*raises hand* SQUEE! I love it!! The manga should have been more like this! I was mad with it too!! Yondaime is my favorite character! Beautiful father/son portrail! totally awesome!

I have waited far too long to read this. Beautiful, of course. I think the line "Pain's just a pawn" is the best- if you replace the name with the common noun it's quite a maxim. Naruto getting honest, thought-out (and qualified) validation of his Hokage dream- from one who should know- was also a beautiful moment.

The writing itself is your usual quality work. Not much else to say.

Liked the story, it was a good characterization piece. I certainly agree with you about this part of the story needing more screen time. You answered almost any question I might have preemptively, but I still have to disagree with you about the 10 techniques thing (as I am sure many people have in the 9 months since this was published). Kakashi is spoken of as the ninja of a thousand jutsu as if this was something truly astonishing and perhaps even unheard of. To expect anyone without a Sharingan to learn so many in any reasonable amount of time is unrealistic, even for someone on the level of a Kage. It seems to me like the Hokage is chosen based on strength and leadership ability, and something like a vast jutsu repertoire is only another factor contributing to those things.

Still, good job:)

I agree with you - their interaction was far too short in the manga. I love your expanded version; it's longer, fluffier and better. Excellent work!

*raises hands and SQUEEs* XD
That was really great. I actually like it a lot more than the actual sequence Kishimoto put together; Naruto does deserve more of a conversation with the father he only gets to see once.
Great job with Minato's characterization; from what little we've seen of him, I think this portrayal was on the money.
Awesome work; this was a great piece!

SQUEE!!

Wow. This is excellent. Love the added tension and drama -and love- that this features. 440 was a great chapter, but this just adds so much to it. I love all the references to Kushina as well, especially about her genes seeing Naruto through even if Minato's are useless to him.

SQUE!! I love it, I love it!

Regarding the thousand techniques, it may simply be an assumed prerequisite rather than a mandatory one. That is, it was inconceivable that anyone who didn't know at least a thousand techniques could become Hokage.

What's really telling about Naruto's emotional state is that he denies that he's a great ninja even though he has already surpassed Jiraiya, and indeed, surpassed the father he was berating. Contrast this with his early rants where he would boast of his greatness and then figure out a way to back it up. This isn't humility or a desire to shrink from the task, but rather an admission of doubt about his own abilities that comes from the fact that he just watched Hinata get beaten to within an inch of her life because SHE was trying to rescue HIM. His body may be up to the task, but his heart needs to grow into it.

*flails happily for familyfic*

I never seem to catch the time to sit down and read your fics. But you still write some of the best Naruto familyfic I've read.

"If you love platonic oyakokankei (parent-child relationship), raise your hands and SQUEE!!"

*Does so*

Loved this but... I still wonder why Naruto never asked anything about his mother, even HERE when Minato mentioned her.

That was very touching, in my opinion. I would like to see Naruto's mother be furious when her husband (or boyfriend or whatever they were back then) was picked Hokage when she so much had wanted to be one herself.
It must be shocking to find out your greatest hero is your father.

It took me a while to find the time to sit and read this, but now that I have, I'm glad I did. It was simply brilliant, as all things of yours I have read thus far. I liked your reasoning for writing it, and I loved the flow of the story. Very fluid, very smooth - quite superb. And the whole thing pretty much blew my mind away. Wonderful - adored it.

*raises hands and SQUEs* x3

Thank you so much for this one-shot! The day I read chapter 440, I scoured the Naruto fanfic section to find a fan "rewrite" of the chapter, or at least something inspired by it, because it really wasn't enough for me. While I wasn't outraged like some that Kushina had no mention (because she didn't even occur to me ... there were more pressing issues to deal with, after all), I still felt that the emotional punch that the Naruto series can sometimes be so good with just wasn't there at all. I'm quite delighted to see a longer version of the meeting between Naruto and Minato.

Hey! nice story! (though 'BLaH' doesn't sound that glorious ;P)
strengely enough, I think chapter were too short... but moderatively real...I mean, they are ninjas and Minato had to rely important information to calm Naruto... so yeah my complain with thos echapter was not the lack of emotion... just the lack of images ^^;
Still! I love Minato's explanation of Pain's motives here!

(Raising hands) EK! I love what you have done to this piece, and the depth of tone that you wrote it in.