Minato had no reason to believe that this day would be any different from any other. He got up, ate breakfast and kissed his mother goodbye as he left to go to the Academy. But today really was different, what happened that day would change his life forever.

As usual, he took his seat on the far right middle row and laughed and joked with his friends till the teacher arrived. When he looked down at the teacher, he noticed a new student with him.

From the first look he knew he liked her. Her gray blue eyes were set off perfectly by her long beautiful red hair. He had never seen hair that color before. It was amazing.

"We have a new student joining us today," the teacher announced needlessly.

"I'm Uzumaki Kushina, ya know," she announced in a loud voice, then covered her mouth in embarrassment while the rest of the class giggled and made rude comments about her hair.

That surprised him, he thought it was lovely hair. What was wrong with it?

While the teacher tried to gain control of the class again Kushina made another astonishing statement, "I'm going to become the village's first woman Hokage."

Everyone was shocked to silence by that bold sentence, but he smiled and stood up.

"I also want to become a Hokage who is admired by the whole village."

After class ended the teacher left and a group of boys smiled while surrounding the new girl at the back of the classroom. One pointed at her face and announced, "Tomato! From now on we're going to call you Tomato. It fits you perfectly with your fat round face and red hair."

Another agreed, "As if an outsider tomato could become Hokage. Tomatoes are disgusting."

All the boys around her agreed with them and continued to make fun of her. Minato hated when people did that, he didn't see how that was fun at all. He looked back at them a little worried, wondering if he should do something.

Kushina must have felt his gaze because she looked at him, then lowered her head in anger at the other boys.

One of them noticed her face getting red and grabbed her hair saying it was time for a tomato harvest. He was about to get up to tell them to leave her alone, but she took matters into her own hands, literally.

She grabbed the boy's wrist and yelled angrily at them that she hated tomatoes too. She then spun around, still holding onto the arm of the boy and sent the whole pack flying.

Then she let go of that boy and sat on the back of another and started beating him over the head.

"Keep calling me Tomato and you're going to get it, ya know!"

He started laughing at that point. Impressive, she definitely was strong, she didn't need his help at all.

But then she looked up at his smiling face and must have gotten the wrong impression because she yelled at him. He didn't want to be subjected to the same treatment as those other boys and turned away a little scared.

After that, the others gave her that horrible nick name Red-Hot Habañero. He tried to get people to stop, but he was only one person after all. And she did seem to live up to the name wither her temper and red hair.

XxXxXxXxX

One day he was walking home, sweaty and tired from his personal training and saw one of the boys that would frequently bother Kushina talking to his big brother. His brother had recently been made a genin, and was a little too proud of that fact. If he was a genin, Minato knew he would be proud of it too, but he wouldn't lord over it.

As he passed the alleyway they were talking, he overheard them talking about making a girl sorry. At first he thought that it was sad that men would beat on girls just because they were stronger and felt sorry for the poor unknown girl and continued walking. But after a few minutes he stopped. Kushina was a girl, and that boy was one of the ones that would bother her all the time and then she would beat him up. And he was the type that Minato would expect to bring someone stronger than him to take care of his problem instead of just working hard and then taking care of things himself.

Were they after Kushina? Minato turned and started running and jumping over the buildings looking for the boys. He knew Kushina was strong and take care of herself against opponents above her age, but her opponent this time was a fully fledged genin ninja. He'd never seen her against one of those so he wanted to be sure she would be alright.

When he found the boys, they obviously already had time to fight her. She was down on her knees with the genin holding her hair in his fist and the boy leaning over her. But he was still too far away to do anything, and before he could get close enough to help, she took matters into her own hands once again.

Despite the pain it must have brought her, she pulled away from him leaving strands of her hair still clenched in his fist. Then she started beating on the genin yelling at him, but by the time he landed in the tree above them the boy had run off, and she stopped yelling and got off the genin.

He threw the red strands of her beautiful hair at her and yelled, "Outsider!" He got unsteadily to his feet and told her that she would never be Hokage then took off.

About then she seemed to notice his presence in the tree and turned and glared at him. "You're not going to help me because I'm an outsider?"

Minato looked at her, a little surprised, "I..."

But he never got to finish his sentence before she interrupted him by yelling again, "I bet you agree with them too!"

After that statement, which was wrong, she took off again and he could hear her sobbing as she ran off into the distance quickly out of sight beyond the blossoming cherry trees.

He watched after her, wishing he could do something to help her, but because of the bullying of the others, she seemed to close herself off to everyone and wouldn't really be receptive to a helping hand.

