Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The tears couldn’t help but well up as he stared out upon the village from atop Mt. Hokage, watching the waves of black-clad villagers as they slowly made their way back to their own partially destroyed homes after this day of sadness. All he knew was that, deep inside, a part of his humanity was beginning to give way after all he had seen and done in the last six months since this chapter of his life had begun. He felt the innocence of childhood that had resided within him slipping away; in its absence it gave way to the kind of cold cruel adult he had always seen populating the ranks of ANBU. And as he thought of this, he had to ask himself if it was really the man he wanted to become?

“Naruto?” She asked timidly as she approached from behind him. It hadn’t been hard to guess where he would go; she was already starting to know him well enough to know where he would hide.

“Yeah?” He replied, not really wanting to talk to anyone at that moment. He just wanted to be alone long enough to reach some measure of peace after all that had happened but he cared enough to let her at least try and talk to him.

“Do you want to talk?” She asked calmly, trying her best not to make him get any angrier or sadder than he already probably was. In the small forest behind her, a cold breeze had begun to blow with the scent of the coming rainfall despite the fact it had already rained so much today. The clouds above were growing darker and darker by the moment, a sign that it wouldn’t be too long before they opened up once again and began to weep together with the village that they covered. She knew this but all she cared about was being with him at that moment; she wanted to protect him because she knew that no one else could right then. No one else could really understand the Kyuubi no kitsune like she could.

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t know what to talk about even if I tried, Hinata.” For the first time since he heard her approaching, he turned to face her. His eyes were a deep shade of crimson as the anger that he felt manifested itself little by little but they did not seem enraged like usual, but rather there were the tiniest tears rolling down from either one. His cheeks were already red, not from his chakra but from having cried his eyes out time and time again in the last day as he sat up here so high above the rest of the village. Her heart couldn’t help but break a little inside for him as she watched him; Naruto had always been so strong but this had utterly broken him like nothing else could.

She walked up to him cautiously, staring him straight in those blood-red eyes as she approached.

Without saying a word, she just wrapped her arms around his waist and held him there. Once again, he began to cry freely, a sign that his humanity wasn’t completely gone but just hidden barely below the surface.

They stood there together for what felt like an eternity for him before he was finally ready to open up to her. He didn’t know how to tell her what was going on in his mind it was nothing but a mess of jumbled and disorganized thoughts that rolled together like one gigantic whirlpool as it drained out of him. Slowly but surely, one single thought began to rise to the surface above all the rest so he decided to tell her it instead of trying to figure out just what he was feeling.

“My mother… she told me a story a while ago, back after I found out what I was.” Naruto murmured as she pulled her head back enough to gaze into his eyes. They were slowly fading back to the beautiful shade of blue that belonged on his face instead of the crimson they had been. “It was the story of the night I was sealed and the day she took me in.”

Thirteen years earlier.

The forest erupted in the screams of another two dozen dying shinobi as the monstrous demon queen Kyuubi no Yoko slashed through one more line of trees in the forest on the outskirts of village of Konohagakure no Sato. With just a simple swipe of her left paw, another group of trees and the few jonin and chunnin that hid amongst their bows were reduced to splintered branch and splattered blood.
Against the awesome might and size of such an unholy fiend... such a monster, even the most elite of Konoha’s jonin were nothing but a herd of lambs to be slaughtered.

Minato covered his mouth with his free hand as he cradled the newborn infant in his other, trying to force the scent of blood that hung heavy in the air from his lips and nostrils. All around him, the screams the villagers, of his villagers, filled him with a grave sense of dread: one not for his own death but for the fear that he was too late to save anybody but the women and children who now huddled in fear at the base of the mountain where his face had been carved earlier that year. Why in the name of the Kami was such a horrid creature attacking them? They had not done a thing to provoke her, not a thing to bring about her fatal wrath and yet here she was, destroying each and every one of Konoha’s ninja that it could find.

The Yondaime looked down at the small little child that lay cradled in his left arm, a beautiful little baby boy with the tiniest cute little whisker marks on his cheeks and a tuft of blood red hair on the top of his head that put even the Kyuubi’s crimson fur to shame.

A day earlier, he had found this little child naked and alone near the natural hot spring near his manor, crying loudly for his parents. Strangely enough, no one in the village had reported a missing child and none of the newborns that had been reported in the census conducted by the village earlier that year matched this one’s description. So, Minato had taken the baby boy in for the time being despite knowing nothing about the tiny little baby beside his hair color.
Yet, with the situation that was taking place before them, the Yondaime was starting to think about just why the Kyuubi was here and how much of a coincidence it was he had found this red-haired baby.

