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theunrealinsomniac · 7 years

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Prompt 15,16,45 & 47 :D

Holy shit lol, okay, I’m gonna do these as separate little drabbles cus … well cus i can lol. I’m assuming these are all NaruSaku so …

15 - Don’t die on me - Please

Naruto spat blood onto the ground near him, some of it covering his raw and ruined shoulder. That final attack had come at far more of a cost than he’d expected. Or knew how to deal with.

Sasuke knelt by his friend’s side and tried to hide the dread in his chest as he looked at what used to be Naruto’s jounin vest, the left side of it torn away like some kind of monstrous hand had ripped at him.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Naruto bubbled, the blood filling his mouth from his position on the floor. ‘Tell me you got that snake bastard.’

The last Uchiha’s Sharingan flared, the ebbing flow of chakra around them suddenly visible again. He nodded once. The foul chakra that had belonged to Orochimaru long since extinguished.

The two halves of Sasuke’s old … sensei didn’t sound right and he’d die before calling the repulsive serpent master. Regardless, Orochimaru’s body lay in pieces from the joint attack, his final act of defiance being to drive a fang into Naruto’s heart as a serptine arm had launched out towards the blond.

‘Don’t move.’ Sasuke kept a firm grip of Naruto’s shoulder, trying his best not to excaberate the wound. And failing.

Naruto hissed. ‘Is he dead?’

Sasuke nodded again. ‘And so will you be if you aren’t still. Sakura is on her way.’

As if saying her name summoned her, Sakura dropped into the ravine they had fallen into and landed hard on the side of the small creek. ‘Naruto!’

Naruto coughed as he collapsed onto his back, too fast for even Sasuke to reach down and ease him down.

‘Sasuke move!’ A pink blur all but threw Sasuke out of the way as he was summarily dismissed by the third member of their team. ‘Stupid man, why didn’t you wait for back up?! Why do you never wait for backup?’

‘Sorry Sakura-chan,’ Naruto forced out. ‘Got the bastard though didn’t we Teme?’

‘They’ll throw you a parade when we get home,’ Sakura hissed sarcastically as soft green chakra glow covered her hands and she ran them over his prone form. ‘Okay, nothing broken, Kurama’s already started to heal what he can … but that poison … Sasuke, come over here, I need you to brace him.’

Sasuke moved, his hands on Naruto’s shoulders, keeping the stupid idiot still as those sharp blue eyes zeroed in on Sakura.

‘Okay Naruto,’ Sakura started, positioning her grip better around the large fang before looking him dead in the eyes. ‘This is gonna hurt and if I can’t get the poison out … just don’t die on me. Please,’ she finished, her voice catching on the final last word.

Naruto just nodded, his gaze never leaving Sakura.

The noise that came out of the blond was agonising as Sakura slowly eased the fang out of him. Sasuke had never heard him scream like that and it was all he could do to not look away.

Once it was out, flung away so hard it embedded in the ground at the end of Sakura’s ever impressive throwing arm, the pinkette went to her task, her fingers going to the gaping wound in Naruto’s chest, eeking out the poison in globs and it was at that point that Naruto had started shaking.

Sakura had the poison out and Naruto’s wound started to heal with the combined help of Kurama and good old fashioned medic-nin jutsu.

The blond fell asleep with a touch of Sakura’s chakra as she bandaged him up, the whole process being more or less pointless as the Kyuubi would have him healed up in minutes.

‘I know the idiot has already apologised Sakura,’ Sasuke muttered so only she could hear. The dozing moron’s head resting on Sakura’s lap after all. ‘But I am sorry we didn’t wait for you.’

‘It’s fine,’ Sakura said, her eyes glued to the rising and falling of Naruto’s chest. ‘It’s just lucky you caught up to him before he found Orochimaru and tried to take him on alone. I know he’s strong enough to crush that monster in a straight up fight … but he’s never exactly been the tactician he needs to be to take out someone as crafty as that.’

‘Good thing he has us to pick up his slack in that regard,’ Sasuke said.

Sakura didn’t appear to hear him though, her fingers playing idly with the ends of his fringe.

