Chaotic revelations
Hiruzen sighed, rubbing his temples in an attempt to stave off the incoming headache. First Naruto had disappeared and now Kakashi was missing. The teen had taken on a dangerous mission by himself, without regard for his own life. The old Hokage was regretting having allowed the boy to go.
When Kakashi had not returned even two days after the allocated time, trackers had been sent out. They had returned with grim expressions, holding out the broken shards of the Hatake’s ANBU mask and the shattered remains of his tanto. The captain told Hiruzen that they had not found a body, but there had been a lot of dried blood belonging to the teen in the grass, so much that it was more than likely that Kakashi was dead.
Before he could continue wallowing in his regret and grief, an explosion shattered the silence of the night and Hiruzen shot out of his chair in alarm. He turned to look out the window, eyes widening at the blaze on the other side of the village.
He flicked his hand, his ANBU guards taking up position around him as Hiruzen leapt out the window. ‘That’s the Red Light District,’ he thought with a worried frown, increasing his pace when he noticed that the fire was growing. Arriving at his destination in a matter of seconds, he took in the situation before him.
Many of the buildings had been entirely engulfed by the flames, faster than expected. People were screaming and running around in a panic, the Police Force and the available shinobi rescuing stragglers and taking them to safety. A few were using Suiton jutsu to douse the flames, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good.
“Report!” Hiruzen barked at one of the nearby shinobi, frowning heavily. “What caused the fire?”
A man, looking to be a Jounin considering his flak jacket, straightened and saluted his leader. “Hokage-sama!” the soot-covered man said. “The explosion that started the fire occurred in that building,” he pointed to a building that was beginning to crumble. “We have reason to believe it wasn’t an accident.”
“How so?”
“There are traces of chakra in the fire, Hokage-sama. A sensor has verified that it is not one of our own.”
“An attacker?”
Someone started shouting, attracting the conversing pair’s attention. “Hey, you two! Get down from there; it’s dangerous!”
Hiruzen followed the gaze of the yelling shinobi, spotting two cloaked figures atop the roof of an untouched building. Even as he watched, one of them flickered through handsigns, breathing out a stream of fire and feeding the growing blaze.
Eyes narrowing in anger, Hiruzen performed a jutsu of his own, sending a powerful streak of lightning at the pair. They dodged it effortlessly, leaping into the air. Taking advantage of their airborne state, kunai and shuriken were thrown at them, but the taller of the pair, not the one who had used the Katon jutsu, swung his arm in a slashing motion, causing a gust of wind that blew the projectiles away.
“Who are you and why do you attack Konoha?” Hiruzen demanded when the strangers landed in front of him, instantly knowing that they were dangerous. Despite having over twenty shinobi surrounding them, plus members of the Uchiha Police Force and the Hokage in front of them, the two appeared unconcerned.
But when their hoods fluttered in the wind and were pulled back, revealing their faces, everyone was stunned into silence.
“Y-Yondaime-sama…?”
Bright blond hair illuminated by the blazing fire, framed the taller man’s face, his blue eyes narrowed in a dark glare at the Sandaime. He did not pay any attention to the shocked whispers springing up around him, his razor sharp focus aimed only on the old man in front of him.
“Don’t call me that,” the man who looked just like the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato, snapped after a few moments, voice filled with so much disgust that everyone around him flinched and shrunk away. “After what this village did to my children, I’d rather not have been the Hokage at all.”
“W-Wha- Minato?” Hiruzen stuttered, far too out of his depth at the sudden appearance of his successor, having believed that he was dead. “You’re supposed to be dead!”
The man accompanying the blond snorted, drawing attention to him. His looks were also familiar, as if he was someone that Hiruzen should recognize but wasn’t able to put his finger on it. But what he did know was that he belonged to a certain clan in Konoha.
“Way to state the obvious, old man,” the unknown Uchiha remarked drily, dark eyes glaring holes into anyone who had the courage to inch closer. “What’s the next stupid thing that will come out of your mouth, drop the Henge or Genjutsu or whatever?”
Hiruzen startled, immediately berating himself for not considering the possibility that the two men were imposters. He glanced at his subordinates, only to be stumped when a sensor, an Uchiha and a Hyuuga shook their heads at him.
That meant there was no Henge or Genjutsu or any sort of chakra technique used at all.
They were genuine.
“How?”
“A jutsu gone wrong, but right for me, brought me back and Obito never really died in the first place.”
“Obito…Uchiha Obito?!”
If that scarred young man was really Minato’s old student, then the Uchiha features made sense. But also, nothing made sense. Why were people believed dead coming back like this?
“Wait…children?” Hiruzen’s eyes narrowed, mind snagging on something that he knew was a discrepancy. But at the same time, if the two were truly fakes then he would be revealing secret information if he misspoke. “Minato had no children.”
