Crossroads (A Naruto Fanfiction)

Tell No Lies

Minato did his best to meet the expectations around him. As a shinobi, as a protector, as a student, and most importantly, as a teacher. However, he couldn't help but feel like a failure despite everyone's reassurance.

Obito was his biggest failure. The death of his student hung over his head and it weighed far more than he could carry. It was slowly swallowing him whole. Thankfully, Kakashi and Rin kept him stable. They kept his head clear in the order of what to do as he was still a teacher; he still had students.

Then Rin was kidnapped.

His self-hate grew to new levels when he learned of the situation, that he wasn't able to help and join the rescue effort. Kushina reassured him that it would've been impossible seeing as they were outside the Fire Country's border at the time, so he had nothing to blame himself for, but he just couldn't help it.

He thanked every single higher power being that he could think of, even the god of death for not taking another one of his students. Then he cursed humans for their greed for power and authority when he learned Rin was made a jinchuuriki.

Kakashi had struggled the most when Rin tried to force him to leave her on her own. To leave her to die. He was able to reach his two students before Rin did anything drastic. She was in tears and near-hysterical when she saw him. "I thought you'd never make it." She had said. It nearly killed him to hear it.

The place the Mist-nin hid Rin and Satsuki was at one of their last headquarters. Thanks to the sudden kidnapping and rescue it was found and destroyed before the plans of Mist could be seen done, greatly weakening the nation into retreating, and Iwakagure was long done with their attacks after the Kanabi bridge mission. Sunagakure was long out of resources. The rest had calmed down their hostility after realizing Konoha was the only one still left with enough resources to continue long term battle.

In total viewpoint, Konoha had won this war.

Completing his reconnaissance mission, Minato had the idea of visiting Satsuki. The boy, in all likeliness, was odd if not intriguing. He hadn't met the boy before his third birthday, but he had that one glimpse of him before the boy had become completely withdrawn. The differences between that moment and the next time he saw him a year later, at his fourth birthday, were prevalent.

Despite everything that had happened, Satsuki handled the situation better than what most four-year-olds would be able to. He was calm and he didn't show any signs of shock or trauma at the time.

Among the higher-ups, including him, the power Satsuki displayed during the rescue mission spread like a wildfire. The council, especially Shimura Danzo, showed peculiar interest from what he heard and pressured the Uchiha head into displaying the powers once again. Fugaku wouldn't be able to deny the demand as that would make it seem as if he was hiding something from the village. With the questionable relationship the Uchiha already had with the village, it would do more harm than necessary.

So he visited the boy, aware of the pressure Satsuki would have to face. He decided for himself that he would be a supporter of the boy, seeing as, without Satsuki, Rin wouldn't have been able to handle her situation as well as she was now. He held the boy in a special place in his heart for this. Most of all, he didn't expect the first words he would hear out of him.

"Obito, he's alive."

Those words tilted his barely manageable stability. The balance within his calmness went crooked. His mind was too empty from those words to ask questions. He could feel himself breaking. So he exited the hospital room, ignored everyone and everything until he made it to the memorial stone where he had carved Obito's name into just a few months ago.

Months... It's been months.

"Sensei?"

Minato turned around to see Kakashi just by the trees that surrounded the serene area. His prodigal student gained a habit of visiting the memorial stone ever since the incident, coming here whenever he was free, just standing there and staring at his best friend's name. Minato clenched his fists and turned to face the stone again when the words came back to him; "Obito, he's alive."

He couldn't help it. Even though the words sounded ludicrous, the words gave him a sense of hope that he had a chance, just this one chance, to rectify his biggest failure of not being able to protect his student.

After a while, he sorted out his thoughts and told the Hokage, the only man he knew that would be able to help him with this. The Hokage questioned Satsuki for him, and with it, they began an S-ranked mission to search for Obito. A missing Uchiha with an activated Sharingan. The implications were all so obvious that no one questioned why finding him was so important.

Like Kakashi, he couldn't help but believe in Satsuki's words. He couldn't help but hope even when knowing that if Obito was indeed dead, his mind would no longer be able to heal from it.