Author's Note: For those of you about to embark on this journey I offer the two usual warnings. One, this is a side fic of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds", if you haven't read that you'll be fairly lost or else this will just seem kind of odd and pointless. Second, this is for very obvious reasons NOT CANON to the main fic. As always, read at your own risk.

"So, Jiraiya, you're from the past."

Jiraiya tried not to shift under the weight of his incredibly aged sensei's gaze, which was no small task, because it seemed like Sarutobi Hiruzen had gotten more intimidating with age somehow instead of less. God, the man looked like he was seventy and he still could probably make a jonin quake in his sandals at the mere sight of him.

Not helping either was the fact that Jiraiya really did feel like some out of place misbehaving genin who'd just caused the hokage months' worth of paperwork. Or, well, the fact that for the first half of the day he'd had to convince all of T&I as well as R&D that he wasn't a spy attempting to pass off the most convoluted infiltration plot Jiraiya had ever heard of, certainly hadn't helped either.

Really though, what wasn't helping at all, was that it wasn't just Jiraiya sitting there twiddling his thumbs under the sandaime's gaze, but all of his students as well as the nidaime. And the fact that they were covered in sweat, blood, dirt, and that weird yellow pus stuff that came out of plant zombies instead of blood.

Jiraiya's day was going great, in other words, not that anyone had really asked yet.

"Well, seems like that's what happened." Jiraiya said, unless Lee really was right and they were trapped in some convoluted if horrifically realistic genjutsu.

His sensei made some non-commital noise of vague agreement as he flicked through the papers that no doubt contained the results of the Yamanaka mind sweep and his blood work to confirm his identity.

"And Tobirama-sensei, you've returned from the dead and travelled through time."

Senju Tobirama appeared to be immune to the uncomfortable atmosphere pervading the room and merely offered the current hokage a pair of raised eyebrows as if asking for him to get to the damn point already. However, the sandaime was having none of that and was staring with equal composure back.

Finally, Tobirama gave the non-explanation of, "I've found that the afterlife is much more convoluted and ridiculous than actual life."

Hiruzen simply nodded, flipping through yet more papers, probably Tobirama's and the kids' medical records, and finally said, "You know, Jiraiya, you and Minato never once mentioned travelling through time with the resurrected nidaime."

Well, shit, because he'd been definitely planning on telling his sensei when he got back, "Uh, well, that's kind of weird."

Sensei's eyebrows just raised, giving Jiraiya the patented 'you are a dumbass' expression that he'd gotten so used to from his genin days. But really, Jiraiya was completely justified in this situation, they did not cover this in his training and he'd be hard pressed to anyone who could handle themselves in this kind of a situation.

"Of course they didn't, it'd cause a paradox." Lee answered for him, beautiful unflappable Eru Lee, who was responsible for this whole goddamn mess.

(If she didn't have the excuse of being stabbed in the middle of her first fight by plant zombies that far outranked her taijutsu abilities he'd be more upset than he actually was. As it was he was still kind of upset, plus they now had to add time travel to her techniques which just… He didn't even want to go there.)

"A paradox?" Hiruzen asked and the girl nodded.

"You told Jiraiya and Minato now that they didn't tell you about this, so now when we go back in time we can't tell you, because otherwise now you would have told us that Jiraiya or Minato had said this would happen earlier."

That actually kind of made sense, or at least, it gave Jiraiya a damn good excuse for when he went back and didn't tell the hokage about being hurdled into the future. Oh god, the mission report for that… He couldn't even think on where to start with that sort of thing.

"Perhaps," Hiruzen simply said, shuffling through some more papers, and then turning his gaze to Lee, "Tell me, Eru Lee, how old are you?"

Jiraiya suddenly had a very bad feeling. He wasn't completely sure but he felt like, after a few decades of having to handle Lee, the hokage would have accepted all of this… easier. Well, maybe not easier, but there was something in the way he looked at them, the hardness in his eyes, that made it all too clear that something was off.

