A DOCTOR'S DIAGNOSIS
Minato threw a holy fit. He was not proud of it, but his body and mind were so overwhelmed that he could not stop himself from crying and crying for hours and hours until he made himself sick.
He should have known. The feeling of deja vu and wrongness had always followed him since he became aware and left that void living.
Fuck, he was blonde and blue-eyed, and when he looked in the mirror of his new family's small bathroom, it was looking like a ghost.
There was a child clinic, old and creaking at best, around the corner, buried into the buildings. They walked to it when Minato was still in a daze, and now Minato sat patiently as his mother talked to the nurse across from the room. His mother had accessed that he had a fever and was stressed and had immediately taken him in for tests.
Namikaze Yuzuki looked at the medic who told her that her son had amicable chakra for conscription and felt her world crash down around her.
Her son saw it in real time. All he could do was watch, feeling small, as his mother almost fell to her knees. The color of her face left her until she looked as if she was sick, instead of him.
"No, he is a civilian. He just turned three years old. He cannot be flagged for shinobi enlistment-"
"His reserves are above normal for his age already." the older nurse said, as she laid a comforting hand on his mother's back. The woman seemed to be carved from old wood as if she had given this speech a million times over. Like an oak tree that had not been cut down.
"He has advanced faster at a clinical level than others his age, has he not?" the woman asked when his mother was still again, looking at him with hidden fear.
It disturbed Minato to his soul. He knew she was not looking at him with fear, but fear for him.
"How can you tell?" his mother replied.
"His levels of yin chakra in his body are indicative of increased mental development." the woman said. "However, he will need to have an appointment once a month to keep track of his chakra levels to make sure this does not turn into an imbalance."
"Doctor, please, is there any way-" his mother started to say.
"Namikaze-san," the doctor interrupted. "As a physician here, I will say this. You will need to have this discussion with a civilian shinobi coordinator after I conclude your son's data. Then, you will be informed of all of your options.
"Now, as a mother: this is not the end of the world for you or your son. Many shinobi are civilian forces. I presume you already know the percentages, but I will say that most of our shinobi are civilians."
"You must forgive me, for I have a line waiting on me. These are the papers you will have to fill out by the time your appointment is notified to you. I hope you have an amazing day, and..."
The doctor trailed off, a tired smile on her face. Minato thought that it looked forced.
"We all serve the village."
When they got home, it was normal. His mother did not tickle him or remind him about her day. She did not ask him to point at various bones in his body, which they had started a few weeks ago.
No, they sat in silence while his mother started to mechanically cook dinner. Minato did not know how to breach the silence, he did not know what to say. He had no idea of how he felt, himself, and his reality that he would have to be shinobi or at least attend the Academy.
The soft clinking of a spoon falling in the sink signaled him to look at his mom as she walked up to him. She brought her hands to his shoulders from where he was sitting at their kotatsu, an unread medical book in front of him.
"You know I am not angry with you, my love?" his mother spoke softly. A tired hand brushed his yellow hair off his forehead. "You know that I love you more than anything?" Her kindness and the utter love he saw in her eyes, her face, and her hands brought his stupid baby brain to tears.
"Yes," he said in return. His voice was wet.
"Oh baby," was all that his mother said, she swooped him into her lap and hugged him close to her heart.
The boy gripped her shirt and started to cry into it.
"I feel bad," he said wetly, and he mourned.
He had already been mourning his past and the life he had known, but now he was almost mourning his chance at a normal life. There was his naivety again, for assuming that the world he was born into would be one without strife and that he would have been able to leave as carefree as he did before. Maybe there was a way to escape it, some loophole, maybe he would fail out of the Academy when they realized he was not the type of person who could be shaped into war, maybe-
It was too much.
Minato felt guilt for which he could not control. He died young, or he was pretty sure he did, it got blurry at the end, and his mother was young. She had him at the edge of twenty, and she was now twenty-three. She was a young mother terrified for her child's future, one that she had no say in as a civilian in this village.
Even if Minato pushed himself to remain a genin or work in research, what consequences would that have on this world, this village, if he followed a different path than the hero of a story he barely read?
Fuck... Minato hugged his mom tighter. Did the original Minato have a choice when he was a child? Then a far darker thought hit him, did Minato have parents in the manga? Did that mean his parents were going to die?
Was he cursed to be a mirror of a tragedy? A man's life who was fated to lose everyone he loved: his parents, his team, his village, his wife, his life? Whose life was only defined as his ability to kill and fight?
It was too much, that great uncertainty. So he hugged his mother, felt her warmth, and tried to get lost in the feeling of comfort instead of the weight of the world.