Author's Notes: Probably mostly classifiable as a self-indulgent expansion of manga chapter four hundred forty: "A Conversation With the Fourth". Most of it was written prior to the publishing of chapter four hundred forty-one, so any inconsistencies will have to stand. See The Reasoning Behind It below for the full story.

Title: Between Love and Hate

Author: Reaper Nanashi (Lady Shinigami)

Pairing: None Intended, but it could be NaruHina if you really want it to be

Word Count: 7233

Category: Naruto

Genre: Angst/Drama

Type: One-shot (Complete)

Rating: T (cursing, ostentatious metaphors, long-windedness)

Spoilers: Uh, dur. To clarify: Anything and everything up to chapter four-forty.

Date Submitted: 3/29/09

Disclaimer: If it were mine, Sasuke wouldn't be such a narcissistic dickhead and Itachi would definitely be alive and retired on a tropical island somewhere with a harem of courteous young women who left him alone unless he asked for a drink or made a booty call, the poor unloved bastard.

Claimer: Uh . . . I suppose I can't even claim the concept this time. Hm. Well, I guess the parts I expanded on are mine, so hands off, thank you.

Summary: The man before him was the same man who had ruined his entire life. Naruto wanted to hate him, but couldn't. He didn't understand exactly why it had happened, but he understood desperation. And he did, somewhat, understand love. "Don't you realize what you've done to me?!"

The Reasoning Behind It: I was mildly displeased with manga chapter four hundred forty – too short, mainly. I mean, really, Sasuke gets his way after an overly thorough twenty-one-chapter exploration of his misdirected wangst, but Naruto has his entire life turned upside down in one and then doesn't even get a decent explanation? Please. Who's the title character here, huh? I'm not asking for an epic, of course – he is in the middle of a fight with a dangerous opponent, after all – but couldn't he have just one extra chapter? It's not like there's going to be time to address his questions at any future interval, obviously. Anyway, I didn't like chapter four-forty too much, so I novelized and expanded on it. I also included a chunk of chapter four-thirty-nine to get a sufficient starting point. Enjoy.

"That is why the line between love and hate is so narrow, Naruto. If we loved nothing and therefore felt no need to protect it, we would not have the capacity to hate anything else when what we valued came to harm. Your friend showed you that."

– Namikaze Minato

For the first time in his life, Uzumaki Naruto was at a complete loss. He had no goal, no dream . . .

No hope.

". . . Why?"

"How would you confront hatred to create peace?"

Everything – everything – had been taken from him. His teachers, his friends, his village . . .

His heart.

"How did this happen . . .?"

"Answer me."

What else was there, in a world where only hurt remained to tear at his soul for his failure?

"I don't know! It hurts . . . I hate this . . ."

Naruto . . .

The voice was soft but distant; he barely heard it and passed it off as his imagination.

"What should I do?! I don't know anymore! Somebody help!" he cried desperately, even though he knew no one would respond. No one ever helped the fox brat. "Tell me what to do! Help . . ."

"Silly man-child," chuckled an unpleasantly familiar voice. "The answer is so very simple."

Naruto let his arms ease from where they had been clutching at his head in his despair and looked over at the massive cage which held the equally large fox. He could not recall how he ended up in that place; indeed, he could not remember anything at all after Hinata—

Hinata . . .!

"Destroy," the fox snarled. "Destroy everything that remains in your fractured world and tries to harm you merely for being you." The thing stepped up to the tall gate, its blood-colored eyes glinting behind the ridiculously small piece of paper that held it and its power at bay. "Give your heart to me, boy. I will save you. I will protect you. Nothing need ever hurt you again if you simply come to me."

He knew he should not; no good had ever come from any release of the fox's power. Haku had wanted to die, Sasuke had left Konoha, Jiraiya had nearly been killed, Sakura had been hurt . . . But at the same time, what else was there? Living in eternal anguish of what could have been but would never be? His despair warred with his mind and made the seal weaken once more, so that the link between his consciousness and the fox's became wider and stronger, until the individuality of one became completely overshadowed by the bloodthirst of the other. The corrupted humanity poured into the oily waters of loneliness and uncertainty, spread through it like a wildfire, and seeped between the two doors of the gate.

