one_long_mission | intro post: ghosts in the fog

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intro post: ghosts in the fog

He comes in as dusk settles, walking through the thin fog that clings around his legs and the tails of his coat, seeming to solidify as he walks. Even the sound seems to remember itself slowly, for at first he's a silent ghost and it's only as he nears the faint golden ponds of light from the outlying village windows and the flicker of their bonfires that the sounds of soft footsteps in the frost begins. Blond hair moves a little in the night wind, smoke and crisp autumn chill, and it takes the blue eyes under that fringe a long time to focus in the calmly neutral face.

He's not sure where he's going, just that there's a path in front of him that seems to lead somewhere and he supposes he will follow it for the moment. When his chakra dissipated from his son's life, he hadn't expected to find himself anywhere - yet here he apparently is. Lost so long in the mists of his child's life, drifting and unsubstantial, it's hard, now, to think of what's before him as any more real. He's a dead man's chakra, released from its mission, a ghost from the past as sure as some of the old furniture and unwanted love letters being tossed away to the flames tonight and it's a strange relief that his hand doesn't pass through the tree he comes to stand near on the edge of someone's bonfire, pausing in his journey onward because the road can wait and even ghosts seem able to appreciate the heat from a stranger's fire in the falling night.

ooc: just a note - Minato's actually very solid but it's going to be a bit before he gets past the idea that he's a lost ghost. Or that what's in front of him is really there either. He's been unable to touch anything for a very long time. Head-canon says a part of him is still trapped with Nine-Tails Yin inside the death god so there's a part of him missing but he'll solidify despite that as he goes. And I apologize in advance that I am a very slow tagger. Life is busy right now but I couldn't resist.

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She had gone on a walk. She loved her boys, but she was a bit worried about the eldest of the lot. He was... missing. She just hoped he was fine, because her wanderings had yet to actually unearth him.

They did, however, bring her to Minato's path, and she stared at the man for a moment before approaching. "Minato?"

Used to a decade and a half of being aware of things through the fog of someone else, it takes Minato a moment to realized, at the edge of his senses, that something about the person approaching him feels different than the strangers milling around the bonfire. So he's only just turning when she says his name and it takes his eyes longer to really focus beyond a passing look. The recognition comes then and he looks both surprised and expectant.

"Mikoto - "

"Minato. So even you've come to be here?" She moved forward, offering him her hands. "You seem rather dazed."

It seems - abrupt - to answer with I'm dead for the reason he's feeling dazed. Especially since she's dead as well. Her offered hands have his own rising to take them as well, a simple gesture of acceptance but his hands hesitate just before they complete the move. Blond brows pinch down and he closes the distance with an expression that's determined - and yet still surprised when they touch and neither hand drifts through the other. Other than once since his death with Naruto he hasn't known solid touch since... Kushina dying in his arms that last night.

Long fingers closer around hers and his voice is a bit more like his old self as he asks:

"Where's here?"

"Here is a village called Michi no Sato." She paused a moment as she folded her fingers securely around his. "We're not dead here Minato."

It's her second sentence that earns the look of surprise, not the first and it's not so much a widening of his eyes as a sideways jerk of his chin the smallest bit and that knit of the eyebrows for an instant.

"How is that so?"

Because he's fairly sure there's no jutsu that will work on him given the already taken part of his soul.

"Well, I remember dying, and most of the people here... don't. Or are like my baby and have multiple versions of themselves running around." She flashed him a smile. "Or like your Naruto have multiple -genders- running around."

She shook her head and started to walk backward, tugging him with her. "You can stay with me. I have plenty of space to share. As for how... I have no idea. The locals aren't shocked to see us, but they weren't fully expecting us either."

He takes in her words with slightly narrowed eyes. There's a lot of information and implications in those few short sentences she gives him.

"A... crossroads?"

He lets her lead him because he has nowhere else to go on his own and her familiar face, seen through his own eyes, not his son's, is comforting. He still isn't thinking of himself as real enough though to contemplate living arrangements.

"They call the country Jiten no Kuni. I'm starting to think they call this place what they do to make fun of all of us." She released one of his hands, but after the way he'd reacted tot he initial touch, she decided it was better not to release him.

He still seemed far too dazed, even if the gesture would get frowned on by anyone who put stock in proprieties. "Though the discrepancies... How close were we for you Minato? So I know just how far I'm stomping on acceptability by dragging you around like this."

It's more reassuring than he would admit, her hand around his. It's solid and warm and real and she's familiar to him as he is, not as a broken off piece of chakra he gave his only son. If it's too familiar, he doesn't notice. He's... rather used to being pulled around by a woman.

"How close?" It's a strange question without the other things her short words have hinted at but he supposes it's one he should have thought of as well.

"We're close in age so some of our early training was together. I didn't see you as much once teams were assigned." His shoulder lifted slightly. What did she remember of him? "We were familiar to each other but I wouldn't say closely so. I always admired your gentle strength."

She flushed slightly at the compliment and gave him a smile. "Well, you weren't all that bad yourself. So... our timelines are a little off though."

She shook her head and continued to tug him along, carefully picking a path down the cliff face. "You were one of my genin teammates how things worked out for me. So... -is- it alright with you that I've been calling you Minato?"

The smile is small and fleeting but her compliment earns it.

"Thank you."

'Not all that bad' wasn't exactly what the enemies of his village had thought of it as but he'll take her words all the same. His eyebrows lift slightly at her next words but they're not unsettling. As timelines go, he supposes that one is not so different. It does raise the question though -

"It is my name. I answer to too many to be picky over which one a friend calls me. Minato is - it's good to hear again." His fingers tighten just a little on hers, reassurance. If he's going to let her drag him around a strange town by his hand, he's hardly going to balk now at her using his familiar name. "But who was our team leader in your world?"

