I own nothing.
I split the world in two looking for you, you know. Nothing could have kept me from finding you, from bringing you home. You always said that Uzushiogakure would always be your home even if it was gone the way of the dinosaurs, but I was going to bring you back home to Konoha. Even after everyone said you were lost and I should just stop searching, I didn't.
I, Namikaze Minato, I was a man in pain, a desperate man, and I knew above everything that I was going to be the one who brought you, Uzumaki Kushina, home.
To this day I don't know how they got you; I suspect I never will, and that plagues me more than anything. Iwa nin are fast and strong, I suppose, and you were worn out after being sent into battle after battle right on top of each other without rest. Konoha used you poorly and didn't even give you time to catch your breath—all because you could handle it. We sacrifice our own too quickly; we ought to find ways to save their lives instead.
I don't know how your captors found out you were the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki either. Given what I know about you Kushina, I can only assume you let it slip or screamed it at them, trying to intimidate them.
Well, it didn't intimidate them at all; this is obvious.
Your hair… It spreads out like a sea of drying blood, so long, so much of it. I remember; I loved this hair even when everyone else mocked you for its color. Your hair was always warm and soft; it crackled when you were angry and laid flat against your head when you were sad or frightened. I'm not sure if you noticed, Kushina, but it had this odd sort of light to it, like every strand was imbued with the sun. When I found out I thought it had something to do with what you held inside of you.
Where has all that light gone? It's like embers cast into the wind; they glow for a little while, but all too soon they splutter and die. I try to grasp at them and they're so cool they don't even burn me.
When I find you you're on your side, hair shrouding your face like some desert princess of old (There is nothing you hate more than the dry, barren heat of the desert; so lacking in life, you say with a toss of the chin and a flip of your practically glowing hair). I turn you over ("Kushina? Kushina?") and your face is so cold and pale that touching it is like burning my hand on ice.
Hearts stop and flutter. I lick my dry lips, and you would be so proud of me Kushina, I don't even scream. I don't cry, I don't beg, I don't whimper. I let silence fill me up from head to toe. You always said silence was the only way to achieve power; well now I have power over my own fear of death, I guess.
Two months later, I hear the reports: the new jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune is a seven-year-old Iwagakure kunoichi with hair so fair it nearly looks white and the bluest eyes you will ever see. I've seen those eyes; they're like forest pools iced over with the frost of winter. They're so unlike yours (violet-gray, moors at sunset, mysterious and enthralling) that this girl might as well be a different species from you entirely.
I was going to bring you back, Kushina; really, I was. You have to believe me; I was going to find you, save you even if you insisted you could save yourself, and bring you back to the place you ought to have called home years ago.
My timing was just off, I guess. I know you understand.