Okay guys, this is an interlude chapter, and I really needed it to be here. Sorry it's so short, but the next chapter will be out soon (hopefully). Anyways, OH MY GOD!!! Thank you so much for all the reviews guys! I'm so excited!

And I'm sorry!! Gai will definitely appear in the next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto; Kishimoto-sama does. I do own Murasaki Kikyo, Hisakata Kaede, and any other characters, jutsus, etc. that you don't recognize, however.

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The rest of the way home, Minato had an ugly scowl on his face. This... girl was, loathe as he was to say it, quite human. It was hard to dislike someone with a past like hers.

Which led him to thinking about her aforementioned past – it was gruesome, to say the least, but he understood exactly why she'd done such a thing. He'd thought about committing seppuku a few times before, when the memories of his dead teammate haunted him.

Hisakata Kaede had been like a sister to him – always watching out for the orphan. In his team, Minato had been notorious for getting so lost in his scrolls of nin-lore and jutsus that he would forget to eat or sleep, so Kaede would always bring him bentos, or scream at him to go to sleep.

He smiled as he thought about it – she used to slap him over the head when he was acting particularly stupid.

"Minatoo! BAKA! You need to sleep – we have a mission tomorrow!" She'd been the older sister he'd never had.

And he'd killed her.

It had been his fault that Kae-nee-san had died that day.

His hands tightened into a fist around the hilt of his taitou. "Che," he whispered as the wind blew through his long hair, sending it flying across his face.

This Kushina was like him – too much so.

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The red-haired kunoichi also walked back to the apartment she was to reside in until the jounin exams were finished, deep in thought about a certain blonde Konoha-nin, and their conversation from before.

It scared her how alike they were – both orphans, both feeling responsible for a loved one's grisly death.

Always, she had harbored the feeling, the questions: What if she'd been there, fighting beside her family? What if she could have saved them? What if she had succeeded in committing suicide?

It was a dangerous thing – the past, especially for ninja.

She turned around swiftly and ran back to the memorial stone. Another fear surpassed the last one – fear of the nightmares she was inevitably going to have if she slept today.

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I promise the next one will be longer!!