The fox watched from its place within its prison and bared its fangs in a ghastly smile, pleased at the knowledge that it would soon be free. "Yes, child. That's it . . . Now all you must do is come here and remove this last piece of the seal. After that, you will never hurt again." What was left of Naruto's mind rose to its feet like an automaton and slogged through the infected fluid to the locked cage. The fox watched with eager eyes as one limp hand lifted, grabbed the corner of the paper that kept the gate shut, and began to pull it away from the metal . . .

. . . only to be stopped by someone else.

"NO!" the fox roared in fury as Naruto's battered spirit responded instantly to the gentle brush of another human's presence and regained some of what he had lost. "You . . ."

Naruto blinked, startled, and let out a rather unmanly squeak as the one beside him smoothed out the seal on the gate, then suddenly turned and lifted him off his feet before carrying him away.

"YOU!" the fox howled. "Why you . . ."

Naruto could only gape in shock. He was looking at a dead man. ". . . Yondaime Hokage-sama . . ."

"I set the seal so that if eight tails were released I would appear here," the older, taller blond explained in a rather stern voice. He shook his head slowly. "I didn't want that to happen. I never wanted to see you again, fox." He stopped and set Naruto down. "But I was anticipating the time I would see my son grown," he added, and his kind blue eyes met Naruto's. "So I suppose it's an even trade."

The fox could see all of its efforts to attain freedom vaporize into nothing and threw itself against the gate in frustrated rage. "You arrogant brat!" it barked. "Come back here so I can tear you apart!"

Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure, snorted in response and glanced back over his shoulder at the wildly furious fox. "As if that's going to inspire any trust at all, let alone enough to get me closer to you. Right, Naruto?"

He seemed to have no fear at all. Maybe that was because he had already defeated the fox, or maybe it was because he was already dead and knew that he had nothing to worry about as a disembodied soul. Naruto blinked again, confused, before realizing he was being addressed. ". . . Naruto . . . That's my name . . ." He tilted his head. "Wait, how did you . . .?"

Minato looked at him, somewhat taken aback. "What do you mean, 'how'? Because I gave it to you! After all, you're my heir."

"Heir?" Naruto echoed blankly. The pieces began to fall together quickly, however – it was not as though he could not see the similarities between them. ". . . Then you mean . . .?"

The fox struck at the cage door and screamed to try to drown out the information it knew would give its gullible jailor reassurance, but both blonds were beyond its reach and ignored its presence. One did so deliberately, the other out of an inability to process more than one source of conversation at a time.

Minato smiled and nodded firmly, so there could be no mistake. "Just like I said. You're my son."

For a long time Naruto simply stared at the Fourth Hokage – his father, whom he had idolized for so long without even knowing of the connection between them – but then a smile began to break out and he gave a weak laugh of happiness to so suddenly have a portion of his fractured life returned to him. It could not make everything in his horrible existence better, but it was something that offered hope.

"YONDAIME!" the fox roared. There was yet time to undo the damage that had been done to its plans, but it had to be dealt with immediately, before the boy's confidence was rekindled.

Minato gestured over his shoulder at the huge fox. "Noisy one, isn't he? Let's speak somewhere quieter."

He snapped his fingers and in the next second they were both standing – or floating, or something – in an empty white space, which Naruto might have expected to see if he were dead. And he actually could have been, for all he knew. He could have released the fox, died from the power surge, and was hallucinating everything else just to make himself feel better before he went to Hell for everything he had done as well as what he had not managed to do. Naruto squinted against the inherent brightness, though he could see no source, and looked again at the man who was his father.

As tears of awe and relief began to flow freely in response to the partially unraveled mystery in front of him, he lifted his arm to his face to hide them, but the older blond said only, "I guess Sandaime-sama never told you anything . . . He must have wanted to keep everything about the fox a secret." Minato sighed softly. ". . . I can understand that, I suppose . . . There might have been a lot of trouble if people had known that you were my son – it isn't like no one knows who I am." He frowned slightly. "Was." He contemplated the idea further, then shrugged a shoulder sadly and decided to stop making excuses. ". . . I'm sorry, Naruto."

That was not it, though. That was not it at all.

It would have been wonderful to know who his father had been from the start, of course, but upon hearing it finally Naruto had been able to understand instantly exactly why he had not been told. It was too dangerous; even in the academy all the instructors had touted the Fourth's skill and power and how he had put down virtually every other shinobi village almost single-handedly. And if Naruto had known when he was little, he knew that he would have simply shouted it at the whole village whenever the cold shoulders and harsh words became too much, and in many ways that could certainly have given him more grief than he could have dealt with at that age.

