough that there was a logical explanation. Something tangible.
This however? This was impossible. Or should have been, but given that it had been witnessed by Sarutobi and Tsunade-sama themselves, it was difficult to refute.
And as much as Minato hated being unable to understand, he didn’t have the patience to look into it too much, as inevitably, he was reminded of the baby boy he hadn’t seen grow up.
“And Naruto?” he asked, not sure what he was hoping to hear. Three years was a long time, especially at this age, and Minato had thousands of thoughts swimming in his head.
A smile lit up Jiraiya-sensei’s previously somber expression and it went a long way in allowing Minato to relax.
“He’s a brilliant kid. He’s your spitting image, Minato, so much that it’s eerie sometimes and I kept seeing you in him.” He winced. “Until he opens his mouth anyway, and then it’s all Kushina.”
Minato gave a glance to his wife, who looked like she’d heard that before, but was still preening like a peacock at the mention.
“He’s going to be a troublemaker too. Feisty like a firecracker, and more energy than I’ve ever seen anyone have,” Jiraiya-sensei continued, warming up to the subject and obviously smitten with their boy.
“He could run around Konoha from morning to night and not break a sweat, that boy. But he’s such a sweet, gentle soul, all beaming, sunny smiles all day.”
Something painful grew in Minato’s throat, and his smile died. His teacher knew his son better than he did. He knew what Naruto liked, what he disliked; he knew Naruto’s quirks and Naruto’s habits; he knew him, period.
Jealousy and envy were not emotions he felt often, or at all, and hearing Jiraiya-sensei gush about their son, only made him incredibly sad. Naruto was no longer the squishy infant who had been stolen from them seconds after entering the world, but a bubbly, energetic, kind three-and-a-half-year-old, who Minato didn’t know. And if Minato was right in his assumptions of Sarutobi’s thinking regarding their son, Naruto didn’t know either of them either.
“Did you meet him?” he asked Kushina, who turned her soft smile at him, shaking her head. He frowned. “Why not?”
“I was only cleared a few days ago, and by then, you were already showing signs of waking up, so I thought I’d wait for you,” she said simply.
Minato wasn’t sure what to do with that information, and he only stared at the quiet confidence she exhibited, his love for her overflowing.
“There’s something else you should know.”
Minato immediately stiffened. Simple words, when put together, could strike cold anticipation in anyone. Minato stared back at his old teacher, a sense of foreboding at his tone that only intensified with the thinly veiled anger and sadness etched on his face.
“Danzô spread the word in the village about the Kyûbi, and about how it was now sealed inside Naruto against Sarutobi's explicit orders,” Jiraiya-sensei told them, voice heavy and dark. “In the wake of the destruction and death the attack led to… Well, let’s just say the villagers didn’t take the news very kindly.”
Silence rung in the room, thickening the tension that built up with every word, as Jiraiya-sensei told them about the whispers, the glares and the thinly veiled animosity directed towards their son, ever since he was presented as the Kyûbi’s Jinchûriki.
He told them about some of the orphanage staff that had gotten out of their way to ostracize Naruto while they were there; he told them about the bruise, resulting from Danzô’s machinations; he told them about the fights, and that Naruto was always alone when he wasn’t with one of them or with the Uchiha boys; he told them about Naruto’s fear of being a monster; and he told them about how their son was already too good at hiding what bothered him.
Minato felt like someone had ripped his heart out of his chest. This was all his fault.
The blood drained from his face as that sudden realization hit him like a ton of bricks.
Distantly, he knew Kushina was screaming. Yelling at Jiraiya-sensei for not telling her sooner, that they should have taken their son away from that wretched place sooner than that, and how the fucking hell could they leave Naruto there after knowing all that?
Jiraiya-sensei was silent, but Minato couldn't focus on anything but the burning guilt swallowing him whole. His head was swirling to the beat of his pulse furiously raging in his ears.
This was all his fault. All because Minato had decided to seal the Kyûbi in Naruto; all because Minato had been gone, and couldn’t protect him, cherish him, love him as a father should; all because he had thought of the village before he thought of the consequences for his son. All because, back on that night, he had thought as a Hokage, as a shinobi, before he thought as a father.