‘Stupid moron,’ Sakura murmured at long last, her hand resting over his heart. ‘Stupid, brave moron.’

Yes, Sasuke had to agree.

16 - I never meant to hurt you

Naruto let the keys fall onto the counter as he stumbled into the empty house. Too empty.

The shopping, left on the counter from when Mubeki had stormed out the house last night, still hadn’t been packed away.

He guessed she hadn’t come back before …

That was fine, just meant he had something to do when he allowed himself to stop and think for a minute. He gave it a cursory sniff to make sure there wasn’t anything off.

Eyeing the newspaper next to them, reading the headline Two dead as Konoha Hospital is latest target of Oto terrorists!

Turning the newspaper over, he draped his coat over his chair at the breakfast island and slumped down into the sofa.

His hands went to his face, scraping down with the heels of his hands and tried to will away the dagger sharp tears in the corners of his eyes. How could this happen?

How could she have left him?

The question rattled around his head for the twentieth time since he’d started walking home from the hospital.

It was unfair, the question, he shouldn’t ask it. Sakura didn’t leave him because she wanted to. She didn’t have a choice.

He clicked the answerphone message button on the home phone and waited through the autotone woman’s voice, that Sakura had always hated, telling him he had two new messages and one saved one.

First message - from Tsunade on Tuesday twentieth of October at eight-seventeen pm. ‘Hi Naruto, I’m just letting you know that I’m still okay to look after the kids for another week if you need it. Though they keep asking where Daddy is, it might be a good idea to pop round tomorrow, if you can manage it. I understand it’s still hard but you know Sakura wouldn’t want this. Anyway, call me. I’m worried about you.’

Naruto leant over, pressing the delete button and grit his teeth against the sob that was coming.

Second message - from Dr Aburame on Tuesday twentieth of October at six-thirty-six pm. ‘Hello Mr Uzumaki. I was just calling to remind you about your wife’s insurance forms. I hate to push but you need to sign them and return them soon. The longer you leave it the worse it will get. I can have them to the hospital lawyers and HR quickly and this nightmare can start to end. Please look after yourself Mr Uzumaki, Dr Uzumaki would not want you to dwell on what can not be changed. Hopefully I shall see you soon.’

Another quick delete and Naruto felt himself tense before the saved message was even played. The saved message beeped in and Naruto closed his eyes.

First saved message - from Sakura on Sunday twenty-first of September at nine-fifty-two pm. ‘HI babe, I tried your cell but you weren’t answering. I don’t know if you were in work or out but … well I thought best to leave a message on our machine just in case. I … just wanted to say, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all those horrible things I said, I know you love me I never should have said you didn’t anymore just to get a rise. That was cruel of me and if I could take it back I would in a heartbeat. I didn’t mean to hurt you I was just so angry and scared … let’s just forget it all happened and start fresh. If that’s what you want. It’s what I want. Please call me back when you get this. I’m going to start my rounds in an hour but I’ll be free by the time you get out of work. I love you Naruto, I always will.’

The tears fell hard as he clung to the phone, pressing the replay button as he curled into a ball around it and listened to the last call Sakura had ever made to him over and over again.

45 - Do you trust me?

Sakura was having a weird day.

No seriously, it was just flat out weird. It had started weird, it had continued to be weird and she was pretty sure it was going to end weird.

When she’d come through to her kitchen in her student apartment, it was clean. Which while not unwelcome and honestly not even that much of a problem normally … there was always a certain level of clutter on the counter.

A chopping board or a plate left on the side and not the sink. Something. But today? It was so spotless you’d have thought they had a professional cleaner who had come in while they’d all slept and left with nothing but the scent of lemon pledge.

Maybe the boys hadn’t been back yet and so Ino had slipped out and ransacked the kitchen with cleaning supplies? She liked having Naruto and Kiba living with them, it left their apartment always quite alive with fun and laughter … and the fact that both men had a tendency to lose their shirts and were in the sort of shape that made grown women drool … she assumed, she of course would never allow herself to be so crude.

Though she had to throw a tshirt at Naruto once because he seemed to not get that he had to wear clothes when she was around.