"Dad . . ."

So no, that was not the thought that had upset him, and that the other blond seemed to think that was all it was infuriated him. Therefore, he reacted in the way he always did when in stressful situations – he struck first and considered speaking later. He did, in fact, strike out successfully at least three times; in his anger he had not cared to keep an exact count. He might have kept on with it, too, but the crying he had already done had worn him out enough that he ached and made aiming with fuzzy vision rather difficult. In the end, he admitted to himself that it was not worth it to attack some astral form of a dead man.

"That's not it, goddamn it!" he shouted, and pointed at the other with an accusatory finger. "Don't you realize what you've done to me, you asshole?! Do you have any idea what I went through all this time?! You ruined my entire fucking life! I don't know whether I should be elated about finally knowing this or just pissed off that you'd have enough dick to show up and act like nothing ever happened!"

Minato, one arm wrapped around his stomach, watched in silence as his son cried, mainly because he felt Naruto probably needed to release some stress. Few understood that tears were no weaker a response to a stimulus than laughter was, and Naruto himself seemed to be one of those uninformed numbers – though for a different and more acceptable reason than most. Still, Minato could not help but feel pride at his son's strength of will, for him to be feeling a couple of non-physical punches to the gut after they had already happened. Naruto was just like his mother, even after what had obviously been many tough years of life and surely more than an equal amount of tough experiences. He had adapted but not changed – not given up what made him who he was – and that was one hallmark of a superior shinobi.

At first Minato had felt surprised and betrayed by the attack, believing that the sacrifice he had made had gone unappreciated. But what, he mused as his only child wept pitifully before him, was there to appreciate, really? Certainly he had given his son a great gift, there was no arguing that, but how could Naruto find the grace to be thankful for something that no one else understood any better than he did and, worse, in their ignorance reviled him for? Even his closest friends feared him and feared for him, because his temper was the greatest enemy any of them – including Naruto himself – had. He had made leaps and bounds in controlling it, that was unquestionable, but that control was far from perfect.

Perhaps Naruto took after his mother a bit too much, though Minato was sure Kushina would have known how to deal with that emotional tendency; she had been surprisingly calm in combat aside from the occasional instances of battle fever. Unfortunately, Minato himself had always been even-tempered enough to not have to deal with anything like that, but he could try. He was, it seemed, the only one who could make the attempt.

Minato closed his eyes and asked softly, "Naruto, how old are you?"

Naruto sniffled. "Sixteen."

Sixteen? He was older than Minato had thought, though in hindsight Minato had not pegged Naruto to a specific age; the way he had found his son had simply led to an assumption of youth, though Naruto was a bit big to be only thirteen or so. ". . . I'm sorry. It must have been hard." Naruto did not respond, and Minato realized how stupid he sounded to be attempting to make it all better when there was nothing he could actually do about it except make excuses neither of them wanted to hear. ". . . All this time . . . I've only caused you trouble, like you said. I don't have the right to act like your father when I'm apologizing for something I did as a shinobi."

"Shut . . . up," Naruto murmured between the tiny hiccupping breaths characteristic of someone who had been crying pretty hard. "It's . . . fine." He took a deep, shuddering breath and said with a hint of bitterness, "I can handle it . . . After all, I'm the son of the Yondaime."

Minato tried to smile, but it ended up being more of a grimace. He felt rather like the scum of the universe at that moment, which was a classification he probably ultimately deserved for thinking the village might actually honor his final wish. But at least the Uzumaki inclination to be as blunt as a brick would help avoid any future misunderstandings. He did not pretend that his son's ability to 'handle it' meant he was truly forgiven for what he had done, of course, but at least he did not have to worry about Naruto suddenly becoming apologetic and shy for hitting him. Naruto had needed that outlet for his frustration and Minato was glad to let him have it forever if it had a chance of helping him somehow.

"Listen, Naruto . . . The reason I sealed half of the fox's chakra in you was because I knew that you could manage it. No adult could have done it – not even me. Adults are too opinionated and fearful of what they can't properly delineate and they'll fight it to a premature death. It had to be a child who would accept but not submit, adapt but not withdraw, and grow to be a capable and self-contained person."

Naruto frowned. ". . . But I'm not."