"Twelve." Lee answered simply.

"And you were born in Konoha?" He prompted, taking out a pen and writing down on a sheet of paper.

"No, I was born in the village of Surrey, in England."

His sensei paused at the words, his eyes lifted up and stared at her, and then followed up with, "And where exactly is this land of England?"

Lee hesitated, her eyes widening, and just said, "It's an island… in the north."

Jiraiya caught the eyes of the nidaime, something big was off, this information should have already been available. More, the hokage wouldn't ask this many questions, this many questions to Lee alone if it was only for interrogation. Not to mention that T&I had already spent plenty of time with each of them to verify their identities.

"At what age did you arrive in Konoha and who were you accompanied by?"

"I was four and I arrived by myself, I went to the orphanage."

Hiruzen frowned, his pen stalled, and he asked a final question, "And how did you become Jiraiya's student?"

Lee spared an incredulous look towards Jiraiya, as if to ask if he thought all of this questioning was normal, and then looked back at the sandaime simply saying, "I passed his stupid bell test."

The hokage looked at each of them, puffing on his pipe and letting them stew together in uncertainty, finally he said, "It appears, according to my top researchers, that you are who you say you are. Your DNA matches as do your minds… However, your memories do not. Konohagakure has never had any record of a kunoichi Eru Lee or of the… resurrection of the nidaime hokage."

Oh, well, shit.

"But we're not spies?" Jiraiya asked, just to clarify and his sensei spared him a wry smile.

"Well, you are a Jiraiya." His sensei said, which really that hadn't answered that question at all, but then he added, "And according to the memories seen by the head of the Yamanaka clan you are all loyal to Konoha."

He breathed a sigh of relief, slumping in his chair, of course if they thought they were spies all of their asses would still be in T&I where they'd started. The fact that they were in the hokage tower meant that the sandaime was fairly certain of their loyalties.

Then his words caught up to Jiraiya, "Wait a minute, you're saying, you have no record of Lee?"

"After scouring too many filing cabinets to mention we found nothing of her medical, academy, kunoichi, or even immigration records." Hiruzen stated more or less matter of factly, sounding like he was repeating himself, which he was but Jiraiya still couldn't quite process the idea.

"None? At all?" Jiraiya asked, clarifying, and when his sensei didn't bother to answer continued, "No giant filing cabinets filled with incomprehensible disasters about suicidal clones or spontaneous combustion or… or… Anything?!"

"Should I have these filing cabinets?"

"Hell yes, sensei!" He threw his hands in the air, at a loss, trying and failing to imagine a world without Lee in it. By god, it'd be… It'd be so normal. No clones, no revived hokages, no… No… He didn't even know what.

Lee didn't seem to be doing much better, slumped in her chair and glassy eyed as she stared forward, "I wrote myself out of existence. Minato, I've retconned myself. I no longer exist, I am a being without existence… How am I supposed to feel about this?"

"Wait a minute, if Lee… doesn't exist or whatever, then was Minato… Was he normal? And, and did we still have a run in with the goddamn plant zombies?" Was his life a still goddamn cesspool of weirdness if Lee didn't exist? Good god, without Lee to traumatize his childhood Minato was probably an independent highly intelligent genin.

"What's that supposed to mean, Jiraiya-sensei?" Minato asked, looking vaguely affronted.

"Look, no offense Minato-kun, but your complete and utter acceptance of all the Lee induced weirdness in your life is not normal. No one can do that, you were just hurtled into the future after fighting a mob of plant zombies and you look like it's a Tuesday morning." Jiraiya pointed out, which maybe he could have sugar coated that, but really it was an issue.

"I believe it is a Tuesday." Tobirama helpfully pointed out, which Jiraiya ignored because that was not the goddamn point.

"Look at Haru-kun," Jiraiya said motioning to the glassy eyed third member of their team who had been staring blankly at the sandaime for the past five minutes, "He's not adjusting to this at all, a perfectly normal and healthy reaction to this situation."