She was actually kind of annoyed with herself for that. She was a medical student, she’d seen more naked men and women than the rest of her housemates combined … but there was just something about Naruto in nothing but his pyjama bottoms that made her all gooey. Sure he was cute but she couldn’t be that attracted to him could she?

So yes, the kitchen was clean, that was weird. Her classes had gone rather mundane though. Except for Shizune, the assistant of Tsunade’s anatomy class let her pet teacup pig loose and it had put nearly all the girls in the room torn between listening to the lecturer and fawning over the cute piggie.

Then for some reason she’d allowed herself to be dragged out to a house party. Which was where the weirdness continued.

‘Sakura!’ Ino hissed as she pulled the woman aside as she entered after a man with bright blue hair and a shark tattoo on his neck. ‘You gotta see this!’

Sakura was pulled through to the backyard and found something that she wasn’t quite sure how to process.

Naruto and Kiba, shirtless again for Kami’s sake, were doing shots in the middle of a large semi circle. It was a competition of some sorts which … well to be honest wasn’t too much of a surprise.

What was surprising though … was that after the shot they both did Kiba managed to one up Naruto, if that’s what you wanted to call it, by sticking his tongue down the unsuspecting throat of a nearby girl with lavender hair and almost supernaturally pale eyes, who’s cheeks burst into pink fires as she slowly came back to Earth to hold onto Kiba.

Who was grinning winningly at the woman before smugly staring Naruto down. As if daring him to match him. Which he obviously would, there were tons of gorgeous and willing women gathered around as if they’d known this was coming.

So the weirdness intensified when Naruto turned, sweaty and shirtless and filled with surety and intensity that sent sparks up her spine when their eyes connected.

He was in front of her before she was aware what was happening and his words were muttered much softer than she’d ever expected.

‘Do you trust me Sakura?’

She nodded. Did that mean he was going to … oh Kami, she could feel her cheeks burning way before his hands cupped her cheeks and soft lips captured hers in a much more delicate kiss than the one Kiba had given the woman who was still trying to remember her name.

Fire, not electricity, burned somewhere below her navel and Sakura leaned into Naruto, her mouth opening readily as the kiss deepened as his hands went from her face to her hair, to the small of her back as he pulled her in and she almost crumpled against him when the kiss broke.

‘Ha! Nowhere near as intense as our kiss Naruto! You lose!’

Sakura wanted to argue that that had been way more intense and she was about to try and pull away when Naruto captured her attention all over again with two simple words/

‘Worth it,’ he murmured before kissing her again, his arms going around her as she returned the kiss with as much fire as she could drag away from her belly.

Like she said. Weird day.

47 - You’re cute when you’re angry

Naruto had really done it this time.

A vein was popping in Sakura’s head. He could see it, it was so obvious he was sure the children he would now never have could probably see it.

‘Do you have anything to say before I knock your block off Naruto?’ Sakura growled, water from the lake he had cannonballed in to right by her … he’d only wanted to say hi instead of shout it!

Okay, he could do this! He could stop his teammate from decking him halfway across the training fields. She’d understand he’d just been excited to see her, yeah, they’d spent so little time together recently during the peace after the war had ended. Between her time at the hospital and his time being groomed for the Hokage chair by Kakashi and Tsunade … well it had been a while.

‘I’m waiting Naruto,’ Sakura snarled as she started stomping over to him, trying to shake the last droplets of water of her gloved fists, the water having made her long pink hair slick against her head like she’d just gotten out of the shower. Water making her already lovely skin glisten in the summer sun.

She looked divine and he wouldn’t even pretend she didn’t. Actually … it gave him what would hopefully be his ticket out of a walloping.

‘Erm … you look cute when you’re angry?’

He held up his hands, Sakura pausing mere centimetres from him when he’d shouted out his lacklustre defence.

Once he’d noticed he wasn’t faceplanting the nearest wall, he dared to crack open an eye as Sakura was stood, crossing her arms in a huff, the summer sun making her cheeks red as she looked away from him and frowned.

‘Just don’t do it again you moron.’

