When the sun rose the next morning, Sarutobi Hiruzen set down what he'd been holding, looked at the stack of documents piled before him, and worked his aching wrist in slow circles.
Without noticing, a very long time seemed to have passed again.
That thought drifted through Hiruzen's mind unbidden. He soon decided he'd take a few minutes' rest and come back to the paperwork later.
And so, naturally, his thoughts began to wander — drifting to the contents of the reports sitting in that pile. Come to think of it, if Hiruzen was remembering correctly, wasn't someone supposed to visit today?
He mulled it over for a moment, then fished one document out from the stack and pulled it free to look at it.
His memory was right. Someone from outside Konoha had submitted a request to meet with the Third Hokage.
After multiple rounds of verification and review, the request had ultimately been approved.
If he did the math, the time should be just about now.
It took him a while to sort through his memories and get everything straight — and in doing so, he found himself sinking into a sigh.
If he was being honest, there hadn't been a single day during times like these when he didn't miss Namikaze Minato.
He was old. Old enough that some things were simply beyond him now.
Minato had been so young. And yet — young in a way that was heartbreakingly unfair.
Hiruzen let out a long breath and cleared the thought away. At precisely that moment, a knock came at the door.
"Come in."
Without much hesitation, Hiruzen called out. The door swung slowly open, and a young man with golden hair and green eyes walked in, a smile on his face.
"Hello, Third Hokage."
Hiruzen gave a small nod. "You must be Mr. Smith. What brings you here?"
Anthony didn't answer right away. He paused for a brief moment, then slid a ring off his finger and held it flat in his palm.
"If I explained my situation in my own words, it might come across as a little hard to believe. So — I think I'll let the facts speak for themselves."
"Third Hokage, sir, I've come to discuss a partnership. And what follows is my way of demonstrating good faith — and offering a little help that comes from friendship."
Having said that, he took one step back. In the next instant, a golden radiance began to flow across the surface of the ring.
Hiruzen's guard snapped up on instinct — but then, in the very next moment, that familiar figure appeared before him, and every movement stopped.
He went utterly still, rooted to the spot.
"Minato...?"
The words came out barely above a murmur — near-disbelief in his voice — as Hiruzen stared at the young man with yellow hair standing before him, his form somehow translucent, and yet unmistakably, impossibly familiar.
Then he watched the translucent Namikaze Minato's face break into a helpless smile.
"Third Hokage."
He said softly: "I'm back."
Thunk. As Hiruzen lurched to his feet, his elbow caught the glass orb on the desk and sent it tumbling to the floor.
But Hiruzen had no attention left for that. His eyes were wide, fixed on Namikaze Minato.
His gaze darted back and forth between Anthony standing to the side and Minato — until Anthony took another quiet step back and said simply:
"You two talk."
The moment those words left his mouth, Hiruzen's questions came pouring out at Minato.
"Minato, what's your situation right now?"
His voice carried a slight tremor — excitement, maybe, or something close to it. Along with a thread of doubt and curiosity.
Namikaze Minato gathered his thoughts, then spoke:
"More or less halfway resurrected, I'd say. Thanks to the person standing beside you. He's a friend of mine."
He paused briefly. Anthony, reading the cue, quietly fed him a trickle of soul energy — and Minato converted a portion of it into chakra.
"That should be enough to prove who I am."
He raised his head and looked at Hiruzen — and saw the old man's expression sharpen with sudden focus. Then Hiruzen stepped forward.
He reached out as if to grasp Minato's hand — but his fingers passed right through the soul-form. Minato blinked, startled. Hiruzen, however, seemed not to care in the slightest, and called out loudly:
"'Halfway resurrected' — what does that mean? You didn't die in the Nine-Tails incident? That's wonderful!"
"When did you start getting better? When will you be completely better?"
"When can you come back as the Fourth Hokage?"
"The village has hope again!"
Listening to that rapid-fire string of questions — which were, frankly, a little personal — Minato stood there in a daze for a good few seconds. It was Anthony who stepped in with two quiet coughs and spoke up:
"Allow me to answer those questions, Third Hokage, sir."