Minato looked at Haru for a few moments, taking him in, and noted, "He's also bleeding."

"Yes, he's also… Oh, god, he's still bleeding? No one fixed that?" Jiraiya looked over to check and Haru was indeed still bleeding, which, they hadn't really had time to look at it since they had been thrown into the future right in the middle of a fight but surely someone should have noticed that.

Before Jiraiya could say anything the nidaime moved, shaking his head in clear disapproval, and began to heal Haru before he passed out.

Lee grabbed Minato's shoulders, gripping them with white knuckles and looking close to panic herself now, "Minato, if I don't exist anymore then can I still do things? Can I still be a being? I mean, I sort of liked existing."

Before Jiraiya could berate the nidaime for trying to berate him in the middle of this whole mess, Lee could have any more of an existential crisis, or Haru could pass out from blood loss Minato stood, slammed his hand on the hokage's desk, and stated in a clear and authoritative tone, "We are clearly in an alternate universe's future. Not our future, but a different one, one without Lee, or the nidaime, or plant zombies, or anything else we might be used to."

In the silence following this he sat back down, calmly, with a regal sort of grace and continued, "There's absolutely no reason to panic."

For a moment no one said anything, just stared at each other, and then the sandaime said in a slow and measured tone, "I suppose I'll get that filing cabinet started."

Most of those first few days were taken up by logistics.

When it became clear that, for whatever reason, Lee wasn't able to immediately able to send them back to their own parallel past, they'd had to figure out a place to stay, and then how to pay for it, and then how to get back onto the mission's roster as team 7-B, as there was already a team seven in existence.

Minato was hopeful though, Lee had never managed to get them into a mess they couldn't get out of, and Lee hadn't said she couldn't do it just…

"I can't believe I wiped myself from existence."

Lee still wasn't really taking it all that well.

They were sitting outside on the hokage monument, on a carved version of his own head actually, staring out at the sunset as they drank tea and ate ramen. Usually they had sat on Tobirama's but since coming to this alternate future Minato had started gravitating towards his mysterious older self.

A man who had sacrificed himself to save the village from the demon nine-tailed fox only a short time after becoming the fourth hokage.

"Lee, you haven't wiped yourself from existence, we're in an alternate…"

She cut him off with a glare, "Minato, what's the likelihood that in some other world everything would be exactly the same except I wouldn't be there?"

"Well, it's not exactly the same." Minato said.

"Oh, really? You still exist, Jiraiya was still your sensei, Dead Last was still dead last…"

"And there weren't any plant zombies, I apparently started dating Uzumaki Kushina when I was about thirteen, and Orochimaru abandoned the village… It's not the same Lee, just similar." He sighed, she didn't believe it, he'd hoped that she would.

It was interesting, seeing this future, but at the same time he wanted to go home. He didn't like this place where he hadn't lived to thirty, where he'd become hokage, been immortalized, and yet somehow seemed so removed from the place. He didn't want to live in a world where he was a name carved into the memorial stone, where Lee herself wasn't even a shadow.

"You got to be hokage though, that's good to know." Lee said, still rather dully, staring out over Konoha at the fading orange light.

He smiled briefly, but it was a sad one that he couldn't really use honestly, "They say I was the best shinobi of my generation. That I almost singlehandedly won a third shinobi war…"

She looked at him, blinking, no hint of comprehension in her expression, "That's a good thing."

He didn't answer, didn't respond, couldn't bring himself to because all he wanted to ask was if it really was. Without Lee there'd be no question of his own genius, already the word had been thrown around here and there when they were growing up but…

But in a world without Lee, Namikaze Minato had died to quell the kyuubi no kitsune, the world had launched itself into a third shinobi war, and the memorial stone was decorated with far too many familiar names.

"…I'll get us home soon, Minato, I just…" Wanted to see exactly how a world without her would look, if it was Minato, a world without him inside of it, he might be morbidly curious as well.