"Maybe not perfectly," Minato acknowledged. "But there isn't any such thing to begin with. I knew that you would be able to do this because you're my son. More than that," he admitted, "you're her son." He exhaled shortly in amusement. "Even when you were in that receiving blanket all you did was scream – you didn't like the circumstances and you wanted everyone to know it. You calmed down eventually but still muttered and fussed just to remind us that you were very unhappy, and finally you just dismissed us altogether and went to sleep. You didn't need us to reassure you – you knew exactly what you wanted from the start and didn't seek our permission before making a demand. You were independent and followed your path, not what someone else laid out for you. And that was what has helped you stand up to the fox until now."

He shook his head slightly. "Still, even with that I'm not sure I would have sealed the fox in you had I not recognized something back then." Naruto tilted his head and Minato's countenance changed in a way that made the younger of the two realize that his father and the man who was the Yondaime Hokage may as well have been two separate people. "When the fox attacked the village . . . someone was controlling it."

Naruto felt the blood drain from his face. From personal experience he knew the fox was aggressive and disobedient, for lack of a better word. Who would be able to control the kyuubi?

"It was an extremely powerful shinobi," Minato revealed, "and it occurred to me that without some special strength, fighting that person – let alone defeating him – would be impossible." He hesitated a breath, not wanting to inadvertently frighten Naruto's obviously still shaky psyche, and finally said, "I believe he'll attack again."

At that revelation Naruto deflated visibly, worried about disappointing the man who had clearly held such high expectations of him. ". . . Konoha's . . . already destroyed."

"I know," Minato said gently. "I saw everything from inside you. It wasn't your fault."

Naruto blinked, shocked, and something flashed behind his eyes. "You saw?!"

Minato did not smile at the reviving hope, lest his son take it the wrong way, but he had still seen it. "I know about Jiraiya, too."

Naruto turned his head away briefly at the mention of the old pervert, but there was no time to mourn and he had done enough of that for the time being anyway; it would be impossible to mourn properly without peacetime in which to do so. But thinking of Jiraiya did bring thoughts of how he had died. "Did Pain use the fox?!"

"No," Minato answered. He seemed to be disgusted, and for just an instant Naruto thought the expression had been aimed at him for not miraculously knowing the right answer. But as he opened his mouth to snap out a defense, his father said with an unmistakable fury that had not diminished despite how long it had been since that battle, "It was one of 'Akatsuki', though. Whichever one of them wears the mask."

Naruto's eyes widened. He had no idea who the man was but he had the Sharingan, and Naruto had been able to tell by voice and height alone that the man was neither Sasuke nor Itachi. That meant that he was either like Kakashi and had it in only one eye – which seemed likely given that the mask only had one eye hole – or the bastard was some member of the clan who had left prior to the kyuubi's attack and then hated the village so much he directed the fox to mow down everything it came across. Or perhaps both.

When Naruto looked at him again Minato had turned his head away, ashamed and at a loss to completely explain what had happened then. "At that time he saw through absolutely everything I did. He's no ordinary ninja, that's for certain." He shook his head and looked at Naruto. "Channel the best of your strength against the right person, Naruto. Pain's just a pawn."

Naruto shook his head. "But Pain hates Konoha – his village was destroyed the same way!"

"That's true," Minato acknowledged. "And that's why he's being used."

"Then there's someone behind him?!" Naruto growled, frustrated. A sponsor could be a real problem. "Damn it, why is this happening to Konoha?!"

Minato tilted his head at that and again kept the smile from his face. How many times had he also said something like that, so oblivious as he had been in his youth to the politics that controlled the adult world and the actual lengths human greed could reach? Fifty times? A thousand? Ten thousand?

Sixteen.

His son was sixteen years old, and still innocent.

He could hardly take the credit for it, but it was nice to know, though it was also the reason Naruto was in the condition he was to begin with. Kakashi would never have had to wrestle with the issue at all because personal experience had already shown him what politics and greed did to perfectly noble people.

Finally, Minato sighed and looked away once more. He did not enjoy the thought of what he was about to say, and he was not so stupid as to think it would save the world even if someone went through with it, but it was the only idea he had come up with after all that time; the only idea that would even begin to fix things. "Maybe there will never be order or peace as long as ninja exist."

From Naruto's expression Minato thought his son could seen the reasoning, but said it anyway. "Pain asked you about creating peace, Naruto, but it's an extremely difficult question for anyone to answer, because we all will have a different one." Naruto seemed to regain a bit more of the hope that had been glimmering earlier. "Trying to save anything you love breeds war. Not necessarily big wars, but something as small as inter-clan feuds. As long as love exists in the world so will hatred, and shinobi will be used by those emotions in some way. Therefore, as long as shinobi exist, so will the chances of the presence of a creature like Pain be high.

"Pain killed Jiraiya," Minato acknowledged, "but when I think about it I can't help wondering if it was more likely that he was killed by the chaos that created Pain." He shook his head. "At the very least it's easier to blame Pain and attack him because he's right in front of us: a symbol. Human beings can't attack hatred directly, just someone who has caused us to hate him for one thing or another."

He sighed. "All their lives, ninja battle hatred. All of them will, Naruto, at one time or another. But Jiraiya gave you the answer to combat it."

Naruto could see the value in occupying the men in the world with attempting to peek at bathing women and occupying the women with running away – or at least that was the only 'answer' he felt the old pervert had offered – but would even that not spawn hate when the women beat on the men and the men resented it? Even if that was not it, though, how could he possibly be expected to be a catalyst for any cure for hatred when he felt the way he did? ". . . But I can't forgive Pain. I can't!"

"That is why the line between love and hate is so narrow, Naruto," Minato pointed out. "If we loved nothing and therefore felt no need to protect it, then we would not have the capacity to hate anything else when what we valued came to harm. Your friend showed you that."

"We suffer because of our bonds."

At the time Sasuke had said that Naruto had been glad to suffer because of his bond to the boy who was the closest thing he had to a brother, because after spending so much of his life with no significant bonds at all it meant for sure that he actually had at least that one. He still was glad to suffer from it for the same reason, even though it hurt worse every day. He had also suffered from his bond to Konoha, when he returned to find it destroyed and felt through the natural energy that so many innocent people were dead. And he had suffered from his bond to Jiraiya, too. But still, would he have followed the old pervert to every onsen and brothel in the known world, trained as hard as he had to better himself, and shared dripping popsicles had he known what would happen in advance?

Yes.

Yes, he would have, because bonds were important.

He still could not forgive Pain.

Naruto looked at his father pleadingly. "Tell me . . . Tell me what to do."

Minato closed his eyes. "I can't. I don't know what you have to do. That's up to you to decide."

"That's not fair!" Naruto cried. "If you and the pervert couldn't do it, then what the hell makes you think that I can?!" His hands fisted, but he restrained the urge to strike out physically. "I'm an idiot!" he snapped. "And I'm not a great ninja! Shit, I'm barely halfway dece—!"

Minato was definitely not going to listen to that. He clapped a hand onto his son's head, with just enough extra force to silence him. "Don't say that. You will find the answer." He ruffled the short blond locks and smiled. "I believe in you." The smile nearly became a grin when the blue variation of Kushina's eyes stared up at him with an expression between "you're shitting me" and a painfully hopeful "really?"

Which was exactly what his beautiful child said.

"C . . . Can I . . . really . . .?"

"Parents always believe in their children," Minato told him, and realized after long a moment of silence that Naruto, having never spent a lot of time around anybody's parents, probably had not considered the concept before. So he added, "And I have inside information, too."

Naruto tilted his head. "Inside . . . information?"

"I didn't get to where I am – or was – by sitting around and letting the world happen to me," Minato said. "I was just stubborn enough to not back down when something came at me sideways. And your mother . . ." He grimaced at the memories. "She went looking for trouble and it scared the hell out of me, every time." He leaned in as though telling a secret. "You know, she meant to be the first female Hokage. She picked out the best male ninja in the village and competed with him until she could whip him. And if another one made a name for himself, she'd go after him until she could defeat him. Then she'd move on. She was furious when I was picked, but it was the rational, inspirational anger that comes with confidence, and she set out to crush me. She never managed to beat me, but Naruto . . . I'm not sure it wouldn't have been a simple matter of time."

Minato touched the end of his son's nose briefly and lightly. "Kushina never planned out her battles either, Naruto. And just like with you, everyone always told her that she had to have a strategy. They weren't wrong, but neither was she when she told them that having a strategy is only one more thing that can disrupt you if things don't go exactly according to plan. Most people in general aren't smart enough or don't think fast enough to consider every possible response to every action taken, and an unexpected response can warp a strategy and throw an entire team into panic. I've seen missions fail because strategies were uprooted and the shinobi involved didn't know what to do. So don't worry so much if you don't have a plan right away – it will come to you.

