Chapter 123: Minato Namikaze's Melancholy
"Achoo!"
"What's wrong, Kushina?"
"Ah, nothing. I just feel like someone's talking about me."
Don't worry, I'm tough as nails.
Kushina Uzumaki, Konoha's Red Hot Chili Pepper and Minato Namikaze's wife of three years, flashed a bright smile at the slightly tense man beside her.
Minato had returned from the Five Kage Summit with weariness sitting in his bones, but the moment he saw that smile, something warm and steady surged through him, washing the fatigue away like a tide.
Yeah. I'm not alone anymore.
I have someone I love, someone who loves me, and a real home.
He couldn't help himself. Minato stepped forward and pulled her into a gentle embrace, savoring a rare slice of quiet that belonged to only them.
For once, the Chili Pepper famous for her boldness didn't explode into teasing or sass. She simply closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around him, and leaned into his warmth.
In an age where everyone was anxious, where even sleep felt like wasted time and people wished for double the hours to improve themselves, Minato and Kushina had slowed down. They started to live for their own days, for the people around them, carving out a little peace inside the storm.
Their house wasn't big. It was the same detached home with a small courtyard they'd lived in three years ago, sitting a little away from the village.
For Minato, distance inside the Land of Fire didn't matter. With his time space ninjutsu, he could cross any stretch of land in a blink. But Kushina insisted on staying here. She said she was used to it, that the place smelled like home.
After all, no matter how fast Minato was, there was one road he could never run backward.
He could never return to the past.
Time only moved forward. Maybe only something truly transcendent could drag a person back.
So time healed.
And time also dulled pain.
Minato wasn't the naive young man he'd been three years ago. The Hokage mantle had hardened him quickly, turning him into someone who could carry decisions without breaking under them.
He began to understand why people sometimes chose against their conscience. Why, for the sake of the majority, the suffering of a minority was treated as a price. Why the Third Hokage had ended up walking the road he did.
Because there wasn't another way. Everyone was trying to be right with what they had. But even if Konoha was now the world's richest land and strongest village, the world still refused to sit quietly in his hands. Friends wouldn't always follow your wishes. Enemies wouldn't stop being enemies just because you wanted peace.
And though three years had passed, Minato and Kushina still hadn't had a child.
Not because they didn't want one.
Because the world wouldn't allow it.
Not long after becoming Hokage, Minato learned the truth he should have known earlier, Kushina was the Nine Tails Jinchuriki. The most powerful Jinchuriki in the world, a strategic weapon Konoha could not afford to lose.
From a Hokage's view, it was impossible to let her face danger.
And childbirth was the moment when danger loved to strike.
After Aizen's betrayal, after the Hidden Cloud's brazen Heavenly Transfer attempt, after Kirigakure's repeated kidnappings, Minato had learned the rule of this era the hard way.
Never show your weakness to the world, unless it's a weakness you're baiting them with.
Of course, Minato would never betray Kushina. Not for power, not for peace, not for anything. Even if selling her out brought him a mountain of benefits, he wouldn't do it.
Their love had been honest and natural, their life as ordinary as possible for two people trapped in the current of history.
Gentle comfort might bury heroes, but Minato and Kushina weren't blind to the world.
Minato also kept Kakashi Hatake's warning from three years ago carved into his bones.
So instead of purging traitors the way old Konoha might have, he followed Aizen's model in one specific way. He selectively absorbed the Unseen Garden and the Gotei 13 into Konoha's structure.
It was the right call.
Some members of the mutual aid society felt betrayed and poured into the Gotei 13, demanding vengeance against Aizen. Clan shinobi joined as well, eager to become the Hokage's right hand. Ordinary ninjas came simply because they wanted to help.
After three years, the Gotei 13 looked prosperous, respected across the world.
Only Minato knew how many unsettling currents ran beneath that shine.
Especially after the new captain list was finalized, even though he had signed off on it himself, Minato still felt like he'd been forced to choose between curry flavored defense and defense flavored curry, and then sit on the wrong plate anyway.
"Speaking of which," Kushina said softly, noticing the shadow behind his eyes, "how are things with the Gotei 13?"
"Uchiha Kagami senpai has been calmer lately. He's been reflecting on his strength and his limits. I heard he's expanded his Bankai into new variations, which is good news."
Minato exhaled, then summoned a document from the void.
"But the rest… take a look."
"Let me see."
Kushina skimmed the form, and within seconds she understood why Minato looked like he'd swallowed a kunai sideways.
Squad Zero, vacant.
First Division Captain: Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Second Division Captain: Kato Dan.
Third Division Captain: Hiashi Hyuga.
Fourth Division Captain: Tsunade.
Fifth Division Captain: Yamanaka Inoichi.
Sixth Division Captain: Uchiha Kagami.
Seventh Division Captain: Jiraiya.
Eighth Division Captain: Nara Shikaku.
Ninth Division Captain: Akimichi Choza.
Tenth Division Captain: Inuzuka Oku.
Eleventh Division Captain: Might Guy.
Twelfth Division Captain: Yakushi Nonou.
"Ugh… utter chaos," Kushina muttered.
Even with how well she knew Konoha's internal mess, the lineup made her want to drink something strong.
The Gotei 13 was nominally under the Hokage, but in reality it operated like an independent organism whose only shared purpose was targeting Aizen. Now it had become a twisted behemoth inside Konoha.
Disillusioned mutual aid members, clan ninjas with hidden agendas, and earnest ordinary shinobi all crammed together into one bizarre force, becoming an even stranger piece of Konoha's puzzle.
Hiruzen as First Division captain made sense. He took the title purely to shoulder the burden for Minato. The others were… complicated.
Dan Kato, Tsunade, and Kagami had all served as captains in Aizen's era, and if Minato was being brutally honest, their loyalty to Konoha was a question mark drawn in ink.
Might Guy had volunteered during the open selection process. As a man who carried the forbidden Eight Gates within him, he previously cooperated with Aizen in experiments tied to explosive secret techniques, becoming one of the first in Konoha to demonstrate that terrifying short term burst of power, the kind that turns anyone nearby into ashes while it lasts. He joined the Gotei 13 because he genuinely wanted to contribute to Konoha and because he wanted his blazing youth to burn into the numbness that had spread through the new era.
Jiraiya, driven by the same stubborn fire, muscled his way into the Seventh Division by exploiting Minato's guilt like a crowbar.
The Ino Shika Cho trio, Inoichi, Shikaku, and Choza, were chosen by the clans to keep internal power balanced.
Inuzuka Oku had been Minato's teammate once. He was there to help, nothing more, or else Minato would have thrown a fit.
But the biggest headache was the Twelfth Division.
Yakushi Nonou.
She claimed loyalty to Konoha, but everyone knew she was Aizen's spy. She didn't even try to hide it. Every day she dyed this or that blue, then calmly announced she had "something to report."
With such a cocktail of talent and instability, Konoha's attitude was predictable. Even Minato suspected that if a real crisis hit, the Gotei 13 might start tearing at itself, just like the day Aizen betrayed them.
The only bright spot was this, the Gotei 13 had largely mastered extracting power from the mind through their Zanpakuto. The system was like a parallel to the Uchiha's Sharingan, and it gave Konoha an enormous reserve of strength.
But even now, Minato still had no clear idea how to lead them.
Especially during the Chunin Exams. The captains weren't idle at all. Every other day they were trying to trick some unlucky genin into becoming "reserves."
An infinite replicating army underground.
A joint Five Kage summit.
The Chunin Exams.
A unstable Gotei 13 breathing down his neck.
Even as the Hokage of the world's strongest village, Minato felt the weight grinding him down.
"But…" he said quietly, meeting Kushina's eyes, "after the Chunin Exams, things should settle."
Her gaze softened.
"Once the internal struggles cool off, we'll have time."
He swallowed, then forced the words out anyway.
"Then we can finally have a child."
Kushina blinked in surprise, then sighed and gave him a small, embarrassed smile.
"You…"
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