He watched her, the way the light played on her pale skin, how her hair lit in the dying light of the sun, and her eyes gleamed.

"It's worse, Lee."

She turned to look at him, her hair almost floating in the slight breeze.

"The world without you in it, it's worse than ours." He said and then, at her look of hesitation, "I know it."

She smiled hesitantly back, a small uncertain and crawling thing, as if she'd forgotten how to do it for a moment.

Then, "Hey, who are you guys supposed to be?!"

They turned in unison behind them to find a young blonde boy with whisker marks on his face and the most hideously orange jumpsuit that Minato had ever seen in his life. Minato hadn't even known anyone made anything that color, or that anyone would buy it if someone did.

"I'm not sure I'm supposed to be anything." Lee said slowly, "But I happen to be Eru Lee and this happens to be Namikaze Minato."

The boy didn't appear to recognize the name, in spite of standing on Namikaze Minato's carved head, and instead analyzed them carefully with sharp blue eyes. Then, suddenly, he was grinning and pointing to himself, "Well, I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'm going to be hokage! Believe it!"

And Minato looked at the boy's coloring, his blonde hair and pale blue eyes, thought about the fact that the sandaime had said that this Namikaze Minato had been dating Uzumaki Kushina since the age of thirteen, saw the hideous terrible amounts of orange, and felt his ears ringing with those loud words 'believe it' over and over.

He felt himself pale in realization but all that came out was, "Oh no…"

And that was how Minato found out that at the tender age of twelve that he was a father and that his alternate future-self had had sex with Uzumaki Kushina.

The ANBU rumor mill had gone haywire in only the course of a few days and it wasn't very hard to understand why.

Namikaze Minato, the yellow flash, the yondaime hokage, Kakashi's own sensei, had returned from the dead.

Only, not quite, nothing that simple. Because this wasn't the Minato-sensei he'd last seen as he'd passed the infant Naruto to him, preparing to sacrifice himself for the village, but instead the freshly minted genin Namikaze Minato somehow flung into the future with a younger Jiraiya, his two teammates, and… the nidaime.

Which, that last detail was what made it truly complicated, because as the rumor mill said (at least according to Tenzo who was now Kakashi's main source of ANBU gossip) was that the boy wasn't their Namikaze Minato, the man not their Jiraiya, that they instead belonged to some different parallel world that was similar to their own but not quite the same.

One where, apparently, the nidaime had been previously resurrected by a non-traitorous Orochimaru (or so the other Jiraiya explained to the higher ups).

Kakashi, of course, had never been one to put full stock in Konoha's black ops rumor mill but being a jonin sensei and responsible for the littlest (angriest) Uchiha, Obito's untimely reincarnation in the form of a jinchuuriki, and the fan girlish civilian girl he was a little busy to stalk his younger-maybe-sensei and his teammates.

Well, at least, not all of the time.

When you were three hours late to anything it gave you a bit of free time to get certain errands in. Usually he'd spent that time at the memorial stone but Obito would forgive him his absence in following a younger resurrected time and dimension travelling Minato-sensei. Or at least, Kakashi thought he would, strangely or not the subject had never come up.

After following him enough Kakashi found himself torn. Because it was him, but at the same time he wasn't at all the Minato that Kakashi remembered. Then again, perhaps that was understandable.

When Kakashi had met him, first paid attention to him, it was after he had become an apprentice and Kakashi's father had already… Well, in some ways Namikaze Minato had seemed so much older than him, almost like a father. He wasn't though, this boy in a few years would be the same age as Minato was when Kakashi became his apprentice.

All the same, he was different.

He was never alone, or rarely was, and when he was by himself he was often very reserved and quiet taking the time to simply watch his surroundings rather than really comment or interact with them. Instead he spent most of his time with his genin teammates and most of that with his red headed kunoichi teammate.

