Chapter Text
The Forest of Death was living up to its name tonight. Minato isn't a sensor, but even he can feel the thrum of violence hanging in the air. It's a palpable weight against his skin, an instinct honed by the war. A sixth sense that warns of imminent danger.
And of course, there's the screaming.
It must be far worse for Ferret. The veteran ANBU agent's body language gives nothing away: booted feet planted solidly apart, shoulders loose, gloved hands open at her sides. But she does wait for a particularly shrill inhuman keening to cut off into sudden silence before the gentle breeze of her chakra brushes over his coils, threading out into the shadows.
"He's there, Yondaime-sama."
"Alone?"
Ferret hears what Minato doesn't say. Am I about to walk into the scene of a murder? "Just him and the monsters, sir."
The note of dark approval in her voice isn't actually reassuring.
"Do me a favor," he says softly. "Keep an eye on Mikoto? Don't let her do anything rash."
Ferret bows and retreats, vanishing into the darkening evening. Minato watches her go, and braces himself for another lecture from Sagara about letting his guards do their jobs. Kushina's started taking her side too lately, much to his dismay. Before long, he'll be hearing it from Naruto.
Minato takes a slow breath and steps through the narrow gate. He knows the geography of the forest by rote after Naruto's Chuunin exam several years ago, but he's rarely had cause to set foot beyond the high wall that encircles the village's most infamous training ground. Kakashi would know it better; he still hunted here from time to time, when it all got to be too much. Many of his generation did, despite Minato's efforts to the contrary.
He's only a few kilometers from the gate when he finds the first casualty of the night. A massive bear, easily over 600 kilograms, lays near the base of the western cliffs. Minato feels a pang of sorrow for the creature. It died hard. Its dark brown fur is matted with red in dozens of places, and the ragged wounds lack the precision of fangs or a blade. Shisui killed it with his own hands.
Minato follows the trail of senseless slaughter as the shadows lengthen. Another bear, smaller this time, smoldering in a scorched clearing. A wild boar, one tusk snapped off and driven between its ribs. A venomous centipede the size of an oxcart, venom from its broken fangs dribbling into the murky river. A pack of wolfbats with broken, grotesquely misshapen wings. He finds a scorpion-spider, its carapace cracked, steaming blood and poisonous ichor dissolving the grass and tree roots as it spreads over the ground. The smell is noxious, scraping over Minato's throat like chemical gas with every breath.
It doesn't seem to bother Shisui.
Shisui's standing across the clearing, backlit by orange flames burning like a funeral pyre. Minato looks up and sees strands of white-gray silk hanging from the trees, the ends ragged as if something had been cut down. He takes a second look at the fire and realizes it's a massive egg sac that Shisui's burning. As Minato picks his way across the chemical wasteland of the clearing, he admits that's probably for the best.
(After all, the size of the blaze is just about right for a certain tall, muscular Earth Country envoy...)
Shisui doesn't look up as Minato approaches. His left arm is a bloody mess, laid open to the bone by a trio of deep claw marks running from shoulder to wrist. He's favoring his right knee slightly too, though Minato can't tell how badly it's injured beneath the layers of ash and gore caked over his skin. Shisui's hands are shaking slightly, the knuckles bruised and scraped raw. At his feet, Minato sees the broken shards of his prized tanto.
"Are you done?" Minato asks quietly.
Shisui jerks his head, fists clenching involuntarily. It takes several deliberate, calming breaths for him to open them again, but he doesn't turn away from the flames. When it comes, his voice is low and even. "Save him."
Minato doesn't flinch at the words. They've been a long time coming. But they still hurt. "Shisui-kun—"
"Save him."
"I can't," Minato says softly. "I'm sorry. I can't."
Shisui finally looks at him then, dark eyes bleeding Sharingan crimson. "He risked everything for you. He prevented a war for you. He betrayed his family for you. And this is how you repay him?"
Minato offers no protest, no excuses. He knows far too well what Itachi has sacrificed. What he does every day for Minato personally as his right hand in diplomatic affairs. Even if he does manage to negotiate Itachi's safe return, Minato knows he doesn't deserve Itachi's loyalty. He is utterly unworthy of Itachi's unwavering resolve and devotion, of his brilliant mind and his steady counsel. But... He can't say the same for Konoha. The village is flawed. It's imperfect. It was built on the blood of the innocent, all true. It's also a beacon of hope for the world. It's living proof that peace can be achieved even between the bitterest of enemies. It's home to thousands of people living freely and in safety. And in the end, Minato will give anything for it. Even if it destroys everything good left inside him.
"What if it was Naruto?" Shisui demands.
Minato freezes.
Shisui sees it, the chink in his armor, and like the predator he is inside he strikes. One corner of Shisui's mouth draws up in a mocking smile and his voice softens to a dangerous purr. "Well, Hokage-sama? He's a Jounin now, isn't he? Old enough to know the risks. Would you still stand aside if one of Iwa's T&I goons strapped sweet little Naruto down and—"
Minato blurs forward and closes his hand around Shisui's throat. "Never talk about my son like that. Never."
Shisui just smiles back at him, cold and sharp and lethal.
Chapter 2
Summary:
Someone mentioned Yuugao's reaction?
Chapter Text
Yuugao is just as furious as Shisui as she stands in Tenzou's office. But she's older now. Tempered by leadership. Her hand never touches steel, and her chakra stays coiled tight under her skin. Tenzou's already told her in painstaking detail every political reason why they couldn't just go in there and kill that bastard envoy. Or Yondaime-sama. She's Captain enough to understand the big picture. But apparently she doesn't have it in her to be ANBU's Vice-Commander, she thinks darkly. To sit there calm and quiet while on the other side of the world their Captain and their best friend are screaming.
She turns. She runs. Before she forgets all her reasons not to.
The Hunters on Wall Duty don't chase her. The fact that Tenzou must have told them to let her pass makes her see red, and she very nearly doubles back to attack them. To wage a one-man war against defenses that have held back armies and demons. But Kira and the rookies are on the Wall tonight, and they don't deserve to have to strike down their own Captain.
She keeps running for hours, pouring chakra into translocations until her coils are scraped raw and ragged and she finally stumbles to the dirt a hundred kilometers from Konoha. She snarls and gets back to her feet, and she summons dozens of shadow clones and cuts them all down blade to blade, her own little vortex of slaughter without a target. (She doesn't make any of them look like Tenzou. And she hates what that says about her.) By midnight she's exhausted, battered and bleeding and far from home. It's...a familiar sensation. Except this time she isn't a little girl in ripped jeans and a dirty sweater, staring up at the Hokage with one simple, quiet demand. I want to be ANBU.
She got her wish. And this is what it's made of her.
Kira finds her like that a little before sunrise. Yuugao bares her teeth and growls, sounding for all the world like Kakashi for a moment. Kira doesn't flinch. She pulls out a medkit and stitches the deepest cuts with steady hands, and no anesthetic. Yuugao lets the pain pull her back into her own skin, stitch by stitch.
When Yuugao finally slumps back to lay in the grass, Kira joins her a few inches away and crosses just her pinky finger over Yuugao's. Her voice is soft, tentative almost. "Tell me what happened?"
Thinking about it makes Yuugao's burning throat close up. Molten tears try to force their way through her eyes, but she holds them back. She doesn't deserve to cry over this. Not if she isn't going to do something.
Eventually, the crushing sensation in her chest fades. Her eyes go stinging desert-dry and her voice rasps like broken gravel.
"I lost a brother today."