‘Course,’ Naruto said tentatively. ‘Are you okay Sakura? Your face is red, maybe you should could stand under the shade of the waterfall? Help you cool off? It’s actually why I’m even here, it was so hot after training I had to get out of my smelly clothes and go for a dip.’

Sakura’s eyes ran over him and she glanced away, her face getting a little redder. ‘No I’m fine, I ‘ll just take a cold shower when I get home. A really cold shower, yeah, that will do it. Bye Naruto.’

And with that Sakura turned around and walked away. Having not kicked his ass.

Which he counted as a win, before he went back to the waterfall and let the cool water wash over him.

He hoped Sakura wasn’t coming down with sunstroke, she had looked really red when she was leaving.

#narusaku #narusaku fanfiction #make the writer write #writing prompts #Naruto Uzumaki #sakura haruno #ask theunrealinsomniac #thanks for asking!#long as fuck post lol

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raendown · 6 years

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@letliv3 Part 3!

Pairing: none Word count: 3465 Summary: A coup hidden in the shadows for decades, a scroll with a seal he didn't mean to activate; Naruto finds himself whisked away from Konoha to a destination unknown and meets a little girl who appears to be - his mom?

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

Chapter 3

Kushina’s teacher in the sealing and shinobi arts was Shizuko herself. According to her no one had ever explained why she was given the honor of studying with the most skilled member of their clan but then, Kushina was pretty young, she’d probably never really thought to ask before.

Once it became clear that Naruto was unable to pay any attention to his own studies when separated from Kushina for large portions of every day, Shizuko very reluctantly agreed to take him on as a student as well. Theirs was a student/teacher relationship devoid of any respect on either side and it was hard to say who set the worse example for Kushina when it came to their childish little spats.

Surprisingly, however, Naruto was actually picking things up a lot faster than he’d thought he might. It took over a week before Shizuko thought to ask him what his personal learning style was, begrudgingly of course, but she did make an effort to change her teaching style to accommodate him, which he was forced to appreciate, also begrudgingly. Things went a lot smoother after she stopped trying to force him to memorize the theory behind everything. He didn’t care why it worked or how, just that it did work in the end.

He did concede to leaving at least one clone behind each day to read through one of the endless instructional tomes kept within the Hidden Library of Uzushio. Just being allowed inside was a big deal apparently but it was an honor he wished had never been bestowed upon him. Reading was boring.

Training, on the other hand, was as much fun as it had always been. Even more so now that he got to train with his own mother. Kushina threw herself in to every new task with the same enthusiasm he remembered having when he was that age. When she fell she stood back up. When she failed she tried again. When she bled she bandaged the wound and wiped her own tears. She was so strong already and watching her made his chest feel tight with emotions he couldn’t properly unravel. Was it strange that he wanted this little girl to never grow up? If she didn’t grew up then he would never be born, he knew that, but there were short moments as he watched her smile when he thought that it kind of sounded like a fair trade.

If she never grew up then she would never go through the things he knew lay in her future.

Still, he had lots of time to work through these strange, conflicting feelings. It had been a month since he had fallen back through the past and he was still only barely at a novice level despite throwing himself almost entirely into learning fūinjutsu. Nearly every waking hour was spent in some sort of training. Even in his off hours when he followed Kushina around the rain-drenched forests, letting her show him every last corner of the island, he still left clones tucked in to random places to continue their attempts at drawing the correct bases or memorizing which combination of kanji would results in different kinds of effects.

He couldn’t do very much with it yet but the non-stop study had quickly paid off in small ways. Kushina pouted when she realized that he had outstripped her already in under a month and it took three piggy back rides before she magnanimously forgave him. Now it seemed as though her competitive spirit had been awakened and she insisted on training just as hard as him.

Of course, she couldn’t produce any clones so her efforts weren’t half as effective as his, but neither he nor their stern-faced teacher saw fit to mention that to her. Kushina forged on with her cute face full of determination and Naruto did his best to hide the welling tears every time he looked at her and saw himself.