(Minato-sensei had never really mentioned his genin teammates; Kakashi couldn't even recall what their names had been. All Kakashi knew was, by the time he had begun training with the man, they were both already dead.)

Although, watching the young Minato with the girl, he was reminded something of how Minato acted around Kushina. He usually let her charge ahead, would smile and walk casually behind getting pulled into whatever she happened to be up to, and this was a lot like that with the other girl but… more so.

Minato and Kushina, for all their similarities, were also very different. They hadn't always understood each other, for the longest time hadn't even really respected one another. It'd taken years of Minato haunting Ichiraku's for him to finally work up the nerve to officially ask her on a date. The way Minato and this girl acted, in a single glance they seemed to be able to share an infinite amount of information. More they shared their own almost unintelligible language (which, unfortunately, Kakashi hadn't managed to get close to figuring out in the short amount of time they'd been around.)

The point being, the more Kakashi watched the more he felt himself buying into the whole Namikaze Minato but not really Namikaze Minato theory. He didn't know how he felt about that, disappointed perhaps, but also… also relieved.

Because if this wasn't his Minato-sensei, even younger and unaware of Kakashi, then Kakashi didn't owe him an explanation or repentance. Of course, it didn't mean that Kakashi didn't owe him anything just… It was easier, Kakashi had found out, to apologize to the dead than it was to the living.

Still, Kakashi (as he had with all things in his life) had carefully separated what was personal from what was duty, and midday was strictly reserved for his baby duckling genins. Specifically, watching them hate every second of their lives as they tried in vain to catch Tora the demonic cat.

Ah, Tora, Kakashi had very fond memories of that cat and wanting to destroy every fiber of its being.

Naturally, he was watching from a very safe distance, sitting leisurely in a tree, and catching up on Icha Icha and its very well endowed heroine. It was just getting to the good part too, where Takeshi would have to rescue her from the dreaded pirate gang.

Those well-endowed heroines always did have trouble with those sea dogs; large breasts must be some kind of a health hazard.

"It's like an unholy mixture of you and Uzumaki, only oranger… more orange, the orangest of them all."

Kakashi, the infamous copy-nin, nearly had a heart attack as literally out of nowhere two children were crouched next to him staring down at the scene. Specifically, he noted even as he instinctively reached for his headband, they were looking right at a very frustrated Naruto.

It would be fine, if they were any children, but in a way they were the children.

Namikaze Minato and his strange foreign kunoichi teammate, Eru Lee.

The girl, Lee, stared down at the scene with a strangely assessing gaze. It wasn't one he hadn't seen before, after all he himself wore that expression often, but since the days of Uchiha Itachi he hadn't seen that look on someone her age and rank. Children, even truly gifted genin, rarely displayed that kind of intensity even on their first few missions.

She was crouched on the branch effortlessly, chakra naturally spreading through her limbs and supporting her weight, while even Minato seemed at least slightly more precarious in his positioning.

Minato offered only a vague noise of half agreement and was, instead of looking down at Naruto, staring ahead into the distance.

Neither of them even bothered to glance at Kakashi.

"He has good use of clones, I'd say ten points for that, even if he is a tad loud and not to mention extremely orange." The girl continued and then said, "Although, really Minato, you let Kushina name him fishcake, it's like you wanted the gods to eat him alive."

Minato offered a louder and more forced noise of vague agreement as he looked almost desperately into the horizon.

"None the less, Fishcake is performing admirably against the immortal demon spawn cat Tora who appears not only to have conquered death but also has transcended dimensions." The girl stopped, paused, glanced over at Minato and said, "I think you should be very proud of your ramen topping child."

"…Whirlpool, Lee, I think it's supposed to mean whirlpool." Minato finally said, to which the girl only blinked, looked back down at Naruto then back at Minato.

"Then why in god's name would you choose an ambiguous name like Fishcake?"

Minato flushed, but before he could respond Kakashi cut in before his sanity flew out the window at the fact that a younger version of his sensei and his genin teammate had appeared out of nothingness and started bickering on his private branch, "Hello, children."

