The clone stopped in front of the house door and remained silent, without saying a word to Kushina. His senses were on high alert, attentive to any sign that the masked man might appear.
Kushina also stayed silent. It was strange, but she felt that Minato didn't want to talk to her. Had she done something wrong? No! Since the beginning of childbirth, Minato had been acting strange. Maybe it was just the pressure of becoming a father.
Did he not want to be a father? The doubt confused her. Her blue eyes, deep as the sea, trembled at the thought that Minato might have only pretended to be excited about the arrival of their child.
As if sensing the mother's frustration and anguish, the baby began to move, opening his mouth and letting out a sharp cry.
"Shii... it's okay. Mommy is here, it's okay," Kushina murmured, as she struggled to pull down the top of her dress and expose her breast.
The clone looked at the baby when he heard the cry, but for an instant his eyes shifted to Kushina's chest. The nipple, pink and stiff from the accumulated milk, made him avert his gaze immediately.
Minato did not possess the memories of the real Minato. Only a few vague feelings remained in him, and because of that he didn't know how to react to Kushina in the way that would be considered "right."
"I'll be right back..." said the clone, bringing his hand to his head when a painful throb struck him. He only hoped the original wouldn't take too long.
---
Outside the place where Kushina had given birth, Minato remained upside down on top of a tree, sustained only by the chakra on his feet.
He quickly formed hand seals and, with two bursts of white smoke, created two more clones, consuming fifteen percent of his chakra. Each of them went off in a different direction, while the original also launched himself in search. But he found no sign of the masked man.
"Did he leave?" he murmured uncertainly. It was hard to believe, but indeed, the enemy seemed to have vanished. Fortunately, he had left a mark in the room; if the masked man appeared there, he could teleport immediately to save Kushina.
"Kushina... what a complicated situation," he said with a bitter smile. If he had come into Minato's body in a reality where she didn't exist, things would be much easier.
Not that dealing with her was the real problem. What weighed on him was the constant feeling that he shouldn't be there. He felt like an intruder. But there was nothing he could do about it.
"What a situation... I'm happy, but it's complicated," he sighed, with a whirlwind of feelings difficult to describe. He was alive again, but now he had a wife. Ironic: before, he had been killed for being mistaken as a lover, and now, he assumed the role of husband to a woman.
"No matter. Now I am him... and I will take responsibility for this," he said, his blue eyes shining with determination. He had a new life, even if filled with difficulties.
Minato decided he would not touch Kushina until he had true feelings for her. He also didn't intend to get involved with any other woman besides her. Not that he even wanted to.
Minato decided not to dwell on those thoughts for now. He couldn't allow himself to get distracted! If he focused too much on them, he would lose concentration on what really mattered.
Something, however, seemed curious — even intriguing, to tell the truth: he did not possess any of Minato's memories. Nothing. No detail of how he acted as Hokage, how he was with Kushina or with other people, no intimate thoughts, no memory of his family.
The only thing that remained was mastery of the jutsus. He knew how to use them instinctively, as if he had always known, but without the slightest memory of how he had learned. It was confusing, to say the least.
It seemed like something etched into his bones, or into his very chakra, a natural instinct that required nothing more than the seals — which his hands formed with precision, even without recalling how Minato had trained for it.
Maybe it was due to the influence of the anime. Who knows? That could justify remembering the hand seals. But how could he explain being able to mark space with the formulas of the Hiraishin so naturally, as if it were automatic? Or even the clone, who had used fūinjutsu without any difficulty, without ever remembering how he had learned it?
"Could it be that I'm a genius?" he murmured jokingly. But he soon questioned himself: could a true genius really accomplish something without possessing even the memory of how he had learned it? He doubted it. Maybe it was just Minato's body, already accustomed to such feats, performing everything by reflex.
It wasn't an explanation he was certain of, but it was the only one he could imagine at that moment.
Suddenly, his thoughts disappeared. The hairs on his body stood on end at the terribly familiar sensation: the presence of death.
He gripped the kunai the instant he leapt forward. A hand, wrapped by a chain fastened to the wrist, emerged in his direction. Had he stayed still, the chain would have caught his neck. His blade grazed the hand of the masked man, who emerged from a spiral in the air.
"Fast... you didn't earn the title of Yellow Flash for nothing. But why is it, in the most important moments, you never use all that speed?" murmured the masked man, swinging the chains as he clenched his fist. Only one Sharingan, visible through the hole in the mask, remained fixed on Minato.
Silence enveloped them. Neither looked away. Each one analyzed the other minutely, waiting for the instant when the first would dare to act.