I thought of this when I was trying to sleep lmao
Summary: There is a child in the tank.
Kushina may have murdered too many people without a thought to really be considered a person of good moral standing — but, Kushina thinks, at least we didn't experiment on children, at least we didn't kill them in the name of a jutsu, at least we don't leave kids to die slowly and who knows how painfully.
AU where Kushina and Minato both survive the Kyuubi attack and Danzou isn't the one to find Tenzou in Orochimaru's lab - It's Kushina.
The smell is the first thing Kushina notices and it takes every ounce of willpower not to retch. It's stinging her nose and her eyes. An assault on her senses.
She looks around her and for the first time in a long time she has no idea what to do.
There are large cylindrical containers much taller and wider than her littering the room and most of them are broken. Pieces of glass and a water like substance cover the floor. There are so many. About 60 if she were to guess. But that's not the problem.
Kushina approaches the closest broken container and kneels down.
There is a body. A very small body. The child is naked and curled around themselves as though trying to keep warm.
The child's skin is a sickly blue and rigor mortis has long since set in.
The child is dead.
She looks up and sees her mission partner, Shi hovering over another body — another child — and his face is a stone block. The child has started to waste away.
The smell that burns her eyes is the smell of decomposing children.
This is Orochimaru's lab. Kushina doesn't do anything halfway and the anger that settles in her stomach is overwhelming, as though it's seeping through her very skin.
Minato had mentioned to her once, that there had been about 60 infants had been kidnapped about six years ago. Thought to have been Mokuton experiments.
She looks down and the child in front of her — dead, and so, so small — and she wonders if she'll be able to hold back if she ever lays her eyes on Orochimaru again.
Kushina thinks of Naruto. Thinks of losing Naruto to an insane scientist, and she thinks of Naruto dying alone in an underground lab, forgotten and naked and humiliated.
She doubts she will be able to hold back against Orochimaru if she ever sees him. And that thought doesn't bother her in the slightest.
Shi looks up to the end of the hall and his face cracks as though someone had punched him and he tenses as hard as a springboard.
Shi has a daughter of his own if Kushina remembers correctly.
He looks at Kushina and there's a distinct look of horror that's in his eyes. Kushina moves, standing up and comes up next to Shi in several long strides. She looks down the hall, and she feels all the breath leave her.
There's one container at the end of the hall, a faint green light emits from it. It's full.
Kushina and Shi approach, she can feel the hesitance in his steps and the hesitance in her own.
She wants to know but there is very large part of her that doesn't. She wants to be able to save just one of these children but, there's a quiet part of her that almost wishes maybe all of them had died. That way, they wouldn't have to live knowing everything was taken from them by a madman who wanted nothing more than a jutsu for his own use. And even that madman left them to die in the end.
They stand in front of the tank and for a moment they're silent.
The water is an unearthly green and the only sound is the soft mechanics of the cylinder. There is a child inside. Small, just far too small. His eyes are open and he stares at them.
Kushina's feet feel planted to the ground, and she doesn't know what to do. It's a ridiculous notion, She's a shinobi. Shi is a shinobi. They're both Jounin and have killed far too many people to still have all their screws in place, but they're both stuck.
There is a child in a tank. Kushina may have murdered too many people without a thought and Shi has assassinated too many shinobi and civilians alike to really be considered people of good moral standing — but Kushina thinks at least we didn't experiment on children, at least we didn't kill them in the name of a jutsu, at least we don't leave kids to die slowly and who knows how painfully.
The boy moves and Kushina snaps out of her daze, she feels Shi jerk next to her. The child moves slowly as if unsure, scared. He presses his hand against the glass. He's staring at her. His eyes are so big and Kushina finds herself moving before she realises.
She presses her hand against where his hand is. For a moment, neither of them move. The boy tilts his head and peers around the obstruction to see her again.
"Shi" Kushina says and finds herself unable to look away from the child. "Get Minato. And a medic"
There is a moment where Kushina can feel the hesitancy leaking off of him, but he turns and runs off down the hall with a speed Kushina has never seen in him before.
Kushina smiles and it probably looks like more of a grimace but the boy is watching her curiously. Their hands are still on the glass, and she feels like if she moves it the boy will be lost which is illogical and stupid but there are dead children laying behind her. Naruto could have been them. If he was born a little earlier or if Orochimaru decided to strike at a different time.
Her boy could be laying here — in a cold underground labyrinth decaying all because of one power hungry man.
The boy in the container is watching her, he presses himself closer to the glass, and he pulls his lips open, teeth flashing.
He's copying her.
Kushina's smile grows into something more genuine and how could it not when this little boy is trying to smile despite having no reason to.
The boy's lips turn upward and his eyes crinkle just as Kushina feels her heart set.
This boy will stay with her. It's a rash decision and even she is aware of that but… if Orochimaru's experiments succeeded with this child, if the Mokuton is re-introduced into the shinobi world then he will become the focus of a lot of eyes. If word spreads, it's possible that Orochimaru will come to collect his experiment.
Kushina is the Kyuubi jinchuuriki and the wife of the fourth Hokage but more than that she's a shinobi, and she's a damn good one.
She can relate in a different sense to what the boy will go through. She's the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and on many occasion, people don't see her as Kushina, they can only see the beast. People won't see the boy, they'll see the experiment, they'll see the Mokuton, but they'll never see the tiny boy that copied a stranger's smile and that is not something she can accept.