They both looked over to him with raised eyebrows, as if only just now realizing his existence. He eye-crinkled back at them but neither responded, just continued blinking at him, like he was the one interrupting.

"Lee, didn't you lace a genjutsu around us?" Minato asked, looking at the girl and completely and utterly ignoring Kakashi (and he knew that this wasn't his Minato; that even if it was, this Minato would have no memory of him, but even so that dismissal stung.)

"The force is very strong in this one." The girl responded rather sagely, which to Kakashi meant absolutely nothing, but to Minato seemed to mean something because he reluctantly nodded even as he continued to stare at Kakashi.

"Right, well, I'm Hatake Kakashi and I'm the jonin sensei of those three lovely…" He was cut off before he could even finish.

"Oh, this is Comrade Sakumo's son!" The girl exclaimed pointing at him with far more enthusiasm than Kakashi deserved, "I've never actually met him before! Well, I've never met alternate dimension toddler version of him… But then, no I haven't met this version either."

"Really?" Minato asked, looking at Kakashi in a different light, and god how long had it been since anyone had associated him with his father and seen anything but disgrace.

"I mean, I have no idea why he's dressed up like a shinobi pirate but sure, Hatake talks about his son all the time over ramen." The girl continued gesturing towards him as if Kakashi now suddenly made sense and everything had fallen into place.

(He couldn't help, as he blinked, but remember the image of his father's blood soaked in the tatami mats as he entered the room.

His father had been so proud of him, once.)

"…genins down there and as you can see they are very busy attempting to apprehend Tora. So, if you don't mind, it would be best if they were left alone so that they can concentrate on their task." Kakashi finished, like he hadn't been interrupted in the first place.

"Oh, them, don't worry about it." Lee said waving her hand as if brushing them aside, "It takes a lot more than a genin to break through the 'these aren't the droids you're looking for' genjutsu."

"These aren't the…" Kakashi started only to be interrupted as the girl explained.

She held out her hand in front of her, spoke in a commanding voice her eyes focused ahead, and said, "You don't need to see his identification. These aren't the droids you're looking for. He can go about his business. Move along."

She stopped, dropped her hand, and resumed her prior casual tone and posture as if she had never broken character in the first place, "Besides, the whole point of this operation is to learn more about Minato's future love child with Uzumaki, Fishcake. We can't exactly do that if he sees us sitting up here with you."

And all Kakashi could think to say was, "His name is Naruto."

"Right, Fishcake, I know."

There was an uncomfortable silence where Kakashi was very tempted to stick his head back into Icha Icha and pretend none of this was happening.

At this point Minato must have taken pity on him because he awkwardly started again with an almost chagrinned expression on his face, "Right, sorry, my name's Namikaze Minato and this is Eru Lee. We're from the alternate dimension past… The one where I'm not dating Uzumaki Kushina."

Minato, Kakashi could just stare, just stare and think that this boy had no idea who he was and what he'd meant to Kakashi.

"Wait, so you're Fishcake's sensei, right?" Lee asked rather suddenly, "That means you probably know a decent bit about him, right?"

(Yes, but also no, because most of what Kakashi knew was from being his ANBU guard and not from the minimal amount of time he'd been Naruto's sensei. As Naruto's sensei Kakashi was going out of his way not to know him, to know any of them, he was the mysterious aloof copy-nin, always late with an excuse no one really believed.

Kakashi no longer did genuine human connections.)

"Just why is he so hideously orange?" Lee asked, motioning towards Naruto with a look of complete bafflement on her face, as if this fact alone was incomprehensible.

Kakashi himself really didn't have an answer for that. Part of the reason was that it was the only color of clothing civilian stores would sell to the jinchuuriki but otherwise… He'd come to assume that Naruto simply loved orange.

Before he could ask that question though the young Minato asked a far more damning one.

"Who does he live with?"

