Chapter 41

Minato got into a fighting stance and readied himself. "Why haven't you killed us yet?" he asked him suddenly. Naruto rushed him and delivered the first strike that slipped passed his head. Minato tried to counter with a hook of his own, but Naruto blocked it with his elbow.

"What makes you so sure I could?" he asked him in curiosity, blocking the round house kick and kicking him in the stomach.

Picking himself up, Minato shrugged. "Just a hunch." He said spitting out the glob of blood in his mouth. Standing back to his feet, he rushed forward, ducking beneath the strike headed for his face. By coincidence, beneath his feet he saw his kunai. Sinking down, he grabbed it and shot back up behind the redhead. Naruto turned around as casual as ever.

Minato created a Rasengan and threw his kunai forward. Naruto rushed him and leaned his head out of the way of the kunai. When he did, he flipped up with his back to the water and hit his father beneath his armpit, killing his attack off instantly. Minato landed on the water's surface and stared down at his limp arm. He looked towards the other battle and noticed how he couldn't make out any of the figures or what all was happening. Ignoring it for now, he stood back to his feet and turned around, just in time before Naruto came in for a knee to his face.

He swiveled out of the way of the flying attack and countered with a kick of his own that was blocked with relative ease. His limp arm being useless for the moment, he was unable to block the kick coming to his face. It sent him skipping across the water like a flat stone. Getting back to his feet, he was kicked in the face and sent even further away. Through the rain, he could see a small island behind him. Shaking his head he turned around meeting yet another kick.

After the third defenseless attack, Naruto tilted his head and looked at the blonde man. He didn't seem as though he was trying anymore. He was just taking a beating at this point. He slowly walked towards him to see what he would do. Minato stood up and put his one good arm up into a lazy stance. His face didn't seem too tired, but he was breathing fairly heavily.

Naruto looked down at the arm he had disabled. Rushing forward, he jabbed him in the nose and grabbed the injured appendage while pushing Minato's face away. When he let him go, he kicked him back. Minato, finally able to see the ground, cut his chakra and sunk down. The water went up to his knees and no further. The fairly small island behind him. Stretching out, he noticed his arm was better. Did… did Naruto heal it?

Naruto was still looking at him in curiosity as he walked closer. Minato again put his hands up into a lazy stance. Naruto stopped in arms reach of him, his guard completely down. In a sudden and very unexpected moment, Naruto reached across and slapped him. Minato's eyes opened wide in confusion.

Minato corrected himself and threw a very sloppy punch his way, Naruto grabbed it with ease and jerked his hand up, snapping his arm at the forearm. Minato muffled his scream before he was kicked back, his back smacking painfully into a boulder behind him. He groaned as he slid down his back and sat on his butt. His left arm clutching the broken appendage in pure pain.

Naruto had not moved from his spot. He was just standing there staring at him. "… You wanted it to be done away from them…" Naruto said in an understanding tone stepping closer until he was right in front of him. Minato didn't respond, he just looked back at him. No understandable expression on his face. "… Often when a warrior's life is at its end… he wishes to repent for his sins in whatever way he may see fit… And you believe by having me do it, you are cleansing your mistakes…"

Minato didn't have to say a thing. Naruto read him like a book. It was like he had the answers to his own unasked questions, and he understood them just from their fight. His breathing was still choppy and short, but he couldn't really feel the pain anymore.

"I don't know what you would like for me to tell you to get you to understand that I truly hold no animosity to you or Kaa-san… I understand everything that happened and I don't blame you." He said in a brief moment of sincerity.

Minato's eyes glossed over and he stared out into the distance, faintly being able to see the battle still raging on in the distance. The rain lit up in flashes of blue and red according to their attacks. He could very vaguely make out the figures of Kushina and Menma. "…I know…" he managed to get out amidst his still very choppy breathing. "… But I blame me… I blame me for all of it…" Naruto didn't respond, he opted to listen instead. "For everything wrong I've done in this life… forgetting you has been the one mistake that has plagued my mind for years… There wasn't one night that I didn't think about you Naruto… What I did to you…" he drawled off, his features contorting, signifying he was in tears. "It won't mean much… and I know it won't… but I am so… so proud of you Naruto! No matter what you have become… I will always be proud of you!" he proclaimed, letting his emotions flow freely.