Today was supposed to be a rest day. In fact, it was a festival day celebrating the founding of their hidden village and the incredible woman who had first led their people here. Uzushio, apparently, had always been a matriarchy. Naruto thought that was pretty cool; he thought Sakura would have loved it here. Most of the citizens had left their homes and made their way down to the beaches for the traditional celebration in which they would reenact their ancestors coming ashore for the first time.

Although he was attending the celebration just the same as everyone else, happily seated with Kushina under the noontime clouds and listening to her half-gibberish account of the history behind the festival, a strange kind of restlessness stopped Naruto from being able to sink in to the festivities as he normally would. Something foreboding seemed to hang in the air and it left him feeling antsy enough that he sent out a clone not for training but simply to walk the borders of the village for his own peace of mind. Knowing that a copy of himself was making the rounds even though there wasn’t anything to watch out for gave him enough peace of mind to relax, throwing an arm over Kushina’s shoulders and tucking her up against his side.

Neither of them paid quite as much attention to the reenactment as they were supposed to, choosing instead to tucks their heads close together and make each other giggle with silly comments. Kushina laughed at how funny some of the elders looked trying to struggle against the waves while Naruto egged her on by pointing out the young man who had just tripped over his own feet and fallen face down in to the sand.

People around them sent them reprimanding looks layered in hidden amusement, like an entire village of parents telling their children to behave better whilst trying not to laugh themselves. Naruto and Kushina ignored all of them.

Many of the elders were still in the water, slowly making their way towards shore as a representation of the last people to immigrate to the Land of Whirlpools, when Naruto felt his clone release and return its memories to him. He relived the experience of aimless wandering and the decision to calm himself by meditating in sage mode. Then his eyes shot open as he remembered the sensation of dozens upon dozens of hostile chakra signatures bearing down upon them from the opposite side of the island.

“Naruto-kun? Where are you going?” Kushina asked when he jerked to his feet.

“Stay here,” he barked.

Loose sand sprayed up from under his feet as he flew down the sloping beach toward Shizuko, ankle deep in the water to welcome her ‘new citizens.’ Some of the people he ran by chuckled and called to him that he was running in the wrong direction and he couldn’t help but think that they were right. Shizuko lifted a brow at him in question as he hurled himself around in front of her.

“You are disturbing–”

“There’s someone coming! Nearly a hundred chakra signatures coming this way from the other side of the island!” He blurted his words right over top of hers, unable to even enjoy the way her regal detachment slid away with the widening of her eyes.

“How do you know?” she demanded.

“Sage mode. No time! They’re already almost here!”

Without waiting for her to react, Naruto turned and bolted in the opposite direction. Kushina caught his gaze as he pushed off the ground with a burst of chakra, launching himself over the heads of the entire gathering, and he saw in her eyes that she knew something was wrong. He could only pray that she would stay out of trouble with the rest of the young ones.

Behind him he could hear Shizuko’s voice rising above the crowd but he was already too far away to hear what it was she was saying. Time was precious. It had already been a few minutes since his clone sensed the approaching army – because it could only be an aggressive force who would appear in such numbers – and the island was but a small thing. He wondered if they had known of the festival Uzushio would be holding today. Had they planned this, to attack when all of the villagers would have their guards lowered? Cowards.

The clone’s memories had told him how many there were but not how strong or who they could be. Still, he’d gone up against worse odds before and come out alive on the other side. Naruto didn’t bother to slow his steps but plowed onwards towards the direction he’d felt the intruders coming from. Jumping right in to the thick of things was kind of his signature move, after all.

As soon as he spotted the first stranger, obvious without the distinctive red hair, Naruto did what he did best. Punch first and ask questions later. Right away he had three more trying to get the jump on him, all from different angles. A well-aimed kick rendered the first unconscious before he left behind a pair of clones to take care of the other two and hurried onward with even more worry settling in his gut. Those men had all been wearing distinctive headbands which could only lead him to one conclusion.

Kiri had come.

Naruto might not have paid enough attention in school to remember the details but he did know that Kiri was behind the destruction of his mother’s home village and the failure to come to their aid was one of Konoha’s deepest shames, even to this day. With his brows knitting together, he scowled in determination. Kiri had won last time because the citizens hadn’t expected their attack, dead almost before they knew something was amiss, but not this time. This time he was here to defend them. And he wasn’t about to let anything happen to one happy little girl who had given him her smile and indomitable will. His mother would have the childhood she deserved if he had to punch every last one of these bastards in the face himself.

