Title: "Sunshine"
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 (character death)
Summary: Kushina measures the important events in her life by the length of her hair. Kushina-centric; Minato/Kushina Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Big surprise!
Dedication: a belated birthday present for my dear Magi. It's the first time I'm trying to write MinaKushi (or any of those characters, for that matter) and I'm pretty sure I've screwed up the chronology (at least according to Narutopedia which, I don't think, is correct anyway), so I guess it's slightly AUish… Hope you enjoy it, honey! There's a cameo by your fav Uchiha boy, too!
SUNSHINE
When they only just get married, she has short hair the colour of autumn leaves and a funky attitude towards everything in life. Marriage for her is just another 'awfully big adventure', and she can't help giggling throughout the ceremony and squinting up at her fiancé, being incredibly proud that she marries the most handsome and the most wonderful man in the world. Of course, she would never admit it, most likely not even to herself. That's just too girlish of her.
She learns that she's a disaster at home. When she lived alone, she dined on disposable plastic plates and then threw them away. Now she is faced with real plates (she only prays it's not some expensive china), and she really doesn't know what to do when she crashes a whole roll of them right in front of Minato after the dishwashing gone bad.
Great. Housework, Uzumaki Kushina style.
Minato chuckles and rolls his eyes pretentiously.
"Why, oh why did I have to marry the one woman in the entire Fire Country who can do zero housework?"
"Maybe, darling, it's because I should vie for the Hokage position and you would make a perfect househusband," Kushina laughs.
She reaches out to him, grinning. He pecks her on the nose lightly and makes for the bedroom to collect the scrolls for his students. The last undamaged platter slips out of Kushina's hand and shatters on the floor. She makes a shaky 'oops!' sound and waits for Minato to emerge.
"Don't we have some dish-mending jutsu to fix all this?" he asks, arching his eyebrows. By now there are probably no plates left in the house.
"You tell me," Kushina says gruffly. "You're the inventor."
Over the following months Minato learns that she's just as bad at cooking, cleaning and sociating with the neighbours. At the same time she is a natural at eating, making a mess and scaring people off. She is wild and she doesn't give a damn about what people think and she makes a frightening contrast to him – that's what he loves her for. That and the whole universe of other things, great and small.
Time flies, and she grows more accustomed to this 'being a wife' thing. She realizes that it doesn't change her in some horrible way, doesn't make her a shadow of her more successful husband. She even thinks she can go back to the kunoichi career.
Things on that front, however, are far from perfect. War breaks out, and Minato is mostly absent, fighting somewhere off in distant lands, and Kushina waits for him and slowly descends into routine. When Team Yellow Flash along with a few others returns to Konoha for quick reinforcements, Kushina breaks down.
She has put it off long enough. At first there was premarital fuss, then the honeymoon, then the first months of this new life… Gradually a year has passed and another begun, and she was still waiting for things to start happening.
"I can't do it any longer!" she practically screams at Minato. "I'm not your ideal poster doll face wearing an apron and a fake smile to show the world how happy I am that I have all this wonderful laundry and cooking and groceries and stuff to do! I can't even do it properly!" Her cheeks flush. "I broke your vase! That ugly thing the Uchiha gave you on some special occasion! I was just trying to dust it."
She loathes herself at the moment. She's never been hysterical, but this life – the wife life – has reduced her to a quivering ball of nerves. She sweeps her hand through hair which is shoulder-length now, while waiting for him to react. The hair feels odd at times; she likes to flip them over her shoulders coquettishly and watch Jiraiya-sensei go head over heels about how seductive she looks. Kushina has never thought herself to be particularly seductive, but if Jiraiya says so, then it must be true.
Her mind wanders.
"I take it," Minato says suddenly. All right, he doesn't seem to be mad about the vase. Good sign. "You want to go back in action. Do it."
Now that was a bit too easy.
"You mean you're okay with this?" Kushina wonders.
He nods briefly. Then pulls her into a hug and kisses the crown of her head and whispers: "I'm leaving tomorrow. We have a mission in the Land of Grass."
And she knows she'll have to stay and protect the village. The war is closer now than it has ever been before. She remembers the war as something massive, oppressing and inevitable, a storm cloud that can be neither stopped nor even delayed. She loves being a hero and saving people, but she hates war. It is not the time and place for her cheerful bravado, and she dives into it headfirst, hoping it'll pass by and still leave her something to thrive on.
Minato leaves. When he comes back she finds that his eyes have lost their shine and his smile has faded. She is terrified more than she will ever be on a battlefield.
"It's Obito," Minato explains.
"What did the little brat do this time?" Kushina asks, affectionately emphasizing the word 'brat'. She doesn't want an answer; she already suspects what it will be. But she gets it regardless.
"He died."
A lump comes up to Kushina's mouth. She buries her face on Minato's chest and cries softly. And her husband doesn't cry. Because he can't. He's not allowed to.
The war goes on. Kushina ties her now shoulderblade-level locks in a bun at the back of her head, puts her Jounin vest on and goes out to fight. The battle is raging on the outskirts of Konoha now, and it is her duty as the possible future Hokage's wife to protect their home.
That is what this all is about, after all.
She can barely breathe past the smoke in the air and almost fails to see an enemy ninja dashing at her. She dodges the attack, makes a swift move and plunges a kunai into his neck. He wheezes. Kushina can't stop staring at him as his eyes roll so that only the whites can be seen and his body goes limp. She forcibly pries her own numb fingers loose and staggers backwards. She feels sick. She clutches her stomach, bends over and counts the interval between the shaky inhalations and exhalations until they grow longer and she knows she can breathe normally.
There is a shadow to her right. She throws her head up instinctively, ready to defend herself, but all she sees is a tiny figure standing next to a pile of bodies. Kushina can't bring herself to look away.