Naruto listened, not sure what he was willing to call that feeling welling up inside of him. Squatting down, he stared at Minato who had his eyes shut, crying hysterically. Never before had he seen him like this. In his many years of being with the family, he had never seen him even shed a tear, yet this was raw emotion seeping from his being.

Seeing movement in his peripheral, Minato looked up to see Naruto's hand covering the mouth of his mask. Slowly, he pulled it from his face and tossed it into the muddied sand next to him. Minato's eyes watered even more. His shaky hand came up slowly and caressed the face of his first born child. Memories seeping through his mind in waves of unrelenting bombardments of regret.

"Ha-ha-ha! Tou-san! Let me go!" a giggling three yelled Naruto called out in joy, trying to pry the tickling hands of his father off of his form.

Minato made monster sounds while he unmercifully attacked the boy's sides. "Rrrgh! Oh no! He's gonna tickle him to death!" he yelled out in a comical voice. When Naruto finally slipped from his grasp, he took off running through their back yard, looking for his previously discarded weapon.

Minato gave chase on his knees, putting his hands out wide continuing with the sounds of the fictional monster he was trying to portray. Naruto giggled on his journey towards the little plastic sword laying discarded in the grass. Finally reaching it, he turned around and pointed it towards his father with an awful attempt at a serious face, for the giggles refused to leave him. "Get back monster!" he yelled with a chuckle, losing all bravado in his tone.

Minato played the part expertly, putting his hands up and slowly stepping back. "Oh, no… please. I won't ever tickle those people again." He said trying to suppress his own fit of laughter.

Naruto's next line cracked him up completely. "I know… because you already tickle them!" he exclaimed rushing forward with a giggle. Minato laughed at the horrible hero exclamation, fit with bad grammar, and fell to his back, catching the blonde boy as he jumped onto his stomach.

He rolled over a few times, tickling him along the way, before stopping with Naruto laying on his chest as if to pin him down. Neither of them were able to fully cut off their incessant laughter, finding the unestablished game to be just too funny. Minato looked down into Naruto's blue eyes in pure wonder. This was his son! Everything from the eyes to the face to the hair! It was like a carbon copy of what he looked like when he was younger, with the addition of whiskers of course, but this was his son. He couldn't believe it.

"Oh no…" a new voice said from the porch. The two looked up to see Kushina holding a piece of paper. She looked extremely shocked and a bit worried. Minato shifted the blonde boy off him gently before standing up.

"Hey, what happened?" he asked getting to her side trying to see what was on the paper. To his confusion it was blank. Naruto looked at the two before shoving a hand in his pocket and turning to go play by himself again.

Kushina just shook her head. "I… I don't know." She said. "It says here that the brave knight Naruto didn't actually beat up the wicked witch…" as soon as she said that, Naruto's head shot back over there in interest. "It says she's now an accomplice of the tickling tyrant and that they're both coming to get him!" she said as her and Minato gave chase to the once again uncontrollably laughing blonde boy.

All these years later… and this is that same face… A lot more tired, and a lot sadder… Minato rubbed his cheek, letting the tears fall freely. No filter for who was around to see him. "I'm so sorry Naruto…" he said. "I love you…"

Naruto didn't say a thing. He stared into the crying face of his father, memorizing the wear and tear that life had on such a seemingly happy individual. Goes to show that the saddest ones leave the least clues. With a heavy heart of sorrow and remorse for the man he still calls 'Tou-san'… he stabbed him in the stomach with his discarded tri-pronged kunai. Minato leaned forward and rested his bloodied chin on Naruto's shoulder. Still mouthing the words 'I love you', determined to say it for all those years he didn't. "… You too Tou-san… you too…" Naruto whispered, laying him back against the boulder.

He grabbed his mask and held it out in front of him, letting the rain wash off the mud clinging to its edges. He stared at the design on the front, remembering why he got it. 'If the world would laugh at him, then he would laugh right back'... What was he supposed to do if it cried for him? Well, that was something new. He tilted his head back and shut his eyes, letting the rain wash off anything that made it onto his face by any unintentional means. Listening to the calming sounds of the thunder and rain, barely realizing that he could no longer hear the sounds of water dragons.

Turning around, he looked out to the water, not seeing any flashes or hearing any more explosions. Finally, through the beating rain, he could see his mother and brother running towards the island. Menma must have felt the loss of Minato's chakra signature through his sage mode.

