As soon as I woke up, I saw a rather familiar roof—that of a tent, where I'd been sleeping for a long time while on the front lines.
"You're awake," I heard a familiar voice. I turned my head to see Kosuke sitting beside me; he had an eye patch, and his right arm was tied up.
"You lost your eye? Now I can call you Cyclops," I said, still sounding tired.
"You wake up, and that's the first thing you care about?" he asked incredulously. I just nodded, and he sighed. "I didn't lose my eye, but almost; I'll have a scar."
"I could have imagined how the clan would have ostracized you for losing an eye," I said frankly.
"They wouldn't have kicked me out of the clan, but my status and honor would have plummeted," he said, sounding resigned, since that must be something that happens all too often.
At that moment, Minato entered with three drinks.
"I see you're awake. I brought something to drink," he said with his trademark smile.
So I began to tell him everything that had happened on my mission, how I had to face an elite jōnin and survive.
They told me that their part of the mission had also been effective, since the traps and bombs had eliminated several of the ninjas who were following them, and in the end, they only suffered four casualties.
"Do you know how long we're going to be here?" I asked Minato.
"No idea. Most likely, we'll be here for a while, but since Jiraiya-sensei isn't here, they can't send us to the front lines. We'll most likely stay in the rear, helping out or doing less complicated missions." What he was saying made sense.
Without that perverted toad uncle, they couldn't do anything that threatened our safety without his permission, but we also couldn't just sit idly by in this war. "That means we'll have to eat synthetic food and sleep on logs for a good while," I complained.
And so went his good months in a shitty place, all wet and dirty.
...
"I remember the village gates being a little less ugly; I wonder if they've changed them?" I said, looking at them.
"Maybe, honestly, I don't pay attention to those things," replied the crazy-eyed guy beside me.
"Well, they did change them, another reason for the Hokage to get angry," I exclaimed, complaining.
"I don't think you need to exaggerate so much, especially about the gates," the ladybug tried to calm things down.
"Why don't you shut up for a while, ladybug? I didn't ask for your opinion," I told him.
He just looked at me with his eyes closed and a smile, but I could see a twitch and a bead of sweat forming on his face.
"Can you calm down a bit, brat? We're here now, and we have to answer to the Hokage," said the jonin who had been guiding us along the road from Ame to Konoha.
After about six months in the rear guard of Amegakure, we were given permission to return to the village.
As soon as we entered, we headed to the Hokage Tower. After walking around and reporting to the secretary, we arrived at the old man's room.
"Come in," his voice said.
"Excuse me," the jonin said, echoed by Minato, but Kosuke and I didn't say anything.
"Go on in; it's Team 6. I hope you didn't have too bad a time in the rain," he said with his grandfatherly smile.
"It was awful, Uncle Hokage. You should try being in the wet without getting sick or having a serious wound infected, instead of sitting in that office smoking or spying on the hot springs with that crystal ball," I complained, which almost made the old man swallow his pipe.
The others just gave the Hokage strange looks.
"I don't know what you mean, but I have to be here to coordinate the front lines and manage information and resources, since I don't know how long this war will last," he replied, now more calmly.
That was true; no one knows when this war will end. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. There's no information about that in the canon.
"But what I can do is congratulate you; your work on the front lines is something to be rewarded." He said, taking out a scroll and placing it on the table. "In the absence of your jōnin sensei, I'm promoting Minato to the rank of chūnin, giving him the position of temporary leader until Jiraiya returns; this way you can take on more normal missions and train here in the village."
What a load of crap. The only difference between Minato and us is that he was able to defeat a special jōnin single-handedly. But aside from that, even I have more merit than Minato, being a medical ninja.
"Minato was promoted based on recommendations and demonstrated leadership to the level required to be a chūnin; you two are probably already at that level too, but you need to do something more to obtain the rank," he began, most likely seeing my expression.
I just sighed.
"Fine, as long as this prevents us from stagnating and we keep doing missions, I don't mind being a genin for a while longer," I said.
"I agree with Miyu," said Crazy Eyes.
"Alright, with that, the three of you can leave. I need to speak with Akami alone," said the old monkey.
With that, we left the Hokage Tower.
"Now what?" I asked the two of them outside the tower.
"For now, let's rest. In three days, we'll meet at Training Ground 6 to decide as a team what to do," said Minato, holding up his Chunin vest.
"Okay, I'll go see Kushina. It's been a while since I've seen her," I said, waving goodbye.
...
"So Tsunade hasn't spoken to you at all this time?" Kushina asked me, incredulous.
"Yes, not a single interest in knowing if I'm still alive or not, and to be honest, I don't know if she's still alive, but I imagine she is, since if she were to die, it would be huge news," I told Kushina.
We both fell silent after that.
"And how are things going for you?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
"I'm graduating soon; this year I'll be able to take the exam to become a genin and get one step closer to becoming Hokage," she announced, jumping up and placing her fists on her hips.
"Congratulations, you're lucky the war situation is slowly calming down; that's why they didn't let us return to the village. If the situation were still critical, they wouldn't have let us go at all," I explained to her, clarifying the current state of the war.
"I see it wasn't very pleasant," Kushina said.