"What you do always need to have, regardless of everything else, is a goal," Minato explained, and when he thought that Naruto's expression firmed a bit too quickly, he added for safety's sake, "A realistic one. You can strategize all day long if you want, but without a goal you have nothing to achieve. That's why I made sure that you'd have your mother's surname. Yes, it would have been dangerous for you to have mine, but the thing about whirlpools . . ." He gave a somewhat mischievous smile and revealed, "Once they get started, they don't stop. And nothing that gets caught in them can escape." He chuckled and confessed, "I certainly didn't."

Naruto could not help but grin in response. It made sense. How many times in the past three years had he been accused of dragging people 'kicking and screaming' into one thing or another? He could see what that meant in regards to Pain's demand for answers, but the warning to be realistic was niggling at the back of his mind. Even though he was angry at the older blond for the whole kyuubi thing, the man before him was still a Hokage and knew better than most what it took to achieve that level of greatness. Naruto could brush off anyone else's derision of his dream, but not that of the man in front of him. He had to know, though; he had to hear it from someone who really knew what was needed to get that high.

". . . Do you . . . think I could . . . be Hokage?"

Minato blinked, blindsided slightly by the question. His initial response was an admittedly reflexive 'Of course!', because it was his son who wanted to know and it seemed natural to encourage him to do anything and everything, and also because he really did believe Naruto could do anything he wanted if he tried hard enough. But he realized in the next instant that Naruto probably was not looking for that kind of affirmation. It was not his son asking the question, but an aspiring young shinobi, and that would mean he would need to prove his view with facts. He decided to seek clarification, just to be sure. "Why do you need my opinion?"

"Almost everyone tells me I can't," Naruto explained quietly, and looked away. "Those who don't say it pat me on the head like I'm being cute; it's obvious they don't believe I can but don't want to hurt my feelings. I just . . . I want to know what you think. Because you've been there."

"Well," Minato said carefully, "you could still use work with applying genjutsu, and you have to know at least a thousand techniques. From that angle, you still have a long way to go. Your chakra control could also use a bit more tweaking, though you've improved that a lot in just a few years. But you're extremely powerful, your taijutsu is good if a little unrefined, and to be honest your stamina is a bit ridiculous – with all the training she did, that's primarily your mother's fault. Most importantly, though, you don't give up; you decide what you have to do and you see it through. Wanting to keep Konoha and her people safe is a good quality, too." He considered his assessment and nodded. "So no, you aren't ready to be Hokage anytime soon – you may not have the opportunity to be Rokudaime, though please feel free to prove me wrong – but simply being Hokage is not beyond reach."

Naruto stared at him for a minute, then grinned. "Thanks, old man."

Old man?

Minato decided to not bother protesting. It was leagues better than 'asshole', at any rate, and not said with malicious intent, so he considered it to be a fair exchange. Instead, he looked at the gaping opening of the seal and sighed. It still looked bad even though he was sure that Naruto was stable again; he did not want to leave, but time was running out for both of them. "All right, I can fix your seal, but this will be the last time. Please be a little more careful from now on, okay?"

Naruto nodded, contrite, and while Minato double-checked to make sure he had the chakra to spare and then collected what he needed he said, "Everything we experience helps shape who we become, Naruto, but we are the ones who make the final choice as to who we will be. Pain may have come from hatred – it's not our place to say he didn't – but he's not the embodiment of it, nor is he a true embodiment of the pain of the world as he would like you to think. He can only show his own because he doesn't understand the pain of others. He was too weak to defeat the hatred that destroyed his village and his life so now he's visiting that hatred on others because he can, not because it's some duty of his to make people think about what they've done."

Minato snorted. "If he truly believes he has some mandate to perpetuate suffering because of what he went through, then he's nothing but a megalomaniac and the world certainly doesn't need any more of those. At least what he experienced had not been aimed solely at him."

Naruto frowned. "What do you mean?"

His father sighed, but not in exasperation. Just sadly. He lifted his gaze to his son's face gradually. "Tell me, Naruto, because you've gone through both. What's it like to have Konoha destroyed?"

Naruto drew back, but admitted, "Awful. I feel homeless."

"Then what was it like . . ." Minato continued hesitantly, obviously worried about stirring up too many bad memories. Naruto did not understand why until the older blond said, ". . . to have a village in which you lived, but at the same time have no one in that village who worried for you?"

Naruto's brows drew together and his mouth opened in hurt shock. His childhood was not something that he liked to address. "I . . . felt invisible."

Minato nodded slowly in response, his eyes downturned anew, and did not attempt to prepare for any attack his son might have seen fit to turn on him.