"You just got a sense of Minato's condition yourself. He has been resurrected — but not completely. To be precise, his physical anchor right now is this ring."
Anthony said this as he pointed to the ring on his hand. Hiruzen looked at it, and a flicker of disappointment crossed his face.
Oh. So he can't just spring back to life and handle village paperwork immediately. .jpg
Watching Hiruzen school his expression back into something more composed — and doing it quite quickly — Anthony's eye twitched slightly. He pressed on:
"I understand your feelings, Third Hokage. But his situation still has a few small complications."
Small complications. That was putting it mildly.
Anthony's own head was starting to ache just thinking about it.
Getting Namikaze Minato properly resurrected required satisfying at least two conditions.
The first was a hard requirement: find a way to kill the Shinigami. The problem was, that thing had gotten smart. Or rather — after being honey-trapped by Anthony once, the Shinigami had apparently developed full-blown PTSD, and Anthony was fairly sure the same trick wouldn't work a second time.
So the Shinigami problem was stuck in a deadlock for now.
The second was a softer condition: deal with every hidden threat, Black Zetsu and all.
Because if Minato actually came back for real, the fallout would be enormous. Obito was already dead. If Minato resurrected on top of that and Black Zetsu got desperate and did something rash, Anthony genuinely couldn't predict where things would spiral.
Better to wait until he had the power to flush Black Zetsu down a toilet before resurrecting Minato. That was the safer call.
With that thought, Anthony looked back toward Hiruzen — who was already leaning forward with barely-concealed urgency:
"So when can he actually come back?"
"It'll just take a little more time. Please be patient. Don't worry — you'll still have the chance to retire."
"Going by the current pace, a few months at most. Please look forward to it."
Anthony pulled a rough estimate out of thin air and delivered it with a smile. With the group chat as his engine for growth, a few months was a timeframe he was still fairly confident about.
"All right."
Something in Hiruzen's expression seemed to ease. He thought for a moment, then said: "Very well. And this partnership you mentioned?"
"Ah, we can hammer that out one-on-one in a bit." Anthony said, then glanced at Namikaze Minato, let out a small sigh, and added:
"But before that — don't you think there's something important we should take care of first? Something that matters a great deal to a certain someone?"
And so, in the next moment, the two of them turned in unison to look at Namikaze Minato — and the ring sitting beneath him.
The rest of it, needless to say, was wrapped up easily and pleasantly from there.
Hiruzen hadn't lost his wits on this one — he and Anthony came to an understanding fast. Before getting down to business, the host had to make the guest feel welcome. So they took care of Minato's matter first.
The ring was quietly arranged to be escorted in secret to Uzumaki Naruto's side.
On one hand, it would give Naruto a bit of extra protection. On the other, it would give Minato a chance to see his child.
As for whether to reveal who he really was — that was entirely Minato's call. Anthony mentioned it to him once, then left it alone.
After that, Anthony got down to negotiating the partnership with Hiruzen.
To call it a partnership was a bit grand, honestly. The truth was that on his way over, Anthony had been thinking that he was maybe a little short on cash — so why not squeeze out another haul while he was at it.
Now that he had the Minato resurrection to leverage, he could haggle with Hiruzen a bit, see if he could borrow some resources from Konoha's side.
In the end, after a back-and-forth negotiation that left both parties thoroughly exhausted, Anthony managed to scrape together just over thirty thousand points' worth of credit from Konoha.
Adding that to the points David and the two souls in the toilet had been racking up over these past few days, Anthony's total was sitting at roughly two hundred and fifty thousand again.
As for what happened next in Konoha — Anthony ran a rough calculation and figured things were more or less on track. There wouldn't be much more juice to squeeze until Minato's full resurrection. The Uchiha clan and Danzo were still good for a bit of extra extraction, though.
So Anthony dropped a couple of casual reminders — watch Danzo, and shore up the defenses around Uchiha Shisui. Once he confirmed Hiruzen had taken the hint, he didn't push further.
No need to say more than that. If Uchiha Shisui stayed out of trouble, the Uchiha Clan Massacre could be more or less averted. The remaining piece was just handling Danzo.
