WARNING
WARNING
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT
IF YOU HAVE NOT READ CHAPTER 367, READ NO FURTHER
Thank you. I just wanted to warn people so they didn't try to kill me for spoiling it for them. (One of my new favorite ships by the way.)
The redhead stared at her husband with eyes shiny and brimming with unshed tears, mouth agape. "Minato...you just..."
The blond young man lowered his blue eyes regretfully, his insides feeling like they were being torn apart. "I said that the Kyu–."
"I heard what you said!" The woman shouted suddenly, making the Fourth Hokage flinch and look up into her pained eyes.
"Kushina..." his face contorted into that of someone going through unimaginable pain. "Please. You'll wake him..." he said, almost barely audible.
She clutched her newborn–and currently sleeping–son close and started sobbing. "Why? Minato...why Naruto?"
Namikaze Minato lowered his head and didn't answer.
He listened quietly to the rain falling outside his home and the sound of his weeping wife.
"I'll lose both of you..." Kushina murmured finally and Yondaime watched his own tears fall from his eyes and drop to the ground.
"I'm sorry."
Kushina's face snapped up from her son and she glared at him through her tears. Her voice shook, as she tried to control it's volume. "Sorry? Sorry?! I love you and you just gave your life to protect this village! Don't you dare apologize to me!"
Minato stared at his son who was almost a mirror image of himself with the same golden spiky hair and playful blue eyes. "Naruto is who I'm apologizing to, Kushina."
The mother blinked and looked down sadly at the tiny little boy with the strange markings on his face. He was sleeping so blissfully.
Yondaime felt as if his heart was breaking.
"You told everyone to treat him as a hero, right? Everything should be..." the woman trailed off hopelessly.
"Think of our society..." he muttered and regretted saying out loud instantly when she winced.
The rain fell and the parents could hear the echo of it inside the small, dimly lit room.
Yondaime still soaked from the battle just moments before, suddenly felt his head spinning and collapsed to his knees.
"Minato!" Kushina gasped and made a move to get up but the blonde shook his head vigorously and wobbled over to his family.
"The side effects are..." he could barely hear her she spoke so softly.
He ignored her. "He will be strong."
"Eh?" Kushina allowed herself to ask, turned her tear-stained face to him.
"Naruto," the father said weakly, gazing down at his beautiful son with misty vision. "Naruto will be strong. And become stronger. He'll be able to face the village because he'll be able to make friends."
Mother and Father smiled at each other. "How do you figure that?" She grinned at him despite her tears and her sadness.
Minato brushed a strange of flame red hair away from her face and kissed her on the forehead. He bent his head and kissed Naruto on his cheek. "Because he's our son...our son." A tear fell onto the boy's sleeping face. And another. And another. "And he will become Hokage one day. Uzumaki Naruto."
"Maybe he'll get Kakashi-kun..." Kushina murmured hopefully and Minato laughed as he cried.
The parents shed their tears over their son who was the container for the Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon. Konoha's number one hyperactive, knucklehead ninja.
The future Hokage.