I watch my son with pride. His life has never been easy, but he has always managed to overcome each difficulty. No matter how hard the world has tried to stomp him down, he has always come back up smiling and acting like a little clown.

My boy is almost insanely loyal to his comrades and Konoha as a whole even when neither prove themselves worthy of his devotion. It was painful watching the aloof one tear into him again, and make him feel so unworthy when he deserved so much more than that " Poor, unfortunate, traumatized" bastard had been willing to give. My boy gave him everything, including that completely devoted loyalty he oh so rarely hands out to individuals rather than ideals, and that bastard spat on it once more. That other one is no better, nor is the pink haired creature he has recently fallen in love with. The one he'd had a crush on before her was a little better if only in the fact that she truly regarded him as a friend.

Today is not a good day. I look down on the world and see my son lying on the ground with a hole punched in his chest. Somehow, even though the wound looks fatal, I know that my boy will not be joining me. All I can do is watch as my son lays there in what looks to be unbearable agony.

As I watch my son breathe shallowly as he slips into unconsciousness, I remember the last words he'd ever said to me. I had been chastising him for some minor failing as he had been packing for what would prove to be his last mission for a number of years. I had told him that a son of mine should be better at basically everything. Several heated words were exchanged, yet another one of our yelling matches began, and the last thing my boy shouted before he grabbed his stuff and stormed out the door was "I would rather have been Minato-Sensei's son instead!"

It took dying to do so, but my boy got his wish.