Naruto, however, was more than a little confused as to how the conversation had apparently ended. ". . . But . . . what does that have to do with Pain and . . . pain . . .?"

"Everyone's pain is different, Naruto," Minato explained, "and it always will be because of who that person is and how that person chooses to react to the world. Yes, your friend Sasuke's pain is great and unique and you'll probably never be able to understand it because you've never had the opportunity to live among blood relations, but that doesn't nullify the pain you felt when you realized that no one in the entire village cared that you were alive and that they all would have preferred you to be dead. Sasuke has no idea what that's like; even with his clan dead, the village worried about him and he had girls following him all over the place. People cared about him, even if he refused to acknowledge them. And your friend Gaara? Neither you nor Sasuke could ever possibly comprehend the pain of knowing that his own father was trying to orchestrate his death. Repeatedly, no less. But everyone had always feared Gaara and he accepted and encouraged that, so he never had to concern himself with feeling anything at the death of his father, nor did he have to concern himself with what the rest of the village thought of him."

"So Pain . . ."

"Is being petty, quite frankly," Minato said, "if we were to look at this objectively. The greatest gift human beings have ever received was the gift of Choice. There were dozens of paths Pain could have chosen, and surely at least five of them involved rebuilding his home and working to end more of the same pain through nonviolent tactics. But rather than thinking of others first, he abused his gift of Choice by thinking selfishly. And that has now backfired on him, because the path he has chosen in which to deal with his own pain has ultimately put him at the mercy of those who have chosen to see their pain as a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block. Gaara chose a similar path, remember, and you defeated him. Even with all your pranks—"

Naruto felt something like a surge of embarrassment, which was unusual considering the time period in which the incident had occurred, and wilted as he recalled his 'crowning achievement' the day before he became a ninja. ". . . You saw that . . .?"

Minato smiled and said, "Very artistic representations of the foolishness characteristic of my predecessors and myself, by the way. I'm sure that your mother would have wanted a picture." Naruto groaned and his father laughed. "Don't be like that. The paint came off – it's fine."

Naruto flapped one hand in denial and confessed, "Some of it's still there, in places where it's hard for the weather to get to it. I looked."

"Well, then, don't tell anybody," Minato advised. "Look, what I was saying was that even taking all of that into account, you are more righteous than Pain has ever been. He has chosen one of the easiest possible ways of expressing his suffering; in essence, he has chosen to act like a child and pitch a tantrum about it rather than look at those around him who are also in torment and realize that everyone has some great pain that he or she has to face. Whether the pain is perceived to be equal is not his right to decide, and whether or not there's some cosmic reason for it is irrelevant – it's there. The question is: What will you do with your pain, Naruto? Will you allow yourself to feel unjustly mutilated and abused, and use that negative experience as an excuse to mutilate and abuse others merely to make yourself feel as though your life has significance? Or will you realize that your pain didn't have to happen, and find significance in making sure that you never allow yourself to inflict it on someone else out of bitterness?"

Naruto frowned slightly. He was pretty sure that, until that point, he had been doing his best to not watch anyone else go through what he did. ". . . But am I doing it for them or myself . . .?" he muttered.

"If they don't want to change, Naruto, they won't," Minato offered.

Naruto looked away. That was not something he wanted to hear. "But . . . Sasuke . . ."

Minato shook his head. His son's hope was blazing strongly again and he did not want to extinguish it. "Unfortunately, I can't tell you one way or another. I can make sure that you have all the pieces of the puzzle, but I can't solve it for you. Sasuke's situation is much too delicate and you know him better than I do. Besides, you probably wouldn't like my answer."

Naruto frowned. "Then you think I should forget about him, like the old perv said to?"

"I would say that only because I see how much it's hurting you to chase him and watch him turn his back over and over," Minato clarified. "But I understand why you haven't given up and can agree with your reasoning. If you know it would be worse for you to let him go then I'm behind you on this, as long as you realize that it might hurt even more in the end." Naruto nodded and his father concluded, "I hope that it will all work out in your favor, then, and be worth the time and energy."

Minato exhaled slowly. "He and Pain both chose their paths, Naruto, and so – for one reason or another – chose to intersect theirs with yours. Both are living in pasts that are long since dead, but take heart that Sasuke has his sights set on the appropriate target; his goal is simple, and once he achieves it I don't see why he wouldn't return to Konoha. As for Pain . . . it's neither fair nor right of him to blame the actions of those who came before you on you, and you are under no obligation to take responsibility for the choices of your forebears."