XxXxXxXxX

A few years later, after he and his year mates were made into genin ninjas, Minato was heading home after a night mission with his teammates when he saw something red gleaming on the ground in a patch of moonlight. Red was such an odd color to find in the green forest that he flipped down from the trees to find out what it was. He crouched down to find long strands of bright red hair.

Minato started at the sight and picked them gingerly up. There was only one person with hair like this in the village, but what would Kushina be doing out here at this time of night? Had she gotten into a fight earlier like the one years ago and lost some strands of hair?

He had to find out what was going on. So he jumped back into the trees, leaving his teammates yelling after him wondering what was wrong.

Using his chakra he ran and jumped through the trees as fast as he could. It didn't take long to make it to her house and he knocked on the door. There was no answer.

"Kushina! Are you there?!"

Still no answer.

"Kushina, if you're in there, answer me!"

Silence.

It was then that he noticed the door was a little askew, as if it was out of its track. He put pressure on the door, and it wouldn't open. Minato then backed up a pace, then kicked the door open and rushed in, "Kushina!"

The place was deserted, but there was a window that was wide open, and he knew that the windows almost never were opened. Nothing else was disturbed that he could see, but that didn't mean much if other ninjas were involved.

He decided to head back to the area where he first found her hair and see what he could find out.

While he was heading in that direction he spotted another flash of red and jumped down to see if it was what he thought it was and he was right, more strands of her hair.

Since it was on the way to the other place he found her hair, he could only assume that something really had happened and she was leaving a trail for someone to follow. Smart girl.

After that, he ran along the ground to better spot the red hair that was periodically dropped. He picked up every strand he came across, but didn't stop. He could tell that he was nearing the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning and he wanted to reach her before they crossed the border. Not that it would stop him from helping, but it just would be more complicated if he didn't.

Just as he was beginning to resign himself to looking for her in enemy territory, he spotted the light gray vest that was commonly worn by the Kumogakure ninjas and soundlessly jumped into the trees to assess the situation.

There were three men, one behind and two in front. Shouldn't be too hard to take them out, especially since they weren't expecting anyone to come this close to the border.

The first one he took out by jumping along trees behind him and knocked him out with a blow to the neck. He immediately jumped up and out of view since the other two heard the noise and turned to see what had happened. But to his surprise Kushina kept on walking with her head down, like she wasn't aware of her surroundings.

He decided he'd worry about that as soon as he took care of the other two.

Since they had stopped to look behind it was easy to jump ahead of them to kick the other one in the head from the opposite direction they were looking.

The last one wasn't quite as easy to take care of because just as Minato jumped into the trees the last Kumogakure ninja jumped in the other direction to the tree branches and pulled out a kunai after he landed. But the leaves made a small rustling sound as he landed so he didn't even need to try and find him to take him out.

He easily positioned himself and kicked the man in the stomach, sending him flying backwards, hitting a few branches and trees before he hit the ground unconscious. And that was all there was to it. If that was the level of grown Kumogakure ninjas, Konoha really overestimated them.

Throughout the encounter Kushina kept taking staggering step after staggering step, not even making an effort to lift her head.

He hurried to get in front of her and stopped a few feet before her.

"Are you alright?"

She took a couple more wavering steps before she seemed to realize he was there. Then she tiredly raised her head and the clouds shifted so a moonbeam fell on him, letting her know that someone was here for her.

"I came to help you."

Kushina smiled in relief with her gray blue eyes shining, then seemed to lose all her strength and fell to her knees.

He knew she wouldn't stop there and so he rushed over to catch her before she hurt herself.

"You'll be alright now," he smiled and got rid of the rope tying her hands with one of his own and picked her up.

"Hey, wait," Kushina protested, but he didn't listen to her and jumped into the trees with her in his arms.

Minato didn't look at her, but he could tell that Kushina was staring at him in surprise. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lower her head to look at his hand, which still held all the strands of her hair.

"Your hair is so beautiful that I noticed it right away. Even in the dark," he explained.

She made a small gasp, then turned away, "But you've always ignored me."

He smiled slightly, "Because I know you're strong, in body and in spirit."

He landed on a tree top so he could look at her as he spoke, "But this was a fight between two villages. It's different from your other fights, so..." he wasn't sure on how to say the next thing he wanted to say and paused.

"So?"

He then smiled warmly at her, "I didn't want to lose you."

She paused a little, then asked a little worriedly, "Even though I'm an outsider?"

He was a little surprised to hear her call herself an outsider, "Why would you say that? You live in Konoha, so you're one of us." He smiled cheerfully at her surprise, then jumped out of the tree still holding her, bringing one of the treasures of Konoha home.