Minato smiled as he put the finishing strokes on his first ever Seal – one that he had thought up and designed through painstaking effort. If all proceeded without a hitch, this one Seal would revolutionize the ninja world. Seriously, Minato was fast enough without a Seal to transport himself anywhere instantaneously, this was simply overkill.

… Provided there was another Seal marked at the location where he wanted to go. Details, details.

Just as he was putting on the last three strokes, he allowed himself to get distracted when his Sensei Jiraiya kicked the door to his apartment open like a boss. The infamous Toad Sage grinned infectiously at his protégé. Getting distracted would be a mistake that he would come to regret, but not until much, much later.

"Heeey, Minato! What are you doing in here on such a beautiful sunny day? You got a week's reprieve until your next mission, don't you?"

Minato nodded distractedly as he made the last stroke. Then without making sure he made those last three strokes correctly, he looked up at his Sensei with slight confusion.

"Yes I do. It's just that… since I had the time, I thought I'd wrap up a project that I've been working on for…"

"Yeah, yeah. That's great!" Jiraiya grinned and giggled perversely as he rubbed his hands together. Lecherously. "Why don't we hit the hot springs? It's such a hot day that some of the Hidden Leaf's finest kunoichi are gonna be lounging there!"

Minato frowned as his Sensei ignored his hard work in favor of his perversity. He really wanted to get his Sensei's approval on this. But more importantly…

"Jiraiya-sensei, I'm going steady with Kushina! I can't be caught doing those kinds of things with you anymore!" Minato involuntarily shuddered at the kinds of things Kushina would do to him. He wildly shook his head. "If you're so dead-set on doing that, why don't you rope Orochimaru into it? You're always complaining that he's becoming distant!"

Minato meant that as more of a joke, really. Orochimaru was too clinical and professional to commit such acts of debauchery. But apparently Sensei was in one of those moods, where he heard, like, every other word.

"Great idea! Let's go pick up Roachy-chan and hit the bathhouses!"

Minato whined the whole way as his Sensei dragged him out of his apartment and into the streets.

"But Sensei, I wanna test my Seeeal!"

Minato you poor sod.

Much later, still without checking his chicken scratches to ensure they were all correct, Minato scheduled a meeting with the esteemed Third Hokage to show off his revolutionary Seal. The best way to do that was to flash into the Hokage's Office with his brand new Flying Thunder God. Yeah, Minato liked that name best.

So while Hiruzen temporarily stepped out of his office, Minato snuck in through the window and planted a kunai with his Flying Thunder God seal amidst the piles and piles of paperwork stacked up on the Hokage's desk. Hiruzen would never think to look for it there. His mischievous work accomplished, Minato quickly departed to wait until his scheduled appointment.

He couldn't wait to see the look on Hiruzen's face.

Hiruzen looked up at the clock in concern. It had been an hour since Minato's scheduled appointment, and Hiruzen had seen neither hide nor hair of the promising young shinobi. In all that time, he'd continued doing his paperwork as always, believing that something was slightly holding Minato up. That he'd be five, maybe ten minutes late.

Ten minutes turned into twenty. Twenty minutes turned into half an hour. And before Hiruzen knew it, a whole hour had passed without some kind of message indicating that Minato would have to reschedule.

"Have you seen or heard anything from Minato-kun?" Hiruzen asked of his secretary, who carted in more cra… paperwork. When his secretary replied in the negative, Hiruzen sighed and ordered an Anbu to check Minato's apartment to see if he was there, and if he wasn't to check in with Jiraiya or Kushina.

Minato couldn't be found, but at least Kushina was worried sick now. … Oh, wait. That's bad.

Hiruzen sighed tiredly as he crawled into bed with his already slumbering wife. He'd stayed up longer than usual to keep up the search for Minato, and they hadn't found a single clue. It was like the man had dropped off the face of the planet. Hiruzen had already ordered the Anbu to patrol outside the village tonight, within five to ten miles of the village. If the search needed to be broadened even more than that, Hiruzen would be forced to assume Minato was kidnapped or worse.

Hopefully not worse. He did not like to think of what would happen if they did find Minato's lifeless husk.

Hiruzen closed his eyes resignedly and dozed off. He didn't know how long it had been since he dozed off, but he was jolted awake by a sudden weight that was on top of him. Thinking it was some kind of assassin, Hiruzen prepared to fend him off, only come face to face with Minato-kun. Literally.

"Wah! It's just me, Lord Third! I swear! I'm here for my appointment."

Hiruzen stared at Minato for a long, long time after that. He twitched ever-so-slightly to salvage what was left of his crumbling sanity.