All innocent thoughts of Naruto and his love of orange flew out of Kakashi's head. Slowly, he turned to Minato, younger than he should have been, asking the question that he had always asked in Kakashi's nightmares.

("Why didn't you take him in, Kakashi? Why didn't you do something, anything? Why didn't you save us?")

"They said that Kushina and I died, when he was born, who does he live with now?" Minato asked, but even as he asked his face darkened in understanding, his eyes widening as he realized that no one had taken in Naruto.

The girl's expression sobered as well, her eyes drifting down to Naruto and looking at him, not in pity but instead in a stark and cold sympathy as if every inch of him was known to her.

"Jiraiya-sensei… He didn't take him in?" Minato finally asked, and Kakashi's silence was answer enough as Minato's head slowly turned to look down at his twelve-year-old, desperately lonely son.

For a moment they all silently stared down at Naruto, now bickering with Sasuke and getting hit on the back of the head by Sakura, unaware of the three shadows perched in the trees above them.

Finally, the girl said, "I guess it's official, Minato, in the event of your and Kushina's untimely demise you have to make me the godfather."

"What?" Minato asked.

"Well, I mean, we've been following around Fishcake all day and it looks like he has metaphorical leprosy of the worst kind, not to mention he has a giant fox ulcer…"

"A giant fox ulcer?" Minato asked, eyes bulging, and as the words processed Kakashi cringed because how the hell could she tell that the boy was the jinchuuriki? Had someone told her or…

Lee continued, unfazed by the interruption, "Plus, we haven't seen hide or tail of alternate dimension future Jiraiya since we've gotten here, so it's pretty safe to say that he's the worst godfather ever. Given the similarities between our worlds thus far I think it's safe to say, if you and Kushina do happen to get stomped on by the kyuubi, it's probably best to make me the godfather instead."

Minato's eyebrows narrowed, his glare sharpened, and suddenly Kakashi was looking at a miniature yellow flash, "First off, Lee, Uzumaki Kushina and I are not going to have sex."

"That's a very specific statement to make about the future" Lee responded blandly which only served to increase Minato's killer intent.

"Believe it." He said firmly before continuing, "Second, even if I do have a kid, whether it's with you, or Uzumaki, or anyone, I think sensei would be…"

"But you don't know that." Lee cut in, "You can't know that."

Minato paused, glanced down at Naruto uncertainly, then looked back up at Lee with a resigned expression. His killer intent dissipated and he looked more exhausted than anything else, "It's moot point anyways, I don't want to date Uzumaki."

Lee considered him for a moment, then announced, "I've never thought about dating anyone."

This flustered Minato, he flushed, flailed his hands a bit, and looked exactly like he used to when Kushina walked around a corner, "Well, it's not that I have but…"

He didn't finish, trailed off and rubbed the back of his head, "Nevermind, it's not really important."

He didn't say it, and the girl didn't appear to guess, but this Minato wouldn't date Uzumaki Kushina. He was already set on having a relationship with Eru Lee. Which, Kakashi would have never thought that possible, because as long as he had known him Minato had only ever had eyes for Kushina but…

But this wasn't his Minato and the boy was doing everything to prove it.

"If I have a child, Lee, and Jiraiya-sensei… sucks at his job, then you can make sure he doesn't grow up an orphan."

She beamed across from him, stood on the branch, and then said, "Well, then, I guess that means I should go make Fishcake an offer he can't refuse."

In her hands, again out of nowhere with seemingly no chakra expended, Tora the cat was suddenly howling and beating against her in a desperate bid for freedom. Lee dropped down to the grass below and strolled without a care to Kakashi's three genin waving the cat in front of her like a yowling victory flag to the amazed suspicion of them all.

Kakashi and Minato stayed in the branch to watch.

"…Your friend just ruined my training exercise." Kakashi finally said.

