The Birth of Uzumaki Naruto
This is me speculating about Naruto's birth. Beta'd by the lovely :devlily-flare:. I finished this a loooooooong time ago, but I went back a very days ago and touched it up and I'm pretty damn happy with it.
Title: The Birth of Uzumaki Naruto
Characters: Minato, Kushina, a few random doctors
Warnings: character death, and people being sad all over the place.
Word Count: 2636
Notes: Some 'splain' to preface:
I think Kushina died in childbirth, otherwise I think she'd still be alive. I can't figure why she'd be dead otherwise... we know that Minato's sealing jutsu kills the sealer, but how would it kill her? The other scenario I can think of is Kyuubi was sealed in Naruto when she was still pregnant with him and birthing him killed her, but I like this idea less cuz it puts too much guilt on poor Naru for her death. Or maybe she's still alive. But that'd be rather dues ex machina.
I also think Minato and Kushina's relationship had to be kept secret for some reason, or else why wouldn't Naruto know who his parents are? We know Kushina wasn't originally from Konoha... maybe some diplomatic issues?
So yeah. Those're mah theories. Take em or leave em.
But where are you my angel now?
Don't you see me crying?
And I know that you can't do it all
But you can't say I'm not trying
“Sir! Hokage-sama, please! This is a restricted area!”
His long, torn and battle-worn jacket fanned out like a shadow behind him as he strode pass the harried nurse, using all his will power not to break into a run. Down the hall, several white-clad medic-nins bustled in and out of the room he was headed for. The bloodcurdling screams that had initially drawn him to the ward had stopped, thank God. But he couldn’t decide if the silence was actually worse.
Several medic-nins spotted his determined approach, and they wavered in mid-step, throwing nervous glances at each other. Confused gazes; why was the Yondaime Hokage coming here, of all places, in the midst of such a crucial battle? A plump, brunette doctor bustled toward the door.
“Come on, move yourselves! I need that blood transfusion fast! She’s wind type, which you know is hard to find, so get yourselves moving!” her booming voice hastened the nins to their jobs, though they cast a few more sideways glances at the battle-worn man as they went.
The stout woman suddenly noticed him, and her face set. She knew why he’d come. As he went to enter the room, she barred his way, settling her considerable bulk solidly in the doorway.
“This is her room isn’t it?”
She stared him boldly in the eye. “Yes it is and if you’d like to see some progress,
I’d suggest you get out of the way and let us do our jobs,” then she added a pointed, “Sir.”
“I need to see her.”
Anyone else would have flinched at his ferocious tone. But she was a sturdy woman, one who knew her job and knew how to handle authority. She glanced into the room where a swarm of medics still bustled around.
“I don’t have time to waste arguing. You’ll only get in the way.”
“One more person isn’t going to make a difference in there. I need to see her.”
She frowned fiercely at him, “If you really care about her, you’ll get out of the way and let us do our jobs!”
“I’m not going to let her go through this alone!” his voice was feral.
A long, echoing ‘beeeeeeeeeep’ escaped the room and a flurry of activity and several distressed yells followed. The head nurse looked in, alarmed.
The Hokage's face was livid with rage and terror. “Let me the hell in!”
Glowering, she looked back at her Hokage: dirty and scratched from battle; snarling and dangerous. She looked back in the room.
She turned suddenly. “Fine, sit in that chair!” she pointed hastily to a bedside chair as she rushed back to her duties, “And stay the hell out of our way!”
Without another word, the blond man flew to the seat beside the bedridden object of the doctor’s concern. He sat, and the fight went out of his face immediately. He hadn’t really believed it… he hadn’t really realized until now that he had been in denial. But there it was. Even though he’d been worried, he’d never really believed that the ever-exuberant, loud-mouth tomboy he'd fallen for could be... like this.