Once he’d made that silent vow, of course, that was when he ran in to the main force instead of just the scouts. Close to four score Kiri soldiers all paused in unison as their silent approach was interrupted by once very angry looking man with messy blond hair and no obvious weapons. If he were back in his own time these idiots might have turned and run on first sight; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d avoided a fight by reputation alone. But right now he was decades before the time of his own birth and these men knew absolutely nothing about him – to their detriment. Naruto let his scowl rapidly fade in to an excited grin. It had been a long time since he’d had a chance to really let loose.

“Sneaking around in the woods, eh?” Some of the gathered shinobi twitched at being addressed so openly.

“It’s just one idiot,” he heard someone grumble. “And he doesn’t even look like an Uzumaki. Someone cut him down and let’s keep moving.”

“First mistake,” Naruto smirked.

It took a single hand sign to create enough clones to hem in the entire group before him. Very likely there were others out there who he’d missed but the villagers had been warned and they could deal with any stragglers. Hell, they could have dealt with this entire group by themselves provided enough warning but Naruto wasn’t exactly the type to sit back and watch other people do all the dirty work.

His clones moved in without hesitation, needing no prompting, and the original Naruto leaping to action at the same time. After spending so much time behind a desk doing nothing but paperwork followed by a month of little else but what amounted to paper training, it felt amazing to do something truly physical for a change. Naruto didn’t bother to hold back his wild whoop of satisfaction as he crashed his fist in to some Kiri shinobi’s nose, enjoying the crunch of broken bone before whirling and slamming his heel in to someone else’s sternum.

Four more went down before he realized the minor mistake he’d made. With his clones as spaced out as they were he’d left himself vulnerable to getting overwhelmed by sheer enemy numbers. He could have made more clones but there was little enough space as it was and he’d risk any of their attacks hitting himself.

Which left him with one option – the fun one. Something of his excitement must have shown on his face as the woman facing him at the moment hesitated briefly before rallying and lunging towards him with her naginata. Between dodging to one side and slapping her blade away Naruto reached deep inside himself to where he could feel Kurama shifting restlessly, receiving the chakra already welling up in preparation. The next instant his entire body was limned in golden flame, his awareness of the world increased, and the expressions on the faces of those who could see him filled with terrified awe.

“Come and get it, dattebayo!”

Fighting was so much easier when he could make extra limbs as needed. Punching in four directions at once always tended to put his enemies off for some reason and Naruto shamelessly used their confusion against them. He didn’t really have any solid plan other than to hope that at least most of them would be forced to stay here and face him, thereby minimizing the possible damage to the village. Whether or not it was stupid to jump in without a plan it seemed to be working at least, as he could tell from the occasional influx of memories whenever one of his clones was taken down. He absorbed and compartmentalized their memories like always while keeping most of his focus on the fight in front of his real self.

Maybe a quarter of the Kiri shinobi were groaning on the ground or unconscious by the time reinforcements arrived from Uzushio. Naruto spun the man currently in his grip a full 360 degrees before heaving him back in to the chaos, his little twirl having given himself a chance to see how many had arrived to fight. At least a dozen had come, which in his opinion was more than enough. The Uzumaki clan was bad ass.

They were not, however, the greatest babysitters in the world, apparently. With a woman four inches taller than him taking up most of his concentration, Naruto wasn’t sure what it was that made him look to the side but he was grateful for whatever instinct it was. He wasn’t fast enough to stop Kushina, hidden away high up in a tree, from tossing the kunai she must have lifted off one of her elders, but he was at least fast enough to intercept the brute who spotted her and moved to retaliate. Protective rage encompassed him so fast that Naruto barely even noticed that he was now encased in his Kyuubi form until massive spectral jaws clamped down on the man he had in his sights, crushing him and tearing him bodily in half all in a single blow.