Naruto smiled, mentally remarking on how much he's grown. Putting his mask on, he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back and out of his face. "What'll you do now Menma?" he asked his question to the wind. Watching his brother and mother come into clear view.

"…Minato…" Kushina called out slowly, seeing his motionless form against the rock. Her brow furrowed, not yet believing the inevitable. She conjured a chakra chain and swiped it at Naruto, making him jump away. When he did, Menma and Kushina rushed the dead body.

"Tou-san… hey… Hey, tou-san!" he yelled slapping his face a few times. Kushina leaned in and put her ear to his heart, hoping to hear something. Desperately, she tried hitting his other side as if that were the way to jump start him again or something. "Tou-san… get up…" Menma said, his voice cracking.

This was definitely a sight to see had there been any onlookers. A Kage in tears. Yet, it happened twice today. Kushina had long since lost composure, yelling out her husband's name in hopes that he would hear her and somehow wake up.

Naruto watched from a distance, pondering his own feelings about the scenario, wondering why he wasn't affected. I mean, he still considered these people to be family, yet watching his father die, by his own hands no less, he felt nothing. As if he took the life of a complete stranger. Did that make him a monster? In a book he read one time, that's what the author said. 'A man that can harm his family and remain sane is a true monster'.

Well, maybe he wasn't sane. All this time, he accepted the title of psychopath, because that's what the world decided to label him as. But, he didn't truly think he was one. Not until now. He just took the life of his father, and felt absolutely nothing from it. That had to mean something.

Ino once told him that he was just a man that enjoyed walking with the insane. A man who could hear the whispers of the demented and decode the babbling of the schizophrenics. Was that supposed to be a good thing?

Whatever it was meant to be, it clearly didn't sit right with the blonde Kage who was now pacing towards him with his head down. "Why…" Menma asked, clear anger lacing his hollow voice. Even knowing this was a possible outcome, he never thought… "How could you… kill your own father?"

Naruto was tearing himself apart with that question as well. Regardless, it was necessary. "Well, it's just like killing anyone else… He bleeds all the same." He replied with a snarky comment.

"You… Bastard!" Menma yelled out, clenching his hands shut tightly.

Naruto watched him, knowing full well what he had coming his way. "You're too naïve Menma…" he called out casually. "All that power you have… and yet you're so weak… you know why that is don't you?" he asked, not receiving an answer. "You're too good… Too noble and too kind."

Menma didn't seem interested in hearing anything Naruto said as he dropped to his knees, digging his hands in the mud.

"As I've been saying all day… you and your people have placed you on this pedestal of some sort of omnipotent god. But, there is a reason god and human are two different words. For, it's hard for a god to be omnipotent with useless traits such as kindness and nobility. Humanities ideals clash too much for a kind god to answer all prayers."

Menma still had yet to move, remaining hunched down in the sand.

"So, I'll say it once more… you're no god… You're just a human." As soon as that left his mouth, his mask was completely shattered by the red eyed Menma whose features became a lot more feral.

Naruto flipped back until he smacked into a set of trees that completely racked his body with pain. With a grunt of effort, he made it back to his feet. As soon as he did, Menma was already on him. Naruto decided being out in open water would be about the worst thing at the moment when dealing with a tailed beast. So, instead, he charged into the cover of the trees, ducking and dodging the attacks of his animalistic brother.

Swinging from a tree, he was tackled out of the air and into the ground. Sticking his arm up, he tried to block the right slash at his face, but the force of the hit itself threw him off to the side. As soon as he stood up, he leaned out of the way, avoiding the flying kick that uprooted the small tree next to him. Menma spun around and continued to attack him with nothing but anger fueling the flames of his hatred at the moment.

Naruto was hard pressed trying to dodge all of his attacks, but he miraculously succeeded to some extent. Until he was finally able to open Menma's guard to deliver his own strike. His fist connected with Menma's cheek, breaking his own wrist with the contact. Caught in the shock, he was kicked back and partially through the tree behind him. While time permitted, he healed his injured wrist while dodging the various attacks from around him. The rain was impeding a lot of his senses leaving him blind within the volley of trees.

Dropping down quickly, he created a regular shadow clone before taking off, avoiding Menma's next strike. He had a plan, but he needed to buy some time. From there, he did just that, escaping Menma's attacks while keeping him away from his clone. Menma was too far gone to even recognize as an orange hue of bubbling chakra covered his body with a tail sprouting from his back side. Naruto sighed, feeling a bit exhausted at this point.