Uzumaki Kushina waited impatiently for the stick to turn, tapping it against the sink to get it to go faster.
She was sure it would come back negative. She was sure.
The only reason she was testing in the first place was because she was late and she'd thrown up three times in two days. It was probably just a bug, but she wanted to be sure.
She and Minato were not trying to get pregnant at the moment. Not that they were opposed to the idea, but there was too much going on right now. Besides, her being a Jinchurriki meant there was a certain risk involved. Minato was still trying to establish himself as Hokage, bringing a child into the matter would complicate things.
Still. She wasn't stupid. The throwing up could be morning sickness, and she was four days late now.
She tapped the stick a little harder, trying to focus on not using any chakra-enhanced strength rather than the outcome of the test.
Just thirty more seconds.
She looked.
One of the bathroom tiles cracked under her feet as her chakra reacted to her emotions.
A child.
Dear kami, she was pregnant.
What was she going to do? She'd just been promoted to ANBU. Pregnant women were not allowed in the corps. They were too valuable to the village. And she'd probably end up taking at least a couple months to recover raise the kid after it was born. So…a full year off, at minimum? How was she going to keep her skills up? What would Minato think about this?
She fought to keep her breathing calm as she placed a hand on her belly. It was flat. There was no evidence of a child.
But it was there. She could feel it with chakra, as energy that normally routed to the seal containing the kyuubi instead fed to a tiny cluster of cells. It was vibrating.
The baby was too early in development to have a nervous system, and much too young to have a chakra network, let alone the coils. Still…everything alive had chakra. And chakra reacted to chakra. She connected hers with the baby's developing system gently, just barely brushing the child.
The answering flare sent her to her knees, right there on the bathroom floor.
Because oh, it was so bright, so innocent, so very beautiful. Her eyes closed and she tried to picture the baby. It was a boy, she was fairly certain. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a happy smile that resembled Minato's and a mischievous grin that reminded Kushina of herself. His face would be like her father's—round through childhood, before narrowing into a strong square jaw as he grew older.
He would be bright, and kind. He would be everything, everything she could ever want in a child. Someone who played pranks, who cleaned up the mess afterword, and who viewed respect as something earned, not freely given. Stubborn, bull-headed. Someone who loved easily, and more kindly than she herself did. Charismatic like Minato. Genuine like him too.
Everything in her ached with a need to hold this baby, to see him, to love him.
This was a change she'd been unprepared for—one she'd never expected. Women often said a child changes a person, but she'd never understood.
Now she did.
This—this feeling, like absolutely nothing but this one child mattered, was all-consuming. This child was hers, hers and Minato's and Kushina would be damned if she let anything happen to such a precious baby.
She cried. Just one single, joyful tear, as everything about who she was changed to revolve around the adorable little parasite she was carrying.
"Hello, baby." She whispered, smiling. "I'm your mommy."
She was choking on her own blood.
Well, that and a few other things were wrong with her.
Kushina wanted to ask Minato if it had worked, if their baby was safe and if his future was secured. But she was afraid it had, and if it did then Minato was gone.
She wanted no confirmation that Minato had beaten her to the grave. That would break her, and in the last few moments of her life she could afford to be a coward but she couldn't afford to break.
Kushina became vaguely aware that someone was moving her, trying to get her to respond. She tried speaking, but she couldn't get enough air. She tried to focus her eyes instead.
There was a face she absolutely had to see again before she died.
She swung her gaze clumsily. Her eyes seemed to be impossible to control. She couldn't keep her gaze locked.
There. The altar was right there. Her baby was there too. Hers. Her little Naruto. The most precious creature in the world.
"Baby," she finally breathed. "Where…?"
It was only when Sandaime-sama picked the newborn up and brought him to her that she noticed he was there.
She couldn't move her arms, or she would have held them out to take her child one last time.
Kushina did not cry. The energy expended would be a waste, and it would cloud her vision of her child.
Sarutobi-sama said something. It was not important enough to answer him.
"Naruto…" she whispered. She wanted so badly to be there for him, to be his mother. "My baby…"
Kami there was so much to say. So much she would never get to do for her child, and so much that now might never be done.
And he was a Jinchurriki. She alone knew the pain that brought. She would not be there to protect him. He had to have love, he absolutely had to. Someone must fill him with love, fill the hole in his heart that the Kyuubi wrought just as Minato did for her.
This was one last thing she could do for him. She could make sure he was loved.
She tore her gaze from the baby, expending measured seconds to give him this one last thing. She locked eyes with Sarutobi-sama, demanding he listen to this last directive by her force of will.
"Make him loved, Sandaime-sama," she ordered as fiercely as she could manage. "Let him be loved."
She said it hungrily, desperately, but didn't dwell on it. Instead she returned her gaze to the most important thing in the world.
Naruto, she wanted to say, but she had no more air to spend. I love you like no one has loved before.
For what could she do but love her child? She'd spent so much time alone. She was a foreigner and a Jinchurriki; she knew what it was to be alone.
She wanted so much better for Naruto.
She couldn't focus on that. She would not die in despair. She would die as she lived—looking forward, finding hope, and holding it.
Naruto was going to be great. She could feel it. With their deaths, she and Minato bought him the tools he needed to meet his destiny and battle it down. It was worth it. It had to be.
She was Uzumaki Kushina of Uzushio and Konoha, and the Jinchurriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, an elite shinobi, wife of the Yondaime Hokage and mother of a baby named Naruto.
She died thinking that last accomplishment was the most important of all the things she'd ever done.
Updated 1-9-2016
This is going to be a series of one shots. Kind of a character study about the people who love Naruto and Naruto himself. There's not going to be any real plot. I also don't know if I'm going to do all the people who love Naruto. Lets face it, that's a lot of people by the end of the series. Some are probably going to be pretty humorous, but there's going to be a wide variety. Most will also be longer than this, since Kushina really needed no convincing to love her baby. Minato is next, and I'll post that in a few days.
Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you thought!
Peace Out guys!
