something lost something gained
Minato woke up to sunlight hitting his eye directly, and not just any eye, but the eye that he'd accidentally splashed ink into not a day ago and was still irritated until now. Minato groaned and went to flung an arm over his eyes, but his arm was held down by something.
"'Shina, ge'roff my arm y'know my eye's hurting," Minato did not whine, he is the Fourth Hokage, the Yellow Flash, a symbol of hope and peace that did not whine when his beloved, pregnant wife slept on his arm -
There was an IV in his arm. Nestled innocently and as loud as the beeping monitor in the background, loyally picking up his heart racing.
Minato's eyes snapped open, darting towards every inch of the unfamiliar room he's been constrained in. It looked like a regular Konoha hospital room, but he wasn't fooled. As he examined the room more intensely, he noticed some odd details, like the fresh paint on the wall, and the machinery he was hooked up to being slightly more advanced than what he was familiar with. But why would his capturers keep such glaring details? It couldn't be a genjutsu, but Minato flared his charka minutely anyways just to make sure.
He tried to get up, but to his horror, seemed to be under some sort of paralytic; unable to move his limbs with the usual nimbleness and grace Kushina always lamented about not possessing.
Did he get ambushed in his own home? Impossible, and even if he was taken down before the fight via poison or genjutsu Kushina was more than capable on handling the problem, nine months pregnant or not.
Kushina.
The Kyuubi Attack. Naruto.
But this was all wrong, he was on the verge of completing the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, as well as seal part of himself and Kushina into their little Naruto should any complications in the seal arise in the future, so what went wrong?
Dumb pretty boy, you mean what went right, dattebane!
Minato stilled as his heart throbbed with pain, like a bruise that he knew will never truly go away, then huffed out a wet laugh. If he squinted through his damp lashes he could almost see Kushina laughing at him as she corrects another one of his sealing mistakes. It was like finally finding the right jutsu to retrieving a needle out of a haystack, and his memories of the Kyuubi Attack flooded back to him.
Just as he went to finish the last hand signs, Kishina had wrapped her deceptively quick, yet trembling hands over his and stopped him from completing the seal. Instead she'd rewrote the entire seal, his genius wife, and made it that the Beast and Naruto would have a more co-existing relationship than the guard and jailor position most jinchuuriki held.
He remembered objecting, the fires started and raged by the Kyuubi serving as a reminder for the type of beast it was, but Kushina was insistent. She said that the cycle of hate shouldn't be rejuvenated, that she and many others were wrong about the Kyuubi and the rest of the Biju, that Hashirama himself was wrong to contain the beasts.
Kushina voice had been heavy with regret as she proclaimed that what we're doing is wrong, Minato. The Kyuubi was right, we're all just trying to find someone to blame without looking past our noses.
But what about Naruto, he'd protested, we can't leave him alone with a demon in his head.
Kushina had her back to him, but he could still hear her smile in her voice.
That's where you come in handy, Mina-chan. That corny liner you tell Kakashi-kun will finally be cool after all, all he has to do is throw a kunai and you'll be there in a flash, dattebane!
Minato had scrambled for an answer, but Kushina remained tight lipped as she grabbed his hand and desperately inscribed seals with the blood pouring out of both of them.
Make sure Naruto eats his vegetables, okay? And his ramen! Oh, and let him take long, hot baths, we can't let him run around all dirty. I'd tell you to teach him how to talk to a woman, but you're not much better anyways.
Kushina had babbled as she continued drawing, voice growing steadily weaker, but Minato had just felt confused; why was she talking as if he'd be there? Neither of them were medics, but Minato could safely say large-hole-in-abdomen wasn't that easily healed, and they were pretty much out of time. The Beast was still raging around, but as Minato begged for answers, Kushina just pressed his hand to her lips and flared her chakra, activating the seals.
And then, he was in front of two familiar strangers, two tall, lean men, one with one eye closed with a scar bisecting it and sporting a medical mask, bearing startling resemblance to his Kakashi with his shock of grey hair, and another with his hitai-ate worn like a bandanna and a senbon in his mouth that Minato could've sworn was Shiranui Genma.
And then he passed out and ended up here.
From the two men's reaction, they did not expect his presence, but it could've bee n an act. Still, Minato couldn't help but feel he was missing something; those two men were alarmingly familiar, but it couldn't be, right? Kakashi had just celebrated his 13th birthday, and Genma had been a gangly, awkward teenager last he'd seen him. Granted, it was during evacuation and screaming civilians with the rest if his Guards tailing him, but he was still young.
Before Minato could start tearing his hair out trying to figure out what exactly was happening, the door to the room opened. Minato's head swiveled to meet his supposed capturers, and was met by bone shaking relief instead.
"Jiraiya-sensei," Minato happily exclaimed, but quieted down as another person entered, "and Tsunade-hime? Is Orochimaru-sama around the corner as well?"
His joke fell flat as Tsunade approached him, not a trace of friendliness found in her grave expression.
"Namikaze-kun, we have a lot to discuss,"