"Minato-kun, do you happen to know what time it is?" Hiruzen asked very carefully. Very calmly. Minato looked at Hiruzen's bedside clock, seeming to finally register that they were not, in fact, in the Hokage's Office.

"Uh… Three in the morning." Minato replied off-handedly. When his brain caught up with his mouth, Minato rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "… Oh."

"You have Kushina-chan and Jiraiya worried sick about you," Hiruzen told the blond with some steel in his tone. "Now where were you?"

Minato continued rubbing the back of head as he thought of the best way to answer. He wasn't all too sure himself, because to him, it was still yesterday afternoon.

"Um… Did you happen to find the kunai I placed on your desk?" Minato asked quietly, so as to not disturb Biwako, who had miraculously stayed asleep even after Minato's sudden appearance.

"I did find a kunai," Hiruzen confirmed. "But I threw it away, because I thought it was your idea of a prank."

Well, it kind of was, but not a prank to this extent. Minato frowned minutely as the implications set in. That was weird. He was supposed to go where his Flying Thunder God seal was, but instead he landed on top of a formerly slumbering Hiruzen Sarutobi. Had he made a mistake in drawing the Seal? Without it in front of him, Minato would never know.

"Huh. Well, I'm sorry, then. All I can say is that I tried experimenting with a Seal that would allow me to-"

Hiruzen choked at the mention of Minato experimenting with Seals. Seals were no trifling matter. One tiny mistake and you could wind up dead. Or worse. He didn't even want to know what the Seal was supposed to do originally.

"Minato. I want you to go home." Hiruzen told the young man who would undoubtedly have a hard time adjusting to the… time change. "I want you to think very carefully on why what you did was wrong, and how you will apologize to Kushina-chan and Jiraiya in the morning. We will talk about your punishment after you have cleaned up your mess. Now go."

Minato got off of Hiruzen and somberly left the Sarutobi Compound – thankfully without waking anyone else up. When he got back to his apartment, Minato's brow furrowed as he tried to replicate the Seal he had drawn from memory. One way or another he was going to make it so that his Flying Thunder God was a force to be reckoned with in the way that his initial specifications had projected.

Oh, but Minato really should have learned his lesson and stopped. Because once you make one or two mistakes, a thousand more will follow. And future designs of the Flying Thunder God would be… quite fascinating.

"Everybody! Throw as many of these kunai as you can! Our Yellow Flash will be the Hidden Stone's undoing!" A random Jonin crowed as the few Hidden Leaf shinobi that were in the trenches began throwing special kunai with Seals on them. They were up against an impressive army, but had been assured by Minato Namikaze that he had this covered, that he had fixed the booboo he had made months earlier when he first designed the thing.

Their esteemed Lord Hokage had been quite hesitant in allowing the Namikaze another chance at this new Seal, but had been assured that it was perfect this time. Really. So like a fool, Sarutobi had given Minato the benefit of a doubt.

The good news? All those kunai managed to kill off some of the Hidden Stone ninja. The bad news? Minato fucked up again and failed to appear and truly earn his 'Yellow Flash' moniker. Plus, the Hidden Leaf ninja had pretty much revealed their location when they threw those volleys of kunai.

That was the last mistake they would ever make.

As Ichiro returned home from victoriously defending Kannabi Bridge, he opened a bottle of sake and poured himself a glass. Things had been a bit tense even after those tree huggers had been wiped out, if only for the fact that many of them had heard the Leaf trash promising some 'Yellow Flash' would come back and avenge them. It was only a matter of time. However, that guy had never shown up, not once. Those tree huggers must have felt pretty stupid after throwing all those kunai. Just what were they hoping to achieve?

As he made a small toast to himself, Ichiro downed the alcoholic beverage. It was sooo good. But before he'd even finished it, a blond-haired man in a Hidden Leaf Jonin vest had appeared in front of him and slashed his throat. He was gone in a flash, and Ichiro died instantly.

He was not the last. All around the Hidden Stone, each and every Stone-nin who returned home from Kannabi Bridge were found dead, in most cases inexplicably. In the few cases that a yellow blur was noticed, there weren't clear descriptions of the serial killer – at least, not beyond the fact that he was a fucking tree hugger. As a result, there was pandemonium in the Hidden Stone Village's streets as shinobi and civilian alike feared that they would be next, never once making the connection that it was only shinobi from a certain protection detail that were dropping like flies.

They wouldn't establish that relevancy until much, much later. For now, people were fearing for their lives, even the most hardcore and elite Jonin. Not even the Tsuchikage was exempt from the uncontrollable paranoia that had sunken its roots in the once proud village.