Naruto nodded. He did understand that, because a long time ago he had thought long and hard about it himself and had eventually stopped blaming his peers for their parents' hatred of him. Making that change in his perception had taken a great deal of weight from his shoulders, oddly, and he had been able to see what he had not before: how some of those kids had not hated him nearly as much – if at all – as their parents had.

"All right then," Minato said suddenly as he placed the fingertips of his right hand over the gaping hole of the warped seal that was visible on Naruto's stomach. "I'm ready. This might hurt."

Naruto figured it would hurt, since he had taken to measuring his life by the degree of pain he felt at any one time, but he was startled by the sharp jab of agony that spiked through his gut as his father drew his hand back and twisted it to the right simultaneously. "Ugh!" The seal, which had drilled back into Naruto to get closer to the fox, rolled into place once again and took the form he was used to seeing. Distantly, as though listening through several folds of cloth, he thought he heard the fox scream in outrage.

"There," Minato said softly. "Like I said earlier, be careful – this is the last time." He glanced to either side as though expecting to see something. "I have to get going now; my chakra is fading."

Naruto started. Everything was beginning to happen abruptly. ". . . Wh . . . Now? But I'm not ready . . ."

Minato reached across the space between them and yanked him closer to hug him tightly. He gave his son's head a swift but firm kiss, then pushed the boy gently to arm's length. Naruto was back on his feet at last and Minato felt no hesitation about having to leave, even though there was still so much he wanted to say. "You'll be all right, I promise. And even if my genes never do you any good, I know your mother's will take care of you." He extended his hand again and made a new mess of the blond strands that were about half the length of his own. "Konoha can be rebuilt, Naruto. Remember that they need you there."

With that, Namikaze Minato – Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure – faded into the whiteness as though he had never been.

As something shoved him from that place, Naruto prepared himself for the battle that he was about to engage in. He had only a single shadow clone left in Myobokuzan, which meant that he had only one pool of sage chakra left to draw from. He would have to make the most of it, but the fact was that no matter what, he could not lose the last round of battle against Pain. Sasuke was still out there somewhere, and Naruto had to return him to Konoha – to bring him home. There was, he had known from the beginning but foolishly ignored, no way that he could have done that with the kyuubi's 'help'.

It was a good thing the Fourth had thought ahead, no matter what he believed.

Naruto closed his eyes for an instant and sought for the warm serenity his father's presence had offered him even when the fox's power had been overwhelming. It took a moment to find, but once he recovered it he kept it close by, just in case. "Thank you . . . Dad."

Finis

Answers To Questions You Didn't Even Know You Wanted To Ask:

This is an angsty piece. I'm not sure I really like it; it's not like Naruto at all. On the other hand, this is also taking place at what is obviously one of the lowest points – if not the lowest point – in his life. So I left it the way it was, even though it seems a little too defeatist in places. My apologies if it seems that way to you all as well. Also, I reread this thing twice and added nearly eleven hundred extra words, including the Hokage sequence (how could I have forgotten that in the first place?). Anyway, it's just another reason to double-check yourself.

———

Even his closest friends feared him and feared for him, …

This is not to say Sakura and Kakashi and the others are only pretending to like Naruto; I'm positive that they all love him for who he is. But he does have a specific emotional threshold and they know it, and in certain situations I'm sure they're afraid of him getting lost in his anger or pain or fear. If they're not then they're stupid, because fearing him is the best way to protect themselves for his sake. If they realize he's losing it and get out of the blast radius, he doesn't have to find their mangled and charred bodies later.

———

His son was sixteen years old, and still innocent.

If you can still be innocent after spending thirty months or so with Jiraiya . . .

———

Kakashi would never have had to wrestle with … what politics and greed did to perfectly noble people.

This is, of course, a reference to Sakumo's ordeal. If you don't know what that was, go read the Kakashi Gaiden.

———

… to every onsen …

An onsen is a hot spring.

———

… you have to know at least a thousand techniques.

Once upon a time I was discussing about being Hokage with someone and mentioned this, and that person said s/he did not think it was true. But Ebisu does say it in episode two of the anime. So at least in anime-canon, this is a requirement for gaining the position of Hokage.

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If you love platonic oyakokankei (parent-child relationship), raise your hands and SQUEE!!

—RN (LS)