Devils in the Background

Acidic

Last Time:

Naruto sighed in relief and smiled, "I was adopted here in Konoha one day before it burnt down. Mom thought I was only two weeks old."

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The hokage stared at the tattoo artist in a stunned silence for minutes before finally breaking it, albeit a bit awkwardly, "C-can I ... I j-just ..." Clearly the hokage was unable to form a coherent sentence so he gave up and stepped towards the tattoo artist. Naruto raised an eyebrow as Minato shut his eyes and took the civilian's face in his hands, but he understood petty quickly, Minato was feeling for his whisker marks. His whisker marks were more like scars than birth marks because they were ever so slightly raised and had a slightly different texture than the rest of his skin. It stands to reason his father would know that.

Only moments later the artist could feel that the hokage had traced each hidden whisker mark perfectly and opened his eyes. Minato looked like he was on the brink of tears, "You tattooed over your whisker marks." He almost sounded like he was scolding the younger blonde if it wasn't for the sobs trying to get out.

"Sorry." Naruto wasn't sure what else to say. What do you say in this situation? It didn't help that he was feeling tears threatening to escape his eyes too.

"That's ok ... it's all ok." Minato pulled the tattoo artist into a hug. "I thought I lost you." Naruto couldn't resist hugging back. So much has happened. Father and son were ripped apart ... now it's time to find that person and stop them.

Naruto sensed his tattoos coming back and reluctantly pulled away from the hok- ... his father, "My mother wasn't happy about me tattooing over my whiskers either, but it turned out to be a life saver." He said as he wiped a few stray tears from his eyes.

Minato's eyes narrowed in concern as he flicked a few tears of his own away, "I always thought something happened back then, but I couldn't get any proof ... what do you mean? Did something happen when you came here?"

"There is a lot more to what happened around my 'death' and it starts with my mother's passing where I received this." Minato's jaw dropped and he watched in amazement as Naruto made a hand sign and tapped the wild looking flower tattoo on his arm. The bloomed before the hokage's awestruck eyes and a vine pulled out a piece of paper from the flower's depths.

"Incredible ... sealing?" Minato asked curiously as the flower handed the paper to Naruto, closed up slightly and returned to looking like a normal tattoo.

"Yep, hidden in the ink." Naruto smiled proudly at his little invention. Hearing this man praise made him feel happy. "This is a letter I received from the bank upon my mother's death. This is the link you need to get what's going on." He handed over the paper.

The hokage handled the document with great care and respect. Gentle fingertips unfolded the parchment and blue eyes skimmed the elegant scrawl. Minato's eyes narrowed, "Sparrow ... she took you-"

"Saved me, actually." Naruto corrected leaving Minato looking perplexed and right on cue the bat and lizard tattoos scurried into the room. "I didn't think much of my mother's letter beyond something strange might have happened to the death of the hokage's son ... I never would've guessed the that I was ... that I am your son." Both blondes smiled feeling a great comfort at the confirmation. Saying that out loud was heart melting in a way. "These tattoos here are made for digging up information so I figured it wouldn't hurt to look around see if they could find anything. I started with Sparrow and everything went spiraling out of control from there. Every rock I turned revealed something that wasn't right."

Minato sat down in the tattoo chair and ran his hands through his hair in frustration, "How? I tried to look into things, but the reports came back empty. I never stopped trying to figure out what happened. I mean what really happened."