~o0O0o~

The Line is not Broken

Minato never knew who his parents were.

Tsunade Senju made sure of that.

She was sixteen at the time, and after a night of drunken revelry she woke up naked next to Jiraiya and four other women whom she'd never met before. Quietly, she gathered her clothes and left the room without a backwards glance.

She didn't remember any of it, and by the way he acted the next morning, neither did Jiraiya. She assumed she could just forget the whole thing and that would be that, but then she got moody and nauseous, and her breasts grew tender and swollen. She wanted to deny it at first, but then after a few weeks she could feel a tiny bump in her stomach.

She went to her sensei with tears in her eyes, her chest heaving with uncontrollable sobs. She wasn't ready to be a mother. The entire thing was nothing but a big mistake. But this wasn't something that she could just get rid of. The Senju clan was dwindling rapidly, and to kill an unborn child of their line would be the ultimate sin. She couldn't bring herself to do it.

When her sensei wrapped her in a warm embrace told her there was another way, she jumped at the chance.

She left the next morning on a long-term mission to Uzushio. Her teammates didn't even find out she'd left until they started looking for her the next day, and only then did Hiruzen tell them she was gone to see distant family. The Uzumaki understood the gravity of her mistake and what had to be done, so they took her in and swore that no one would ever know. When she returned to Konoha more than a year later, it was with a tired bearing and a broken heart. She pushed past her hardships and moved on.

Years later, a young boy in the orphanage with spiky yellow hair displayed an aptitude for the shinobi arts that just could not be ignored. He was placed on the Academy's fast track, and in practically no time at all he was being handed his official shinobi headband.

Tsunade felt her heart squeeze when she saw her idiot teammate laughing with a far-too-familiar child. She looked to her sensei in some sort of desperate plea, but he regarded her coldly, and she knew that she had long since relinquished any rights to the child. Minato would be trained by Jiraiya, and that was that.

She never did have the heart to tell Jiraiya that his student was actually his son.

When she left and told the Sandaime that there was nothing left to hold her to Konoha, she meant it.

Nawaki had been rendered unrecognizable by exploding tags that a Kumo nin slapped on his face.

Dan had bled out in her arms.

Both of them cursed by her love for them, and by the thrice-damned crystal her grandfather had left her.

And Minato? The very thought made her wince. He didn't know that she was his mother, and if she had her way he never would. What would she even say? "Oh, sorry, I decided I didn't want you, so I let you grow up as an orphan. And by the way, Jiraiya's your father. He has no idea you're his son because I never told him."

No, that could never happen. Besides, the boy was doing well for himself. He was a jōnin now, and she heard he'd gotten himself a girlfriend in that Uzumaki girl who'd come to Konoha. There were even whispers that some day he'd be the next Hokage. And that dream was what scared Tsunade the most. Dan and Nawaki had the same dream, after all. Perhaps all that was needed was one, tiny crystal and Minato's fate would be sealed.

Tsunade left, the crystal cold against her chest, and Dan's young niece by her side.

She was right, she thought bitterly. It seemed that everyone she ever loved was doomed to die.

The Kyūbi's attack on Konoha had entirely demolished the southern wall, obliterated no less than seven residential districts, and killed close to three thousand people.

One of them was Minato.

In her own grief, Shizune never noticed how Tsunade didn't even touch her alcohol that night. Instead, she went outside and under the moon's watchful gaze, she poured it into the dirt.

An offering for the dead.

The boy came to her more than a decade later, all bluster with none of Minato's skill.

She laughed at his stupid expression, at his motivations, and spit on his dream to become Hokage. Such a worthless dream. That seat was a trap of the worst kind, promising nothing but death. In the end, even Sensei had—

Then the boy challenged her to a fight.

Naruto wouldn't stop calling her Granny.

She'd always yell at him to quit it, but not for the reasons everyone thought. The word set a fire of guilt ablaze in her chest, along with a question. If she hadn't abandoned Minato all those years ago, would he still be alive?

Eventually, though, Tsunade begrudgingly allowed the endearment, even if it made her feel old as hell. The kid was her grandson, after all.

Even though he'd never know it.

Author's Note: A little idea I had. Minato got Tsunade's blonde coloring, Jiraiya's unruly hair, and recessive blue-eyed genes from both parents.