Somehow, the blond’s glare darkened even further. “Are you trying to test me or have you been deluding yourself?” he demanded, swinging his arm through the air as if trying to cut something. There was a powerful blast of wind, rushing through the area and throwing all the Konoha nin off their feet. Even the fire roaring in the background was extinguished.
“You know I have a son,” Minato, for it could be no one else, not with the protective fury of a parent coating his words, snapped. If looks could kill, then everyone in the vicinity would have been reduced to cinders. “And a daughter, who none of you know about, but that’s not the point here, is it?”
The mumbling started up again, everyone glancing uneasily at each other and wondering who the son was, since Minato had implied they knew about him.
“Idiots,” Obito scoffed, rolling his eyes at the sheer stupidity and ignorance of the Konoha villagers, be it shinobi or civilian. “Use that worthless thing in your skulls and think; there’s one kid who resembles Sensei. Blond hair, blue eyes…ring a bell?”
Prodded along as they were, much to Hiruzen’s chagrin and mounting horror, the crowd finally got it.
“T-The demon!”
The man who had uttered those words froze, finding the signature kunai of the Kiiroi Senko carefully aimed between his eyes and furious blue eyes staring him down.
“Say that again,” Minato snarled, not surprised when the frightened man fell down, merely adjusting his arm so that his kunai was still aimed for a deathblow. “Tell me, what did you just call my son?!”
Only unintelligible whimpers were his response and Minato kicked the sniveling man away in disgust, turning around to see Obito dusting off his hands. The Uchiha had just punched another idiot who thought that he could disrespect the child who had borne a heavy burden for Konoha.
“That’s right; the child that you all disdain and abuse, the child that received unwarranted hate from you fools, is my beloved son, mine and Kushina’s,” Minato stated, surprisingly calm for a man who had been threatening to kill someone only seconds ago. “I doubt most of you even know his name.”
By that time, the clan heads had arrived, having been alerted by the chaos. They all froze in shock, pinned in place by the murderous glare that was immediately fixed upon them.
“I would have thought that at least our friends would have cared about him.”
The words were spoken in a soft tone, but Minato might as well taken a boulder and slammed them with it. That was how it felt to them, feeling a sharp pain at the hateful but well-deserved accusations thrown at them.
“Minato, I…”
“Save it, Shikaku,” the Namikaze snapped, scrubbing his face with a hand as he made his way to Obito, who immediately took up position at the blond’s back, pointedly ignoring the look of recognition sent his way by the Uchiha Clan head. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“No…but…you mentioned a daughter.”
“My firstborn,” Minato confirmed, expression now a blank mask. “Why would I trust you with her when I couldn’t trust you with my son?”
That earned more flinches, the people’s shoulders sagging under the heavy accusations aimed at them all. They couldn’t even refute it.
‘If he’s already this angry,’ Hiruzen thought, hands clenched into fists, ‘how will he react when he finds out that Naruto is missing?’
Because all of Minato and Obito’s words so far indicated that they knew of the pain and abuse that had been inflicted on the boy, but nothing that said that they knew of his disappearance.
‘Wait…is it possible that…?’
“Minato, there’s-”
“Shut up, old man,” Obito interrupted the Sandaime, tone aggressive. “We don’t have any obligation to listen to you or give you answers. Come on, Sensei; let’s go back before the midget decides we would make good targets for kunai practice.”
Minato let out a startled laugh, his cold expression easing into something warmer and fond. “Yeah, she would have likely noticed us leaving. Alright then, let’s go.”
But before they could make a move, there was a commotion to the side and someone tumbled out of the crowd, skidding a little before balancing themselves and dropping to their knees, forehead pressed to the ground.
“Yondaime-sama, if you have any information on Kakashi, please let us know! He disappeared on a mission and I am deeply concerned about him!”
Minato paused, turning around to face the kneeling shinobi. He scratched his cheek, smiling a little at the sincerity in the pleading words.
“Maito Gai, was it?”
“Yes, Yondaime-sama!”
“Kakashi’s fine. He’s coming along with us, though.”
“Saying that he’s ‘fine’ is stretching the truth, Sensei,” Obito scowled, recalling the state he had found his old teammate in. “Bakashi is a suicidal idiot and we’re keeping an eye on him that he doesn’t do something stupid again and keel over.”
Gai started sobbing, yelling his thanks over and over again, making Obito cringe and Minato sweat-drop. Kakashi probably wasn’t wrong when he told them that the spandex-clad Jounin would start crying all over him when he went back after his sudden disappearance. If Gai was already like this, he would probably be worse when he finally saw Kakashi again.
“Thank you, Yondaime-sama!”
Minato’s eyebrow twitched. “I’m not getting rid of that title, am I?”
“What did you expect? The village practically worships you.”
“But I don’t want them to!”
“Try getting that into their tiny brains then.”
The sound of their bickering was cut off when they vanished, likely using the Hiraishin. Left in their wake was a group of scared and bewildered Konoha villagers, none of them moving for quite a while.
Once news of this incident spread, the inevitable chaos that was going to follow was surely going to turn the world upside down.