"Jiraiya-sensei, of course." She looked over at the question, surprised he felt the need to ask it. Then again, if she wasn't his teammate, that -would- make sense. "It was us and a Nara boy, though he and I fell out of contact after he made chunin and he's since gone to the memorial stone."

She noted the squeeze, and she turned to check for footing instead of acting like she noticed. She was a grown woman, so she really -should- let go his hand. But... she didn't intend to. She'd just deal with whatever consequences came of that later if anyone saw them.

"No one did call you Minato anymore in the months leading to your death, did they? Well, other than Kushina."

It was reassuring to know that some things seemed the same from time to time. Minato wasn't sure who he would have become if it wasn't for the Toad Sage. Someone different, no doubt.

Her hand was an anchor to him, something real in a world he was still having a hard time completely accepting as solid. If she was in no hurry to let that link go, he was certainly not going to be the one to sacrifice it, grown man or not. That anyone would think anything afterward never occurred to him. Blue eyes shifted over to her at the observation though. What a strange way to look at it. Though... he had always preferred his own name over his titles.

Except sensei...

"I had titles others found more appropriate. But... no. Not many." Realizing it now that she had brought it up, he admitted. "I missed it." Another there and gone smile. "What name would you prefer?"

"Well, in that case I clearly have to stick to Minato, don't I?" She smiled over her shoulder at him, steps careful as she made her way down the near vertical rock face, easily keeping herself from sliding with chakra as needed. "It's no good if a man as nice as you actually has reason to miss hearing his own name."

She quieted for a beat, hesitating as she thought over her options. Finally though, she decided that she started the drop in formality, she would hold to her precedent. "Just Mikoto is fine with me. Especially given that I already asked you to move into my house."

Her simple praise of him has the small smile touching the edges of his lips again. It makes him wonder what they must have been like as a team and how he must have been in her world to deserve such positive opinions given so easily from her. He doesn't think of himself as a bad man by any means, but he always did think of himself as practical and oftentimes he didn't think practical and good necessarily went hand in hand.

"Mikoto," he repeats the name to both hear it himself and to show he's comfortable with the familiarity between them. And then: "Are you sharing your house with many?"

She flushed slightly. "I seem to have picked up the habit of collecting errant children since I died."

She flashed him a wry smile. "Two versions of my older son, though one I haven't seen in a while and that worries me, one version of my younger. One version of -your- child, though the one living with me is a girl. Still named Naruto though. I get the impression you were quite attached to the name from that. Itachi-younger has been valiantly trying to persuade his Hyuuga friend to move in. Neji's a sweet boy and could use the company." She looked amused. "By how he talks about your daughter, I sense a crush."

She paused to consider then. "I get the feeling I'll have more as time goes on, but that is the list of definites so far."

There are several points of conversation he could begin with what she tells him and he's just opening his mouth to pick one when she mentions a crush. It has his mouth shutting and him blinking.

She'd mentioned a daughter for him instead of a son earlier and he'd accepted the information and filed it away for later thought. Now though it suddenly became a much more prominent need for contemplation. Because, dead or not, the actually physical father or just an approximation - this was his daughter they were talking about with a boy. It precluded everything else.

"How old are they?"

"Sixteen and seventeen respectively." She looked sideways at him. "I'm not sure they're quite to the stage of admitting they like each other but anyone with eyes can see that he admires her a great deal and she doesn't mind being admired." She let out a faint huff of a laugh.

"There seems to be a lot of that going around though, so keep your eyes out I've heard you have a boy around the village about the same age, but he hasn't really come around yet."

He's still dealing with the fact there's a boy interested in his little girl - little matter that he's only just gotten her and that without even actually meeting her - and he doesn't find much comfort in Mikoto's words. Nor in the fact she's taking it all so much better than he feels he is - though it makes sense she would all the same having been here longer. He tries to focus beyond it all the same. Which brings up the slightly worrying question of:

"How many of us from Konoha are there here?"

"I'm actually not sure? I've heard about several actually, though the only one -not- from Konoha I've seen is a Kiri nin."

It's a hokage's nature to look for threats to his village and people and it's a bit worrisome to Minato that nin from his village are here, which means they are not there which is where they're needed and belong. And yet... apparently at least a number of the ones here can't be in Konoha anymore anyway given their deaths and others that are here are certainly not from his own Konoha at least. It makes the need to find out why they were brought here very important. Still - he focuses on the woman in front of him. She's being his guide, remaining calm and calming, helpful and willing to offer more. A great deal of that personality he remembers from his life and yet:

"Mikoto. How long have you been here?"

"A few weeks now. I was one of the earlier arrivals. This place has been... slowly filling since then. It's disorienting to think it, but the villagers clearly have a tradition in place on how to handle all of us lost shinobi while we're here, and it's a simple conversion for them."

"This has happened often then? Always from Konoha or from different villages each time?" He doesn't remember anything in the history of Konoha about a mass disappearance but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. "Is there a pattern to the arrivals? How many come and how quickly? Do the shinobi remain or vanish again?"

She paused and squeezed his hand in a bit to slow the flow of questions. "It happens at least one a generation for them, and lasts anywhere from days or until the next one. We apparently came after one of the 'days' ones. It's not only Konoha shinobi here. My youngest son mentioned to me that he'd met Hoshigaki Kisame, who I am fairly sure had a reputation even when you were alive still. I haven't managed to pick up a pattern, and thus far no one I've met has left."

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8 hour drive of doom cuts into RP time man

wow - yes, I'd imagine it would

It was supposed to be 4 ;-;

oh geez. You have my full sympathy

Thank youuu

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