She can't bring herself to really worry about Minato's reaction — her husband is a giant dork and the most damage he'll do is fuss the child to death.
The boy will have to become a shinobi — the council won't allow anything different — but, if anyone is going to teach this boy, who better than Uzumaki Kushina?
The little boy rocks on his feet unsteadily and Kushina reaches over and wraps the blanket around his damp shoulders, steadying him on the way.
Just as she thought, the boy is far too skinny and far too small. The liquid and tubing were designed by Orochimaru so of course it was enough to sustain them but kids should be running and playing not poked and prodded and tested on in a lab.
He looks up at her and grips the blanket around him. Minato is crouched in front of the boy and Kushina can see the tense lines on his shoulders.
Kushina leans forward past Minato and holds out her hand for the boy to hold on to "let's get you out of here yeah?"
Minato leans back, giving Kushina all the room she needs. He turns and nods at the medic. The woman picks up her equipment, but he can see her gaze linger on the tiniest (breathing) person in the room.
They're all trying to ignore the surrounding carnage. Trying to ignore the dead children around them.
Minato watches as the boy stares at Kushina's hand in obvious confusion. Kushina grasps the boy's hand in her own and slowly lifts herself up squeezing their intertwined hands "see? Now we can't lose each other!"
The kid grips the blanket in his spare hand and looks up to Kushina with the biggest eyes either of them have ever seen and nods too seriously for a child that young.
They walk down through the room and Minato tries to make himself look. He's the Hokage, and he can't afford to shy away from the reality of his own world, but he finds his eyes strained on the back of the only survivor — shoulder's trembling and feet scrambling to keep up, long hair leaving a trail of water in his wake — and he can't look anywhere else.
There is an insistent ache in his sternum and a weight in his stomach, and he realises the feeling is guilt. He is the fourth Hokage and yet, he is surrounded by dead children.
Minato has killed many people — wiped out an entire army in an afternoon and there's nothing about that that isn't horrific.
Minato glances to the left and feels all the breath leave him. Open eyes stare up at him, soulless and broken. A tiny body surrounded by the shards of another man's greed.
There is nothing that isn't completely awful about some of the things Minato has done but there is something much, much worse when the bodies that surround him are the bodies of children.
He bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood and looks at the next one — slumped over the base of the cylindrical tank long brown hair splayed across the ground obscuring the face. Glass shards pierced through their weak fleshy arms and chest leaving old, black and crusted blood splattered over skin and metal.
He feels bile rise up in his throat and looks at the next. Old and withered and Minato can smell the decay, but he forces himself not to flinch, he breathes in the scent and feels his eyes water, he breathes in the scent and walks forward. The scent is a reminder of what he couldn't save. Of the children that died under his reign.
As Hokage, he has failed these children, as has Sarutobi. But, as Hokage, he has two options. He can give up, pass on the hat to someone who won't be deaf to the silent screams of innocent children, or he can use this to build him up.
They have one survivor and it's not certain Orochimaru's experiments were a success — the Mokuton might not have manifested in this child but Kushina's grip on the little boy's hand is tight and the boy's gaze on her is full of gratitude and Minato thinks this boy deserves a chance at life, whether he has the Mokuton or not.
Minato thinks of Naruto — this could have been him — and who is Minato to deny the life of a child when he'd lose his own life to protect that of his own child. How can he regard this child as a tool when he once had sworn he'd never regard shinobi like that?
The boy turns his head and gazes back at him, Kushina notices the boy's attention and turns as well. The boy stops walking and hefts the blanket around his shoulders.
He stares up at the two of them and opens his mouth. A little noise comes out and Minato realises he's trying to talk and likely hasn't talked in years. The child rubs his throat, points at the nearest body and stares at Minato.
There's an intensity in the boy's face that Hokage or not, he can't ignore.
"Dead" the boy forces out. It's scratchy and too quiet but his eyes are trained on Minato "…leave?"
Kushina crouches next to him and Minato immediately joins her. "We're going to come back and get them, don't worry little one," Kushina says and rubs a hand through his hair. The kid jerks slightly at the gesture and it stings to think a child could be so unfamiliar with such a caring action.
Minato nods and gets the boy's attention once again. "Your friends won't be left here, don't worry!" He forces his best smile and the boy tilts his head and looks back at Kushina who smiles as well.
The boy crinkles his eyes and turns up his lips and despite having rarely smiled before neither of the shinobi can deny that the smile is one of the cutest things they've ever seen.
Minato stands up and presses his hand against the boy's back. The kid tries to turn his head to see his hand and Minato can't help but chuckle.
He glances up at Kushina and sees the small smile on her face.
"I'm sure we have some nice food at home for you to eat," Minato says and brightens as Kushina gives him an ear-splitting grin. It seems Kushina has already made her mind up about where the boy is staying and Minato can't bring himself to mind.
The boy's face is blank in what Minato suspects is confusion, but he continues regardless "And plus, I think you and Naruto will get along quite well!"
The boy nods at him and carefully grasps Kushina's hand again, and they all begin to walk out.
Minato's not sure how this is going to work, and he doesn't think Kushina does either but neither of their lives have ever exactly been normal and really he doubts the addition of a tiny approximately-six-year-old could really be that awful.
Between the two of them, Minato's sure they can make this little boy's life a little better. They will make this little boy's life better.
I'll only continue this if people like it, so let me know if you do!