Swift as a Coursing River (MadaNaru)

Chapter 3: A Precious Father

His father was there ahead of him as he entered his family's grounds, a kind simple smile on his face, blue eyes bright with a gleam of hope, his one leg uncoordinated from the rest of his body, a wartime injury not easily forgotten. By family nor, Minato himself. He was lucky to have survived the war.

"N-" His father's kind voice was interrupted by an unwelcome bang of the door. His mother's bright flowing red hair the first thing he saw, and apprehension was quick to follow. Expression eager, his mother was an intimidating force, even next to a legendary war veteran. Her eyes spoke of damnation, and promise of future anger. Naruto felt his entire inner being shake, but he held his body firm against the thought of her future anger.

"So, who is it then!?" Voice quick and sharp, his mother's posture became stiff and rigid, eager and waiting for a response. He hastened to reply, not wanting to drag out this battle of wits it would soon become.

"I was deemed unfit." The glaze over her eyes said everything he needed to know. His Father's expression was cooled, showing of what in his heart he felt. His Mother's gaze chilled him.

"Get out of my sight." She spoke with a voice of disappointment, and something else, something Naruto didn't want to acknowledge. He didn't want to, but his mother scared him at that moment, she was almost unfamiliar to him, and his father, his father scared him the most, it was terrifying to see a man he so respected, so loved, cherished, unmovable as the great wall itself, Naruto was staring at two strangers.

He moved quickly away to the garden, a safe place. His mother's eyes bore upon him unwelcoming and cold, he couldn't feel, and daren't look at his father. The shame sagged his posture, even as he tried desperately to hold himself high, at least some shard of himself, but his spirit was no longer there to do so.

He had thought his father wouldn't mind his... dishonor if he had his own happiness. Was he wrong? Did his father truly wish for him to change himself, sacrifice the man he was for another? His own method of thought, brought foreboding inquiry of himself. A sensation of deep sadness filling his spirit with something he was unfamiliar with.

He sat on the ground, letting the cherry blossoms fall upon his head and expensive Hanfu, he leaned down on the tree trunk, his hair uncomfortable as he did so. The beaded hair tie was not taken out kindly, golden strands pulling out with it. Strangely it didn't even sting, he'd hardly felt anything.

"Beautiful blossoms this year aren't they?" The soft reverent voice of his father brought his emotions to a strange sort of impasse, unsure of what to feel. Glancing at his father's towering visage, he saw there the same man he always had. A man of great power and pride, a man to respect. Yet even as he was unsure of his own path, and his father at this point, he saw something other people didn't so much as glance upon. Kindness in his Father's smile, and the understanding tilt of his eyes.

"Dad..." He smiled, he'd always been told he had his mother's smile, by his parents and passersby alike. This was untrue, his mother's smile was stunning to be sure, yet it had grown strained with stress and frosted with years of trying to be the perfect wife as she could be in order to please the other's of the village. No Naruto knew he had his Father's unstrained, kind smile that no one dared to look at, for a respected warrior could not have such a grin.

His Dad sat next to him, the smile stretching to his eyes for mere moments before the smile turned smaller, yet to Naruto this was the man he knew, and everything soared in his body, elevated by the fact that his Father was now not cold to him.

"Naruto, call it the views of an old man lost from war if you wish; but no matter who you are, you will forever be my child. Kushina has lost much of herself as years wore upon us. I wish you could have known the woman she was when we were spry and young, you're very much like how she used to be." There was no mistaking the reverent tone in his Father's voice, and for mere moments he wished that too.