Kushina gave a little squeak of surprise when he pulled her off her branch and in to his arms. Floating within the shape of Kurama’s head, Naruto held her close to his chest even as he turned the great beast keeping them safe and reached out with Kurama’s arms to thrash the bodies around them – being careful not to hit anyone with red hair, of course.

Yet, as violent and protective as he was feeling, it was nothing compared to the savagery going on below. It was difficult to see where flowing red hair ended and sticky red blood began. Screams filled the air as the shinobi of Uzushio rose up to defend their homes, showing no mercy to the ones who had come to destroy them. Naruto did his best to shield Kushina’s eyes even as he knew the futility of his own actions. Someday this little girl would grow up to become a fearsome shinobi with the power to level entire battlefields just as he did, whether by her own strength or by borrowing from the beast she would carry within her. He didn’t think anyone would blame him for trying to put that off for as long as possible, although Kushina herself was making it a bit difficult with the way she kept trying to peek around the fingers blocking her view.

The rest of the battle wasn’t really much of a ‘battle’, per se. It would have been more appropriate to call it a slaughter. Considering what Naruto knew of history and what the Kiri forces’ intentions, he couldn’t find it in himself to dredge up more than a small pool of regret. Ending a human life should never be done lightly – his own style usually relied heavily on incapacitating rather than killing – but these soldiers had come to wipe out an entire village, an entire people. They kind of brought it on themselves.

As the massive front paws of his Kyuubi form pressed another Kiri shinobi in to the earth, Naruto glanced around to judge the situation. Most of the fighting had been pressed back, moving in the opposite direction from the village, leaving only a handful in the wooded area near him, each of them engaged and being pressed hard by furious Uzumaki. It seemed like his clan mates had everything under control, enough so that he felt safe releasing Kurama’s chakra and dropping lightly to the ground, catching Kushina as she fell with him. He rolled his eyes as she immediately began to squirm and held her tighter.

“I could have helped, ‘ttebane!”

“No,” he told her gently as he pulled her towards home. “The great thing about having a family and a village is being able to keep living your childhood for as long as possible. Can you understand that Kushina-chan?”

“That’s just grown-up talk for calling me too young! I’m not too young! I’m strong!”

Coming to a stop in an empty clearing, Naruto finally released the little girl who would someday grow up to be his mother, spinning her around and kneeling down to take both of her hands in his own.

“Yes, you are,” he said sharply. “You are strong, that’s too true too, but you are definitely too young; too young for me to lose you. I was too young to lose you. Ugh, this is all so messed up!” Naruto shook his head, trying to force his thoughts in to some semblance or coherency. “Look, I know you’re only six and it doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me, I get that it’s hard to wrap your head around, but you’re my mom and I’ve had to live my entire life without you. And it sucked, okay? It really sucked. But now I have this really amazing chance to get to know you for the first time so if I see you in danger I’m gonna pull you out, I’m gonna protect you. Because we’re family and family take care of each other, ‘ttebayo!”

Kushina stared at him for a long time with her blue eyes stretched wide in shock. Her lower lip wobbled once, twice, and then Naruto was waving his hands around anxiously as tears began to fall from her eyes.

“Hey, hey! What’s with the tears!? I didn’t want you to cry!”

“Family, huh?” she murmured quietly.

“Well, yeah. Of course!”

“Okay. I guess it’s alright for you to protect me if we’re family. But I’m still really strong!”

Naruto offered her his biggest smile. “The strongest,” he agreed.

She mirrored his smile back at him and he marveled yet again at seeing so much of himself in someone else. It was so similar and yet so different from looking at his own children, his mind never able to quite let go of the fact that he would be born of this girl rather than the other way around.

When he could see her finally growing restless under his dopey grin, Naruto allowed the moment between them to break. Instead he rose to his feet and swung Kushina up on to his back while laughing at her squeals of surprise. There were no more protests as he set off once more to make sure there were no issues defending the villages from any Kiri soldiers who might have made it past him.

And if Kushina held her arms around his neck just a little bit tighter than usual, neither of them saw fit to mention it.

#rae writes #naruto #kushina #fanfiction #naruto shippuden

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