It made him feel endless shades of inadequate, and the pervasive sense of having failed the one being he had wanted to protect from the second he had learnt Naruto was already growing in Kushina, made acidic bile eat at his insides.
“I will always protect this child. No matter what, no matter what it takes.” That was what he had told Kushina, wasn’t it? That’s what he’d promised, and yet…
Minato gasped, his breathing growing erratic, a vise tightening around his chest. He thought he heard his name in the distance, but he was drowning.
Kami what had he been thinking? What had he done? He’d condemned his baby boy to being stared at, and shunned out. What kind of father did that?
“–nato!”
How could he have done that? How could he have been so blinded by his self-righteousness, the great Hokage protecting the village, when really, he was damning his boy? What kind of person was he?
“Mina–!”
He’d done that. It was his fault. It amounted to him having bruised his son’s wrist himself, him glaring at the child, him ignoring him. It was the same thing, wasn’t it? It was–
A sharp slap collided with his cheek, winding him and stunning his thoughts to a blank slate, while the burn irradiated his whole face.
It was only now that his eyes refocused that he realized his vision had been blurred by the dumbing panic he got caught in before he could blink.
Kushina looked rattled, eyes wide with anguish and mouth open, breathing sharply. Worry lines were stretching her ordinarily soft features.
Jiraiya-sensei was shocked speechless, and Minato exhaled shakily.
That hadn’t happened since he was a very young child.
“What happened?” Kushina demanded, steel in her voice that didn’t hide any of her worry.
Minato was shaken. More than he’d liked to admit, and he wrung his hands together as he saw them shake badly. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
Silence met his words. “What are you talking about?” Jiraiya-sensei chimed in, seemingly over his shock.
Minato couldn’t blame him. He was always so calm and composed, Minato couldn’t recall a single instance in which Jiraiya-sensei might have seen him panic. It was a fact everyone knew: Namikaze Minato did not panic. At least not outwardly, and when he did, he was always able to reign it in rationally. His parents were the only ones, before their death, to have ever witnessed him get into this state, when he was young enough he hadn’t yet learnt how to deal with it.
“I sealed the Kyûbi in Naruto, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t-” Kushina slapped him again on his other cheek, and Minato blinked dumbly, pain numbing the rest of his face. Too dumbfounded, he didn’t even lift his hand to touch his cheek.
“Don’t you dare.” Her eyes were stony, her jaw bunched and her nostrils flaring in anger.
“But– ”
“Shut up.” He did, panic receding, and fear mounting in the face of his angry wife. “You couldn’t have known, you couldn’t have fucking guessed what would happen! Minato, I know you. You’re one of the most compassionate and empathetic people I know. You genuinely thought this was the best solution, and you couldn’t have guessed it would backfire.”
Minato didn’t think that made anything better.
“We can’t change what happened; it's done and that’s it. Sealing that monster in our son was definitely not my ideal option, but we’re here now. you and I. We’re here, and I know what it feels like to have it sealed inside me. You know too now, with half of it sealed in you. We can help him, and we can make sure Naruto understands that he knows he is loved and cherished, despite the distrust of the villagers.”
She had angry tears in her eyes by then, and Minato felt his own eyes prickle. Kushina let out a frustrated noise, before she grabbed him and pulled him in her arms. He wouldn’t have resisted, even if he’d seen it coming. Instead he grabbed at the back of her hospital gown, sinking in her embrace.
The guilt was still there, lined in the back of his mind, but she was right. Minato forced himself to breathe slowly. This was a mess, but she was right. They could only move forward, and make sure that it didn’t impact Naruto too much.
His eyelids were getting heavier, and exhaustion in the wake of the panic attack, grappled at him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he felt more than anything, Kushina shaking her head.
“We’ll make this better. I promise. We’ll make this better.”
He didn’t deserve her. He moved out of her arms, his hand coming up to frame her face, and kissed her softly, letting their forehead touch as he pulled away.
“I love you,” he choked. “I love you so much.”
Her smile was wobbly, but genuine. “I love you too.”