And if a couple of tree hugging prisoners (children, really – surviving students of the purported of the 'Yellow Flash') from said Kannabi Bridge mission were freed, no one reported a thing, because they were too damn scared they would be the next to die.

"Minato, this is just unacceptable." Hiruzen told his subordinate plainly after Minato returned to the village with Kakashi-kun and Rin-chan. "Your Seal is too unpredictable. I lost quite a few good men because they placed their faith in your damn Seal. The army that they went up against might have been slaughtered by you within their very village walls, causing pandemonium amongst their ranks, but I still lost men. I want you to cease this project of yours immediately."

Minato waved his hands in front of himself placatingly as he offered an apologetic smile.

"No, no! I can fix it, I swear! Just gimme a little time to tweak it again!"

Hiruzen groaned and was about to tell him off, but Minato was already out the window and running to his apartment.

"… Well, shit." He grumbled and opened a secret drawer in his desk, which was just big enough to contain a tiny bag of… herbs. He would need some of his very special smokes if he was going to keep what little sanity he had left intact. "Minato's going to be the death of me…"

Minato grinned as he managed to plant a Flying Thunder God seal on the masked madman. Finally! He was going to get this Seal right if it killed him! With little further provocation from 'Uchiha Madara', Minato disappeared in a flash, confusing the hell out of his opponent.

"… Where the hell did Minato-sensei go?" Obito wondered dumbly before shaking his head grumpily and turning his attention back to the Nine-Tails, which was still razing his former village to the ground.

He had been about to go and help it fend off the irksome Hidden Leaf shinobi when the Nine-Tails inexplicably shrank. Obito didn't need his Sharingan to tell that it had lost a significant amount of Chakra. Cursing, Obito just decided to cut his losses and come back for the Nine-Tails later.

Whatever happened, he wasn't going to go and find out. He'd wasted enough time; he really needed to get back to Nagato and make sure he was fostering his hatred well. And he needed to keep Yagura under control, of course.

Minato grinned as he reappeared and stabbed the unsuspecting masked man in the back of the neck, killing him stone dead. Looked like he finally perfected the Flying Thunder God.

… Wait a second, he was in a dimly lit cave now. Damn it, he screwed up again.

"Why the hell are you here?" A rough voice asked of Minato, who whipped around to face a creature that was white and black all over. A strange plant man with a Venus flytrap around his head.

"Sorry, but I need to get back home before Kushina throws a fit," Minato laughed sheepishly and disappeared in another flash. After all, the plant man probably wasn't as dangerous as the masked man; how dangerous could a plant man possibly be? The masked man had the bloody Sharingan, which he made sure to reclaim because he dragged the masked man's body with him.

Wouldn't he be surprised to find out who was under the mask?

As Minato flashed into the house he and Kushina had bought recently, he noticed that it looked rather cleaned up. Naruto was peacefully slumbering in his crib, which brought a grin to Minato's face. But before he could even stroke Naruto's whiskered face, a chill ran up and down his spine that he knew meant only one thing…

"Minato Namikaze… Where the hell have you been?"

… If Minato was to use Jiraiya's descriptors for an angry Kushina, he would be so dead by this point. So Minato wisely kept his opinions of his lovely wife's hissing voice to himself and slowly turned to face the woman, who was in a conservative sleeping gown. A rolling pin in hand and tapping rhythmically against her other hand.

"E-Eh… Hey, Kushina, how long's it been this time?" He asked meekly.

At this point, no matter what he said, he was going to get it. Best to just let Kushina vent her anger, and then continue to be there for her and Naruto from now on. That was what a father did.

"Two months, Namikaze." She hissed.

Ah, that would explain the Level Ten anger. Thank Kami it was only Level Ten. Dragging Madara's corpse along for the ride must've delayed his return.

"H-How did you survive having the Nine-Tails ripped from you?"

"I put it back, after Sarutobi sacrificed his life for the village and took half the beast with him." Kushina answered with an eerie calm.

And that was how Minato knew he was well and truly fucked. Once she entered the 'eerie calm' stage, that was when she passed Level Ten anger.

"I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

The smile that cracked onto Kushina's formerly blank face creeped Minato the hell out. Instinctually he held his arms up as the rolling pin came down on his head. Again and again.

Author's Note: This was formerly an 'Anti-Quirks' idea, but I felt it wasn't so much an 'Anti-Quirk'. Truth to tell, it was just Minato fudging up his Flying Thunder God seal and, well, what human doesn't make mistakes? Still, it was fun, and I hope you enjoyed. A bit short and left open-ended, but I wrote what I wanted to. This scenario simply amused me. XD