"Well, she ruined all of Jiraiya-sensei's, if it makes you feel better." Minato said, smiling over at him hesitantly, "I'll make sure we're somewhere else next time… He seems nice, Naruto, I mean. I'm sure, I'm sure the other me would have been very proud."

Proud but also sad, he had thought that Naruto would be a hero and now…

"Yes, he would have." Kakashi settled on.

Minato's face fell as he stared down, like he understood everything Kakashi hadn't said, and if they had been following Naruto around through the village he'd probably seen it for himself. Every single civilian door slammed in Uzumaki Naruto's face for something no one even dared to say.

"He reminds me of Lee, you know, I mean he's obviously like Uzumaki Kushina but… Lee's family, she said, loathed her for no rational reason. Everything she did, everything she said… they hated her. That's probably the real reason she wants to be… Anyways, hopefully it will never come down to that in our universe."

Hopefully.

It would be nice, if in some other world, Minato had gotten a chance to live and see his son grow up as something other than an outcast. Kakashi could still want that even as he atoned to the Minato, Obito, and Rin that he had already failed.

They stared down with that thought, watching as Naruto gratefully accepted the cat from the grinning Lee even as Sasuke scoffed and Sakura looked back and forth for guidance, deciding whether to be grateful or irritated.

For a moment he could almost forget the shadow of the memorial stone constantly hanging overhead.

(By the next morning they had already disappeared, without warning or even saying goodbye, only a single note left behind.)

Dear Naruto (Fishcake),

As your appointed extradimensional-past-godfather I write to say that the world is a very strange and incomprehensible place. Sometimes you will find yourself friendless and alone without reason and other times you will find yourself hunting down a zombie cat that has been alive for a hundred years or more. If you try to make sense of it you'll probably end up very frustrated.

But then, you don't appear to be afraid of frustration, or believing in things, so it's your call.

Regardless, if it does frustrate you, or more than frustrate you, I want you to remember this. I don't know how this other Minato felt about you, how this other Uzumaki Kushina felt about you, but I know that the Minato I know would have given everything to fight for you and your future. Despite our age, despite our lack of ties, he was probably two steps away from loving you.

At least, it seemed like he was, when he stared at you.

What that means is, even if it seems like it, you're not really alone.

You'll always have him, his memory or his shadow, and if not them then you'll always have me. Even if you don't really believe in it, you do.

But then, maybe I don't need to remind you of this. After all, believing things appears to be your forte.

Your friend and extra dimensional godfather,

Eru Lee

P.S. You might want to do something about that giant fox ulcer, that can't be healthy and is probably at least slightly cancerous.

P.S.S. While I don't usually regret my decisions I'm starting to wonder if it was unwise to bestow upon Uchiha Sasuke, Konoha's very own Hamlet, an arsenal of godlike powers to kill his psychopathic brother. It seemed like a decent idea at the time, you know righteous cause, friend of godchild, bestowing favors to help someone fulfil their destiny, but…

Let's just say you might want to do something about him. Or not. Again, it's completely your call.

Also tell him that some guy named Danzo has at least half of his dead relatives' eyeballs inside of his arm. I have a feeling that might be important. Or something… Your dimension is weird, man.

P.S.S.S. Minato says hi. And also, "When you meet some guy named Jiraiya, probably outside of a woman's bathhouse, kick his ass and tell him that Minato will devour his flesh in hell."

It's apparently important that you use those words exactly.

Naruto stared at the note sideways, twisting it this way and that, and finally blurted to his empty apartment, "Who's Eru Lee?"

Author's Note: So there you have it, another return to the land of canon and all of its strange inhabitants. Also, I'll just note that I love these cliffhanger things with Sasuke. There's just so much possibility in them, and for whatever reason I just keep doing it. Written for the 800th review of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" by Brighter Dreams who asked for a fic where Lee meets Naruto and, upon discovering that Jiraiya is his godfather, insists to Minato that she can do it better. Which, sort of happened, but also feelings and confusion.

Thanks for reading, reviews are always appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter