Six Years Too Long

Chapter 23

Okay fair warning I accidentally backspaced in here somewhere and idk where my cursor was 

Third person pov

Minato had been right. Rasa had the One Tails sealed in his son, and the elders he had perform the ritual did a horrible, horrible job at it.

The kid gets possessed if he dares to fall asleep and will go on killing rampages. No person or thing can touch him physically, the tailed beast's sand apparently some kind of ultimate defense. He's grown more violent since the death of his uncle, which Rasa (suspiciously) refuses to elaborate on no matter how high Minato raises his eyebrows. The Ichibi needs to be resealed, or else it will break free and lay complete waste to Suna.

Minato supposes this means they're justified in asking Minato to not only make the journey all the way here, but to put up with Jiraiya in the process as well. Maybe. He could be spending quality time with his son right now, framing Danzo for a crime he probably committed anyway and giving the Uchiha back their place in the village. Restoring order. Fun little Hokage things, you know?

Instead he's here. Jiraiya keeps staring at him like Minato kicked his puppy. Minato's got sand in places he didn't even realize existed, and he has no idea what his son is doing. Probably being cute and perfect, and literally everyone else in the whole entire world is getting to witness it except Minato. 

What's worse is that he has no idea how long this is going to take, but he knows it isn't a one-day-long type of deal. They're going to have to catch the kid to inspect his current seal first, which is going to be real fucking hard when it's apparently impossible to touch him. Minato has no idea how they're going to pull that one off, but he volunteers Jiraiya to try first.

After they catch him-- if they even can-- they're going to have to paint intricate symbols on him, and the slightest aberration in said intricate symbols will fuck the entire thing up. Which means he has to be dead still the entire time. The only way Minato sees that happening is if he's knocked out for it, but oh, wait! He gets possessed by an actual, literal demon anytime he's asleep. So.

"Why aren't we being paid for this?" Minato wondered aloud, though nothing could ever make up for the surely very important chunks of Naruto's childhood he was actively missing. "Why aren't you paying us for this? This sounds life threatening. To us. And everyone else. I just came back to life." 

"We have an alliance." Rasa responded, tone just as dry as the sand coating this godforsaken village. No hate to Suna, but also all the hate to Suna. Minato should've lied and said he was sick. Then he could not only stay in Konoha, he could also stay home. And then he could lie and say Naruto was sick too, and they could stay home together, coloring and bonding.

Minato stared at the ceiling into an empty heaven with an absent god in search of guidance that would never come. Why did he ever want to be Hokage again? Fatherhood was the only career he needed. Naruto was surely more important than an alliance. 

"Right. Of course." Minato eyed him dubiously after a moment of gathering himself. He should've send Jiraiya all on his own. If he could laboriously spend years and years tracking down whoever this potentially imaginary 'Akatsuki' group was, he could laboriously come catch a demon-possessed child and seal the evil forces within them. "Then, do you... happen to know where this child is? Or how to catch him?"

Rasa made a face, and Minato resisted the urge to find the nearest wall and slam his head into it.

~~~~

Gaara, Naruto has decided, is a far better friend than that moron Sasuke could ever hope to be.

Has he tried to kill him a minimum of six times now? Yeah, but he was subtle about his attempts, and Naruto can respect that. Gaara was just testing the boundaries was all! He had a right to be suspicious. Naruto would be wary too if he were in his shoes. Some random kid from an entirely different village showing up out of nowhere and befriending you, impervious to your murder sand? Yeah, talk about shady.