Six Years After (book 2)

Chapter 5

Third person pov

Minato's life can be put into three simple categories by order of importance: fatherhood, husbandhood, and Hokagehood. 

He and Kushina had long since agreed that whilst they were both high on each other's priority lists, Naruto and Kakashi were always going to come before their own relationship did. Minato loved Kushina like a limb and he knew that Kushina felt the same for him, a fire so strong it was never going to go out. Kushina would always be it for him, together or apart.

Naruto and Kakashi are their babies, though. Kakashi had come to Minato fresh out of the academy, five years old and already hardened by the heavy expectations set upon shinobi children during the times of war. He never got the chance to be a kid, growing impossibly more distant when Sakumo left him. 

Minato had practically raised him. Had watched him grow into a strong, self-assured young man who'd lived through all sorts of hardships and impossibilities. He had persevered through personal tragedies that would put lesser men in the ground, and though he'd come out the other side mellower and a little lost, at least he'd come out at all.

It was a miracle he was still around when Minato came back. The mere possibility of him having woken up to a world in which Kakashi couldn't keep going makes Minato's stomach roil. Sometimes it floors him just how lucky he is to have all this. To have not only Kakashi, but to have Naruto too, and to be living a life that should've been taken from him.

So why wasn't it? Why was he still here?

Minato's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. There's a reason he hasn't gone looking all that hard for answers-- sometimes, it's better not to poke the sleeping bear and to instead let things lie. If it's not broken, there's no reason to fix it. That's Minato's philosophy.

There's just moments, in the quiet stillness of his home after Naruto and Kakashi have rushed out the door, that he can't help but wonder. He knows Kushina feels the same.

It's monumentally strange to think that, once upon a time, he might've held his duty as Hokage over all other respects of his life. Minato realistically knows that's what's expected of him, but he can't help but feel a little ill at the thought of it. A good leader would put all personal attachments aside to do what's best for the whole of the village, even if it meant hurting the ones they love for the greater good.

Minato, after coming back to a village that had shunned Naruto, isolated Kakashi into ANBU, and then had the audacity to keep them apart in the face of their loss? He just can't... he can't do it. He loves them too much to ever place anything above them. In many ways, he hasn't forgiven Konoha-- he's not sure he ever will.

Kushina hasn't. She's very loud about that fact. Even now, their son is not treated the way they wish he was, isn't looked upon with particularly kind eyes. It makes Minato's skin crawl. It makes Minato wonder why he's Hokage to begin with.

This is his home and he loves it. He will defend it, because it's the place his sons were both born and it's where they've chosen to make their life. There's just something inherently wrong with the way it runs. The way the village turned against the Uchiha Clan so easily, swayed by the machinations of Danzo, who had come close to doing something so unforgiveable-- 

Minato had burned those files with Fugaku at his side, wordlessly and without preamble. They had never spoken of it, and they never would. And if Fugaku hugged Itachi a little more often than not afterwards, Minato wasn't going to draw attention to such. 

A change needs to happen. Minato has had six years to put it into motion and he feels like he's not a single step closer to his goals. Like nothing he's done in an effort to truly bring everyone together under the collective ideal of peace has worked. Because for all Minato has instilled his good will into every decision he makes, these issues still persist so strongly that he's starting to doubt that they can be fixed at all.