Honestly, Anthony had his eye on ROOT.
He wasn't sure he could run an organization himself — but that's what Namikaze Minato was for, wasn't it?
I'm just here for the money!
I'll handle the earnings. Once you're resurrected, you handle the management. Doesn't that work out perfectly?
Find a way to deal with Danzo, then get Shisui to lend a hand — there was no reason taking over ROOT was out of reach.
Of course, all of this had to wait until Minato actually came back. And so, once Anthony confirmed he had no further business in the Hokage's office, he headed back to the River Styx.
Meanwhile, the ring that had been sent to Naruto's place was another story entirely.
A little later that same morning, Naruto opened his apartment door, grabbed a cup of instant ramen, poured in the hot water, and sat down at his small table.
Then his eyes were drawn to a ring sitting in the most prominent spot on the table.
Did I have this on my table yesterday...?
Uzumaki Naruto stared at it curiously, scratching his head, completely at a loss.
He reached out and gave the ring a tentative poke — and from inside it came a soft rattling sound, like bones assembling and clicking together.
Naruto recoiled with a startled yelp and lurched backward — but then a strange voice reached his ears, as if it were speaking directly beside him:
"Why hello there, young one. I can see right away that you have extraordinary potential..."
What kind of terrible script is this?
Inside the ring, Namikaze Minato's soul stared at the lines Anthony had provided for him — the script he was apparently supposed to recite upon first contact — and his expression went very dark, very fast.
He had chosen not to reveal his true identity to Uzumaki Naruto right away.
On one hand, Naruto was still young — and since his own resurrection wasn't complete, there was a risk Naruto might mention it to someone outside and cause unnecessary trouble. So for now, this disguised voice would have to do.
On the other hand — Namikaze Minato wanted to save that moment for something more proper.
Like when he was fully resurrected.
It would be wonderful if Kushina could be there too.
Minato's gaze dimmed for just a moment — but he quickly composed himself and looked back at the Uzumaki Naruto in front of him.
And then, despite everything, he smiled.
"Is... are you the one talking?"
Naruto stared at the ring for a long, long time before finally working up the nerve to ask. Minato, still speaking through the ring in his slightly altered voice, replied:
"Yes... I am a soul dwelling within this ring. Since you've had the fortune to find me, I will help you become..."
Minato thought for a moment — then suddenly laughed.
"Kid. Do you want to become Hokage?"
Through the ring, Minato watched Naruto's eyes light up.
And so, smiling to himself, he followed that up with his first real question:
"Hm... let me ask you one more thing."
"Do you want to learn the Flying Thunder God Technique?"
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: @Konoha's Yellow Flash — how are things going?]
[Konoha's Yellow Flash: All going smoothly. Naruto's side is settled too. Things should stay on the expected track for a while.]
[Konoha's Yellow Flash: I've got time to kill anyway, so I'll start teaching Naruto some jutsu. First I want to see if we can put the Tailed Beast's chakra to use — then use that chakra volume to train the Rasengan and the Flying Thunder God Technique...]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: ?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: What the hell. That scared me.]
[AAA City Ghost: Why is everyone in this group so obsessed with making monsters out of children?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Hey, don't say it like that. Don't rush me — I'll head over and craft some gear upgrades for David later. Can't fall behind on the monster-raising front.]
[Let Night City Burn: ?]
David, who was in the middle of hauling in his fishing nets with great effort, typed a question mark — then got a kick from Lucy urging him to keep pulling.
[Let Night City Burn: Never mind. Back to fishing.]
[Demon King's Strictest Father: Look at the poor kid, worn to the bone.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Labor is glorious.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Speaking of which — where's Himmel? Haven't seen him say a word. He's usually always popping in with a line or two.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: I'm actually dying of curiosity. I want to know how the love story between him and the radio is going to develop.]
[Frieren's Warrior of the Twilight Age: Don't rush me. I said don't rush me.]
[Frieren's Warrior of the Twilight Age: We're at the critical step right now!]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: ? You're actually pulling it off?]
[Frieren's Warrior of the Twilight Age: I'm about to see her in person!]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: ?]
____
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