‘Red… RED! THE CHILD, IT’S HERS!’ Minato nearly screamed inside, staring once more from the baby in his arms to the gargantuan beast that was decimating the ranks of jonin that were trying their utmost to stop it. It all made sense now; something that fearsome, something that completely enigmatic would only attack someone or someplace if it was protecting its child. He had heard the legends of the tailed beasts and their ability to take a human form but he had never thought that the Kyuubi would actually change into one, especially not to give birth when she would be most vulnerable. And since he was carrying the nearly newborn infant in his arms, it was only a matter of time before she picked up the child’s scent and spotted the leader of Konohagakure no Sato. “Commander Umino, form your squadron around me!”
Immediately, one of the few ANBU squadrons with all their members still standing appeared beside him, led by Sado Umino and his wife and second in command Nois Umino.

“What are your orders, Lord Hokage?” Commander Sado asked from behind his porcelain serpent mask, his voice wavering as a sign of his obvious exhaustion in this battle. Beside him, his subordinates were all panting heavily at least two of the three of them were bleeding from various scars and slices all over their bodies. They all looked as though they were all just barely remaining on their feet but Minato knew that their resolve would not falter, even if it meant their deaths here tonight. The Yondaime prayed it would not come to that as it had with so many others so far but he was not stupid.

“I have a plan to stop it but I need your help.” Minato Namikaze’s voice was as iron and steeled as his will.

“Speak and we will obey.” Umino and his subordinates knelt before their fearless leader, showing the respect and honor of the Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai and their dedication to the village they had sworn to protect.

“I think the Kyuubi is here for this child. If so, when I offer it to her she should retreat. If not, be prepared to retrieve the child and take it Jiraiya.” He replied simply, his eyes watching the massive thrashing kitsune in the distance. Without even acknowledging their answer of obedience, he took a kunai out with his free hand and sliced a thin cut into his cheek. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Kuchiyose no Jutsu!”


One Week Later, The Village Hidden in the Waves

“Minato... took the Kyuubi with him using Shiki Fūjin and sealed up part of the child’s chakra… probably to prevent him from becoming like his mother for now.” Jiraiya spoke as he sat down on her couch, still cradling the infant in his arms and taking care not to unwrap him from the blanket he was sleeping soundly in. She could feel her eyes growing weak and misty as the Toad Sage told her of the Yondaime’s death while protecting the village he had loved so much. She couldn’t believe it; the legendary ninja of the Third Great Ninja War was killed in the prime of his life in a fight with one of the Bijuu no less. And what was left in the end of it all? Nothing more than an infant kitsune in human form sound asleep in his sensei’s arms. She had always thought he was invincible; that he would watch over the Leaf until he himself was old and gray and then pass on the title to their future children. But now, as she sat here she wasn’t sure about anything anymore, only that her Minato was gone. “I… I felt you wouldn’t want to hear it from someone else, Kushina…”

“…T-thank you, Jiraiya…” Kushina Uzumaki spoke, her voice cracking the tears finally streaming down from her eyes. For a moment nothing was said between either of them as she just let her tears fall until the time she was finally able to look up at her deceased fiancée’s old sensei and the baby he carried. “Can… Can I hold the baby?”
Jiraiya nodded silently and carefully handed the silently sleeping infant to her, taking incredible care to cradle his head.

As she took him into her arms she could feel what was left of her emotions bubbling up to the surface once more. The baby was beautiful. He had a mess of the same bright blonde hair that Minato had had but with a single streak of crimson through the middle of it, the only real reminder of who his mother really was. In addition, the two sets of whiskers framed the sides of his tiny mouth, making him look like he was smiling broadly even as he slept noiselessly. Finally, there his eyes. Even with his eyes closed, those two miniscule little orbs rested so perfectly in his face that she felt that he could have just as easily been staring right up at her. It broke her heart to see such a wonderfully faultless child and to know that she would never… ever have one of her own with her Minato.

“What… what’s going to happen to the baby?” She asked hesitantly, averting her eyes from the sannin as she tried to focus on the book he had given her that lay on the table to her right. It was the story of Jiraiya’s life told as another shinobi, an honest work called The Legend of the Gutsy Ninja.

“I’m going to watch after him for a while until the village has calmed down some, I think. Sarutobi said he would welcome the boy into the village but I want to give them some time to forget and–.” Jiraiya murmured half-heartedly. Unknown to him though it had only taken a second for her to make up her mind as she shook her head and smiled.

“No.” She spoke softly but surely as she stared into the face of the confused toad hermit. “… This baby needs a mother.”

“What are you saying Kushina?" The sannin asked.

“Minato and I, we were going to have children one day.” She said, becoming surer and surer of herself as she cradled the infant in her arms. Minato had died for this child, had given his life trying to return the baby to his mother, taking the Kyuubi with him in the process. She could not sit back and watch him become an orphan after the only man she ever loved gave up everything so the baby would have a mother. “And now, Minato has a son… and so do I.”

“What?!” He asked incredulously. “Kushina, do you… do you even know what you’re getting yourself into?! This is a living, breathing Bijuu we’re talking about, not some random child!”

“I know Jiraiya. But… I think he would have wanted it this way.”
Without trying to explain it any further to the sannin, she turned her eyes back to the baby carefully resting in her arms and just stared down at his preciously tiny face.

“Hello Naruto…” She whispered softly. “I’m your mother.”