At least three doctors crowded around her spread legs and rotated regularly to change their bloody gloves. They were too absorbed in trying to save the woman’s life to wonder what the ragged man was doing there. Her breathing was short, harsh and almost imperceptible. Her face was so contorted beyond her normal carefree grins that she might have been another person. Her long red hair stuck to her pale forehead in sweaty clumps and her only color came from her burning cheeks.
Doctors rushed in and out, the activity meaningless to the blond man who sat with his happiness dying in a hospital bed, trying to push out a child. Minutes passed that weighed like hours. He could do nothing, not even ease the knots in her forehead or wipe the sweat off her face, for his limbs were beyond his use. There was no body without the soul.
Suddenly, from behind her blue lips, a cry started, faltered, and gained strength. The doctors’ frantic and terrified shouts almost drowned her out, but he could hear her pained cry above them all. She let out a short, staccato screech; the doctors lunged, fretted... seconds passed and...
Crying. The unrestrained, high wail of an infant filled the room. The redhead let out another pained shout and convulsed. Several doctors hurried off with a small, loud bundle, but more still crowded around the woman.
“Stop the bleeding!”
“Where’s the transfusion?!”
“She’s rejecting the IV!”
“Stop the bleeding!!”
The blond man could only stare.
Her head jerked suddenly in his direction; not on purpose, just a twitch. An impossibly pained and beaten expression was on her sweaty face. He could feel himself being torn to shreds every second he continued to look, but some other being possessed his hand and placed it on her cheek.
The baby gave a gasp and let out a shuddering cry louder than all the medics’ voices combined. The man glanced in the direction of the noise, as if hearing it for the first time, but not really knowing what it was he heard. In that second, he felt another hand take hold of his. He whipped around, heart racing. The hand had come much faster than he could have believed possible, but its pale grip was weak, much too weak.
“Kushina?”
He leaned forward, glancing frantically from her face to her hand to her spread legs and back to her face.
“Kushina? Kushina, talk to me, baby.”
Her eyelids fluttered, her face lined with terrible pain.
“That won’t help! It has to be from a wind-type or it’ll only make things worse...”
“Kushina…” he could only say her name, and bring his other hand to clench her shaking one.
Her eyelids cracked open. She stared dumbly into the ceiling, her eyes dull and fevered.
“Kushina… please, can you hear me?”
She continued to stare into nothingness. He leaned in closer.
“Please, talk to me baby, please!”
He clutched her hand as if it were his last lifeline. In some ways it was.
“Kushina!”
“Don’t make that face…”
Her eyes had not moved or focused on him, so when the words reached his ears, he thought for a second he’d imagined them. Her face wrenched up in pain, she gasped and turned her head, and her tired eyes finally roved to his face.
“Kushina…”
“I sa... I said stop it,” her words were halted and quiet, but still hers. An echo of her independent, boisterous swagger, “With that face... I might think... you think I’m in trouble.”
With a struggle apparently equal to that of scaling Everest, she smiled.
The look he returned could not really be called a smile by any definition; it was too full of heartbreak, “Can’t be too bad, if you’re talking like that...”
“Nope... I’ll... be up to k-ick your ass again in a f-few days.”
The redhead’s eyes wandered the room, her smile not surviving the grimaces of pain as the medics worked.
“The chakra transfusion-”
“We can’t do it!”
“Damn it, we’ll loose her if we don’t get her blood now!”
She groaned and doubled up in agony. Her lover leaned in further, squeezing her hand in comfort.
“The village...” she let the words out in a gasp, trying to breathe through the agony. ‘What’s... happening?”
The young Hokage faltered. His eyes wavered. He bit the inside of his lip.
“Kyuubi... what’s happened... with K-Kyuubi?” she tried to look at him again, but she couldn’t get her head turned all the way.
He finally controlled his expression, “Nothing good. It’s been breaking through all our defenses. We... can’t seem to stop it.”
The infant let out another earsplitting cry, but she missed it in another convulsion of pain. Tears welled in her eyes and the medics’ shouting increased.
“So w-we’re losing...” she panted, her hand shaking in his.
With a Herculean effort, she turned to look into his face, “Do you have a plan?”
He couldn’t look her in the eyes. He wet his lips, but it didn’t coax the right words out. The redhead stared at him, trying to decipher his expression.
“We can’t find any, not anywhere.”
“We can’t operate if we can’t get her blood!”
“It’s a boy...”
“I could seal it,” the blond Hokage finally said, still unable to meet the woman’s eyes, “I’m sure I could seal it in someone else...
The woman shuddered again, trying to ignore the agony.
“Som-someone... else?”
“It’s too strong for just me. If I tried to seal it within myself, it would only kill me and break free. The seal would be much stronger if it went through me first. If I divided the Kyuubi’s power, only gave the other person half Kyuubi’s chakra...” he glanced at the young woman again, but couldn’t hold her gaze.
“You need a... a v-volunteer.”
The man hesitated, then nodded slightly.
“A...” he swallowed, then looked into her sallow face, “A very young volunteer. A child.”
The redhead frowned, and then something like comprehension dawned in her eyes. She laid back, her face torn between pain and contemplation.
“A child would be able to handle the changes in its chakra channels... it should be able to adapt to support the Kyuubi and... and survive...”
“H-half the Kyuubi... sealed... in you...”
He hesitated, and then squeezed her hand.
“Yes. In me.”
“It’ll kill you.”
The Hokage could only stare. She shot him a fevered, agonized glance, hoping to be proven wrong, but he could afford her no words.
“Minato... I... I want to see him.”
The blond blinked, then looked pass the frantic group of medic-nins to the source of the crying, as if just realizing what the noise really was.
He leaned back and caught the eye of a young male medic nin in the corner, who was wrapping a small, crying bundle. The medic stared back, confused. Then he caught the quick glare of the head medic. Finally understanding the silent request, his lips parted in surprise. His eyes bounced from the baby to his Hokage and back. Looking at the blond with surprise, uncertainty and awe, he walked unsteadily forward, holding the bundle to his chest. He handed it reverently to the blond man and smiled.
“It’s a boy, sir.” They’d already known he would be
The young Hokage gazed at the tiny face, red from its recent birth. The infant-already named, though, he didn’t know it-wriggled in the white blanket, taking in small sucks of air and whimpering.
“Minato...”
He glanced at the woman he loved, then leaned forward, tilting the newborn’s face toward hers.
Through a haze of pain miles deep, she smiled. She raised a hand to the boy’s tiny face, but couldn’t make it all the way.
“He’s... beautiful...”
The Hokage’s face could only suggest a smile. His throat seemed to have closed up.
“Naruto...” She gave up trying to reach him, and settled for her giving him her warmest smile, “Such a good name. Jiraiya... will be proud... my little Naruto.”
The man bit his lip, and stared again at the baby-his son. Suddenly the woman screamed.
“Shit! It’s not working!”
“Where’s the transfusion?!”
“Kushina!” The young man again leaned over her, “Kushina, stay with me!”
Panting heavily, she managed to open her empty eyes.
“Do... do what you have to do... Minato. Save the village.”
She looked into his eyes, her hand jerking in what might have been a comforting squeeze. “He’ll b-be a hero.”
The Head Nurse had seen grown men brought to tears in her hospital before, but it was much more unsettling when it was her Hokage, the strongest ninja in her village, the unbreakable warrior.
He managed to compose himself, and let no other tears fall after the first.
“He’ll survive the process. I swear to you. I may not, but Naruto will. And he’ll be a hero. And you’ll be one too, the woman whose son saved the entire village.”
She grunted in what might have been understanding, her face twisted. He grabbed her hand again, clutching the boy to his chest.
“Min-nato...” she spoke through heavy panting.
“It won’t stop!”
“Damn it, we’re going to loose her!”
“S-save your village...” her lidded, feverish eyes no longer saw him, and he gripped her hand harder to affirm his presence.
“Kushina...”
“Tell... Nar-uto that... I love... him.”
There may have been words after that, but he could not hear them.
“Kushina...” his eyes were beyond his control, “I love you. I love you too...”
With the faintest upturn of her lips, she looked at him for the last time. Then the light went out of her eyes and her hand went limp.
With small curses and the continuous beep of the heart monitor, the noise of the medics petered out. But the young Hokage didn’t hear them anymore. He held her hand still tighter as the heat slowly left it.
“I’m calling it...”
He bowed his head, bangs effectively hiding his face, but not his heaving shoulders.
“Time of death... 10:56.”
The medics could only wash their hands and try to avoid looking at their broken leader, afraid to intrude on his grief. Seconds passed. Minutes. The Head Nin simply sat in her chair across the room, rubbing her temples.
Outside an explosion rumbled in the distance. The doctors started and looked towards the windows then back to their Hokage, unsure. More minutes passed.
“The battle’s still on.”
The Head Nin’s voice was amplified by the silence and all the doctors looked at her in surprise. Her chin rested in her folded hands.
“There’s something she wanted you to do, isn’t there?”
At first, the blond, battle-worn young man made no sign that he’d even heard. Then, he slowly lowered the young woman’s hand to her chest. He folded her hands together. With shaking fingers, he gently slid her lids over her glassy eyes. He brushed the hair from her face. With a last caress of her cold cheek he stood, the weight of a much older person on his shoulders as he cradled his newborn son. He passed through the room, his face red and streaked with tears, but with a look of such purpose and determination in his eyes that the medics remembered he was their leader, their Hokage, and the strongest ninja in the village. He marched through the halls of the hospital, his son in his arms, beyond the reach of the medical-nins who had yet to check the baby for disease, determine his blood type or have the father sign the birth certificate.
There was something the woman he’d loved had told him to do first. He had a duty to his village. And as he nestled the boy-his Naruto-close to him, the Yondaime Hokage only hoped his son would understand.
Looking at you leaving, I'm looking for a sign
----------------------
Song: 'The Hill', by Marketa Irglova
Title: The Birth of Uzumaki Naruto
Characters: Minato, Kushina, a few random doctors
Warnings: character death, and people being sad all over the place.
Word Count: 2636
Notes: Some 'splain' to preface:
I think Kushina died in childbirth, otherwise I think she'd still be alive. I can't figure why she'd be dead otherwise... we know that Minato's sealing jutsu kills the sealer, but how would it kill her? The other scenario I can think of is Kyuubi was sealed in Naruto when she was still pregnant with him and birthing him killed her, but I like this idea less cuz it puts too much guilt on poor Naru for her death. Or maybe she's still alive. But that'd be rather dues ex machina.
I also think Minato and Kushina's relationship had to be kept secret for some reason, or else why wouldn't Naruto know who his parents are? We know Kushina wasn't originally from Konoha... maybe some diplomatic issues?
So yeah. Those're mah theories. Take em or leave em.
But where are you my angel now?
Don't you see me crying?
And I know that you can't do it all
But you can't say I'm not trying
“Sir! Hokage-sama, please! This is a restricted area!”
His long, torn and battle-worn jacket fanned out like a shadow behind him as he strode pass the harried nurse, using all his will power not to break into a run. Down the hall, several white-clad medic-nins bustled in and out of the room he was headed for. The bloodcurdling screams that had initially drawn him to the ward had stopped, thank God. But he couldn’t decide if the silence was actually worse.
Several medic-nins spotted his determined approach, and they wavered in mid-step, throwing nervous glances at each other. Confused gazes; why was the Yondaime Hokage coming here, of all places, in the midst of such a crucial battle? A plump, brunette doctor bustled toward the door.
“Come on, move yourselves! I need that blood transfusion fast! She’s wind type, which you know is hard to find, so get yourselves moving!” her booming voice hastened the nins to their jobs, though they cast a few more sideways glances at the battle-worn man as they went.
The stout woman suddenly noticed him, and her face set. She knew why he’d come. As he went to enter the room, she barred his way, settling her considerable bulk solidly in the doorway.
“This is her room isn’t it?”
She stared him boldly in the eye. “Yes it is and if you’d like to see some progress,
I’d suggest you get out of the way and let us do our jobs,” then she added a pointed, “Sir.”
“I need to see her.”
Anyone else would have flinched at his ferocious tone. But she was a sturdy woman, one who knew her job and knew how to handle authority. She glanced into the room where a swarm of medics still bustled around.
“I don’t have time to waste arguing. You’ll only get in the way.”
“One more person isn’t going to make a difference in there. I need to see her.”
She frowned fiercely at him, “If you really care about her, you’ll get out of the way and let us do our jobs!”
“I’m not going to let her go through this alone!” his voice was feral.
A long, echoing ‘beeeeeeeeeep’ escaped the room and a flurry of activity and several distressed yells followed. The head nurse looked in, alarmed.
The Hokage's face was livid with rage and terror. “Let me the hell in!”
Glowering, she looked back at her Hokage: dirty and scratched from battle; snarling and dangerous. She looked back in the room.
She turned suddenly. “Fine, sit in that chair!” she pointed hastily to a bedside chair as she rushed back to her duties, “And stay the hell out of our way!”
Without another word, the blond man flew to the seat beside the bedridden object of the doctor’s concern. He sat, and the fight went out of his face immediately. He hadn’t really believed it… he hadn’t really realized until now that he had been in denial. But there it was. Even though he’d been worried, he’d never really believed that the ever-exuberant, loud-mouth tomboy he'd fallen for could be... like this.
At least three doctors crowded around her spread legs and rotated regularly to change their bloody gloves. They were too absorbed in trying to save the woman’s life to wonder what the ragged man was doing there. Her breathing was short, harsh and almost imperceptible. Her face was so contorted beyond her normal carefree grins that she might have been another person. Her long red hair stuck to her pale forehead in sweaty clumps and her only color came from her burning cheeks.
Doctors rushed in and out, the activity meaningless to the blond man who sat with his happiness dying in a hospital bed, trying to push out a child. Minutes passed that weighed like hours. He could do nothing, not even ease the knots in her forehead or wipe the sweat off her face, for his limbs were beyond his use. There was no body without the soul.
Suddenly, from behind her blue lips, a cry started, faltered, and gained strength. The doctors’ frantic and terrified shouts almost drowned her out, but he could hear her pained cry above them all. She let out a short, staccato screech; the doctors lunged, fretted... seconds passed and...
Crying. The unrestrained, high wail of an infant filled the room. The redhead let out another pained shout and convulsed. Several doctors hurried off with a small, loud bundle, but more still crowded around the woman.
“Stop the bleeding!”
“Where’s the transfusion?!”
“She’s rejecting the IV!”
“Stop the bleeding!!”
The blond man could only stare.
Her head jerked suddenly in his direction; not on purpose, just a twitch. An impossibly pained and beaten expression was on her sweaty face. He could feel himself being torn to shreds every second he continued to look, but some other being possessed his hand and placed it on her cheek.
The baby gave a gasp and let out a shuddering cry louder than all the medics’ voices combined. The man glanced in the direction of the noise, as if hearing it for the first time, but not really knowing what it was he heard. In that second, he felt another hand take hold of his. He whipped around, heart racing. The hand had come much faster than he could have believed possible, but its pale grip was weak, much too weak.
“Kushina?”
He leaned forward, glancing frantically from her face to her hand to her spread legs and back to her face.
“Kushina? Kushina, talk to me, baby.”
Her eyelids fluttered, her face lined with terrible pain.
“That won’t help! It has to be from a wind-type or it’ll only make things worse...”
“Kushina…” he could only say her name, and bring his other hand to clench her shaking one.
Her eyelids cracked open. She stared dumbly into the ceiling, her eyes dull and fevered.
“Kushina… please, can you hear me?”
She continued to stare into nothingness. He leaned in closer.
“Please, talk to me baby, please!”
He clutched her hand as if it were his last lifeline. In some ways it was.
“Kushina!”
“Don’t make that face…”
Her eyes had not moved or focused on him, so when the words reached his ears, he thought for a second he’d imagined them. Her face wrenched up in pain, she gasped and turned her head, and her tired eyes finally roved to his face.
“Kushina…”
“I sa... I said stop it,” her words were halted and quiet, but still hers. An echo of her independent, boisterous swagger, “With that face... I might think... you think I’m in trouble.”
With a struggle apparently equal to that of scaling Everest, she smiled.
The look he returned could not really be called a smile by any definition; it was too full of heartbreak, “Can’t be too bad, if you’re talking like that...”
“Nope... I’ll... be up to k-ick your ass again in a f-few days.”
The redhead’s eyes wandered the room, her smile not surviving the grimaces of pain as the medics worked.
“The chakra transfusion-”
“We can’t do it!”
“Damn it, we’ll loose her if we don’t get her blood now!”
She groaned and doubled up in agony. Her lover leaned in further, squeezing her hand in comfort.
“The village...” she let the words out in a gasp, trying to breathe through the agony. ‘What’s... happening?”
The young Hokage faltered. His eyes wavered. He bit the inside of his lip.
“Kyuubi... what’s happened... with K-Kyuubi?” she tried to look at him again, but she couldn’t get her head turned all the way.
He finally controlled his expression, “Nothing good. It’s been breaking through all our defenses. We... can’t seem to stop it.”
The infant let out another earsplitting cry, but she missed it in another convulsion of pain. Tears welled in her eyes and the medics’ shouting increased.
“So w-we’re losing...” she panted, her hand shaking in his.
With a Herculean effort, she turned to look into his face, “Do you have a plan?”
He couldn’t look her in the eyes. He wet his lips, but it didn’t coax the right words out. The redhead stared at him, trying to decipher his expression.
“We can’t find any, not anywhere.”
“We can’t operate if we can’t get her blood!”
“It’s a boy...”
“I could seal it,” the blond Hokage finally said, still unable to meet the woman’s eyes, “I’m sure I could seal it in someone else...
The woman shuddered again, trying to ignore the agony.
“Som-someone... else?”
“It’s too strong for just me. If I tried to seal it within myself, it would only kill me and break free. The seal would be much stronger if it went through me first. If I divided the Kyuubi’s power, only gave the other person half Kyuubi’s chakra...” he glanced at the young woman again, but couldn’t hold her gaze.
“You need a... a v-volunteer.”
The man hesitated, then nodded slightly.
“A...” he swallowed, then looked into her sallow face, “A very young volunteer. A child.”
The redhead frowned, and then something like comprehension dawned in her eyes. She laid back, her face torn between pain and contemplation.
“A child would be able to handle the changes in its chakra channels... it should be able to adapt to support the Kyuubi and... and survive...”
“H-half the Kyuubi... sealed... in you...”
He hesitated, and then squeezed her hand.
“Yes. In me.”
“It’ll kill you.”
The Hokage could only stare. She shot him a fevered, agonized glance, hoping to be proven wrong, but he could afford her no words.
“Minato... I... I want to see him.”
The blond blinked, then looked pass the frantic group of medic-nins to the source of the crying, as if just realizing what the noise really was.
He leaned back and caught the eye of a young male medic nin in the corner, who was wrapping a small, crying bundle. The medic stared back, confused. Then he caught the quick glare of the head medic. Finally understanding the silent request, his lips parted in surprise. His eyes bounced from the baby to his Hokage and back. Looking at the blond with surprise, uncertainty and awe, he walked unsteadily forward, holding the bundle to his chest. He handed it reverently to the blond man and smiled.
“It’s a boy, sir.” They’d already known he would be
The young Hokage gazed at the tiny face, red from its recent birth. The infant-already named, though, he didn’t know it-wriggled in the white blanket, taking in small sucks of air and whimpering.
“Minato...”
He glanced at the woman he loved, then leaned forward, tilting the newborn’s face toward hers.
Through a haze of pain miles deep, she smiled. She raised a hand to the boy’s tiny face, but couldn’t make it all the way.
“He’s... beautiful...”
The Hokage’s face could only suggest a smile. His throat seemed to have closed up.
“Naruto...” She gave up trying to reach him, and settled for her giving him her warmest smile, “Such a good name. Jiraiya... will be proud... my little Naruto.”
The man bit his lip, and stared again at the baby-his son. Suddenly the woman screamed.
“Shit! It’s not working!”
“Where’s the transfusion?!”
“Kushina!” The young man again leaned over her, “Kushina, stay with me!”
Panting heavily, she managed to open her empty eyes.
“Do... do what you have to do... Minato. Save the village.”
She looked into his eyes, her hand jerking in what might have been a comforting squeeze. “He’ll b-be a hero.”
The Head Nurse had seen grown men brought to tears in her hospital before, but it was much more unsettling when it was her Hokage, the strongest ninja in her village, the unbreakable warrior.
He managed to compose himself, and let no other tears fall after the first.
“He’ll survive the process. I swear to you. I may not, but Naruto will. And he’ll be a hero. And you’ll be one too, the woman whose son saved the entire village.”
She grunted in what might have been understanding, her face twisted. He grabbed her hand again, clutching the boy to his chest.
“Min-nato...” she spoke through heavy panting.
“It won’t stop!”
“Damn it, we’re going to loose her!”
“S-save your village...” her lidded, feverish eyes no longer saw him, and he gripped her hand harder to affirm his presence.
“Kushina...”
“Tell... Nar-uto that... I love... him.”
There may have been words after that, but he could not hear them.
“Kushina...” his eyes were beyond his control, “I love you. I love you too...”
With the faintest upturn of her lips, she looked at him for the last time. Then the light went out of her eyes and her hand went limp.
With small curses and the continuous beep of the heart monitor, the noise of the medics petered out. But the young Hokage didn’t hear them anymore. He held her hand still tighter as the heat slowly left it.
“I’m calling it...”
He bowed his head, bangs effectively hiding his face, but not his heaving shoulders.
“Time of death... 10:56.”
The medics could only wash their hands and try to avoid looking at their broken leader, afraid to intrude on his grief. Seconds passed. Minutes. The Head Nin simply sat in her chair across the room, rubbing her temples.
Outside an explosion rumbled in the distance. The doctors started and looked towards the windows then back to their Hokage, unsure. More minutes passed.
“The battle’s still on.”
The Head Nin’s voice was amplified by the silence and all the doctors looked at her in surprise. Her chin rested in her folded hands.
“There’s something she wanted you to do, isn’t there?”
At first, the blond, battle-worn young man made no sign that he’d even heard. Then, he slowly lowered the young woman’s hand to her chest. He folded her hands together. With shaking fingers, he gently slid her lids over her glassy eyes. He brushed the hair from her face. With a last caress of her cold cheek he stood, the weight of a much older person on his shoulders as he cradled his newborn son. He passed through the room, his face red and streaked with tears, but with a look of such purpose and determination in his eyes that the medics remembered he was their leader, their Hokage, and the strongest ninja in the village. He marched through the halls of the hospital, his son in his arms, beyond the reach of the medical-nins who had yet to check the baby for disease, determine his blood type or have the father sign the birth certificate.
There was something the woman he’d loved had told him to do first. He had a duty to his village. And as he nestled the boy-his Naruto-close to him, the Yondaime Hokage only hoped his son would understand.
Looking at you leaving, I'm looking for a sign
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Song: 'The Hill', by Marketa Irglova