"Clearly not. Who doesn't like sleeping in a warm bed and having three good meals a day? And when I say food, I mean real food. Oh yes, how I hate the Akimichi clan; they brought their own food and didn't share anything with anyone, talking about clan matters and family jutsu. I was itching to throw multiple explosive talismans at their food supplies just out of spite." And so I spent a good while complaining about how my days in the war had been.
"But that's all in the past, so what does it matter?" Kushina said, trying to downplay the situation, and at least she could; I couldn't, since I lived through it.
"Okay, let's move on to another topic. How are you getting on with the fuinjutsu thing?" I asked, trying to steer the conversation toward a new subject of interest.
"Grandma Mito's notes have been a great help; the seals and matrices have become much easier," she replied, updating me on her understanding of the seals.
"Then I'd like you to help me with something that could be very useful," I said with a big smile.
...
"What do you have there?" Kosuke asked as he walked over to where I was standing next to Minato. We were currently in Training Ground 6.
"An experiment," he said with a mischievous grin.
"Is that fuinjutsu?" Minato asked with interest.
"Exactly, what do you want to see?" I said, showing him what I had in front of me.
"What kind of crazy experiment are you trying to do?" Kosuke asked.
"It's about quickly transcribing explosive tags; the idea is to have a seal on my hand so that, when chakra is applied, it leaves the explosive tag written on it, which I can then activate at any time and detonate," I explained to his wild eyes.
"There are some things I don't quite understand here; I've studied fuinjutsu, but not to a very high level, since I don't have the resources or scrolls to learn more about that art," Minato complained about his situation, scratching the back of his neck.
"I'm not interested in those topics," he said in his arrogant Uchiha tone.
"For me, it's not very different: explosion, fire, fire, explosion—they go hand in hand," I said, clasping my hands together.
And so we spent half the day talking about fuinjutsu and fire techniques among the three of us, and the rest of the time we talked about some jutsu we knew and how we could use them, without mentioning whether they were useful to each of us.
Finally, it started to get dark while we practiced.
Crazy Eyes was showing me the Great Fireball Technique, something I didn't have much trouble learning from him; I just told him that if he taught me the technique, I would give him a kiss on the cheek. He said he would teach me, but not for that kiss I promised, and let me clarify, I'm not going to give him one even if I manage to learn it today.
Ladybug was in a corner of the field scratching her head with some fuinjutsu scrolls I had passed her. His skill level in that art was far superior to others', but no matter how much you look at it, what I gave him is incomplete, so he's racking his brains over something that isn't as it seems. I did that out of pure malice.
"KUSHINA!! WHERE ARE YOU?!" A shout rang out, drawing my full attention to that person, as it did everyone else.
At that moment, someone I hadn't seen in a long time appeared: Mikoto Uchiha.
Kushina had told me she was meeting Mikoto that afternoon to train, taking advantage of her return to the village.
"Mikoto, what's wrong?" I asked, somewhat uncertain.
"Miyu, you haven't seen Kushina," she said, panicking, and her panic only increased when she saw me shake my head. "We were supposed to meet at Training Ground 9, but time passed and she never arrived. I thought she was running late, but it's been quite a while."
"Kushina, the girl with the cute red hair?" Minato asked, to which Mikoto nodded, ignoring his last comment.
"Damn it, Mikoto and Minato, go search the area. Kosuke, go inform the Hokage. Tell him I went to find something with her scent so the Inuzuka can search with their ninja dogs now." I gave the instructions, acting as the leader since there wasn't enough time.
It's very likely that Kumo kidnapped Kushina. I don't know if Minato's presence here triggered a butterfly effect, but it didn't matter; we had to act.
Mikoto and Minato performed a single-handed motionless motion without seals and left. I, on the other hand, used a single seal. Kosuke didn't know the technique, so he had no choice but to run.
While on my way to the Senju estate, I pondered how Kushina could have been kidnapped, and the only explanation I could think of was that they let her do it, and there are only two people who could do that: the mummy and the monkey.
I'll most likely pay a visit to Root after this.
I went into Kushina's room, grabbed her pajama top, and ran to the Hokage Tower.
When I arrived, I saw Kosuke, the Hokage, some Anbu, and three members of the Inuzuka clan.
As soon as I arrived, I threw my pajamas in a dog's face.
"Get her scent quickly; there's no time," I practically ordered.
The Inuzuka gave the monkey a look of exasperation. He just nodded with his pipe, because then he gave the order to his ninja dog to get Kushina's scent.
The dog sniffed for about three seconds before barking in a direction.
"I found a trail on the outskirts, heading towards the training grounds," said the dog's owner. "Follow me."
The Inuzuka and the Anbu went in the indicated direction.
I stayed put, glaring at the monkey. He just swallowed hard and started to sweat a little.
"Young Kosuke, I believe you may leave now. I have something to discuss with Miyu in private."
He merely glanced at me, then at the Hokage, before looking back at me and then back at the Hokage, as if he wanted to say something but lacked the courage.
"I understand, Hokage-sama. I will take my leave," he finally said with a bow and left.
I quickly entered the Hokage's office and sat in his chair. He entered a little later and, upon seeing me, could only sigh.
"This will be a very long night," he said, taking a long drag on his pipe.