It's a boy, no more than four years old. Huge eyes, dark and frightened, dominate his pale face, sprinkled with blood. He stands petrified at the sight of the fallen fighters.
Kushina springs up and runs up to the boy. She kneels beside him, cups his face and whispers soothingly:
"It's all right, sweetheart! It's all going to be fine. Come on, let's get you out of here."
She holds his hand, prodding him gently to turn to face her. There is an Uchiha fan at the back of his pullover. Kushina's mind is racing. What the hell is he doing so far from Uchiha Compound?
"Don't look, honey," she tells him. "Come on, look at me. Don't look there. You're going to be all right."
Finally the boy fixes his blank gaze upon her. She forces a smile, holds him close and takes him home. The Uchiha territories stay relatively unharmed. Upon seeing the familiar fences, he wriggles himself out of her embrace and runs away along the empty street.
Kushina leans against a gate-post and shuts her eyes for a minute. To grown-ups, war is business, but there's no way a four-year-old can understand that. She only prays it doesn't break him.
Once the war is over, she knows full well why's being sick in the morning and so stressed and not herself. At first she's angry. She blames Minato but he hardly bears more responsibility than she does.
Then she's frightened. Minato comes home one evening, glowing like he's just swallowed the sun, and she practically yells at him:
"I've got some big news for you! I think you should hear this!"
Too bad he's got something to tell her too. Kushina casts her eyes downward, and her resolve melts like an ice-cream left out in the sun.
"You go first," Minato suggests. She dismisses this kind gesture. She's all ears now. Ears is better than mouth; ears doesn't involve talking. "I've just spoken to Sandaime-sama," Minato declares, and his impossible grin grows even larger. "He's retiring. I'm your new Hokage!"
Kushina laughs and clamps her lips over his in a passionate kiss. It's all right. Her news can wait.
And it waits. It waits for hours, days, weeks. One day she unbraids the plait she has been wearing, and her hair streams down her back in a shiny auburn cascade, and her knees hurt, and her ankles are swollen, and she starts blaming Minato again because he still hasn't noticed that.
She took a break once more. She hasn't seen much of Minato since he assumed his new position. All that is left is devour ramen and brood about how it's going to change her life. It. She doesn't even know if it's a he or a she. A girl would be nice: they could talk about all the girly stuff she never got to discuss with her own mother. However, a boy could take after his father…
She has to tell Minato!
He comes to their quarters in the Hokage Tower, wearing his white robe and looking more gorgeous than she remembers. Kushina is sitting at the desk, waiting for him. She smiles when he enters and he smiles back as he searches for something in the bureau.
"Honey," Kushina begins as level-headedly as she can manage, "I believe there's something you should know about. It's pretty big. Are you up for it?"
"Of course. Shoot."
She takes a deep breath. "We're going to have a baby."
"Cool," he says. Then it hits him. She certainly hopes it hits him like a falling anvil. "WHAT!?" He spins round to stare at her. "When!?"
"Well, if I still can count, in two months or so."
She stands up, revealing her rounded belly. He gapes at her, unable to speak. She wrinkles her nose sternly, but all her resentment is washed away as soon as he takes her hands in his, presses his forehead against hers and whispers:
"A baby, huh? Guess that's an appropriate punishment for sorely neglecting my darling life for months." It sinks in, and he laughs, delighted. "I'm gonna be a dad! I've got to tell Jiraiya-sensei!"
By the end of the term there is one thing Kushina hates above all else. Choosing a name. It sucks. In fact it sucks so much that she places it on top of her Sucky Things list.
After they've crossed out numerous relatives, friends, random acquaintances, people with bad karma and silly or ugly names, even people with warts, bad breath and unpleasant-sounding voices, there isn't much left. Or rather, there is nothing left.
"Great! The little bugger will go nameless!" Kushina exclaims, slamming her fist into the table.
The problem is solved by Jiraiya-sensei – nothing weird about that. Minato gets his newly published novel, swallows it at one draught and barges into the bedroom, waving the small volume excitedly.
"What do you think of Naruto?"
"Huh?"
"Na-ru-to," he repeats, flopping on the bed next to her. He opens the book randomly and wraps his arm around Kushina. "There's a character in Jiraiya-sensei's novel. You should read it!"
Kushina never liked reading much, but she reads this one, subconsciously looking for possible flaws in the character who might shape the fate of her baby, but she finds none.
"Naruto's great," she murmurs sleepily, placing her head on Minato's shoulder. "Sounds like ramen."
He chuckles softly.
"It'll be all right," someone whispers in the dark. "Everything will be all right." It's a woman. Her voice is husky and laced with compassion and mild fear. "Relax. Just relax."
She is so scared. She has never been so scared, not even as she witnessed the destruction of her homeland. The woman is holding her hand. Her voice sounds familiar. Kushina's skin is burning with sweat, yet her body feels cold and weak. Something has gone terribly wrong.
"Minato…" she whispers.
"How is she?" a man asks. The voice is deeper and older than her husband. Must be Jiraiya-sensei. Kushina attempts to smile.
"Delirious. She received serious traumas. When can the boy make it? She's calling him non-stop."
"It's that her-or-the-baby situation, isn't it?"
Kushina shivers. That's what they want Minato here for! To make a choice. They think she is incapable to decide.
She grabs Jiraiya's hand. Her mind is clouded; she can barely see him. He whispers something comforting to her.
"Na… ruto," Kushina breathes. "Save…"
"She is dying, Jiraiya," the woman says.
The statement reaches Kushina's ears and beats like a caged bird inside her. It seeps into her every pore. She wants them to hurry up, but they hesitate, still hoping for something. Tears well up in Kushina's eyes.
Jiraiya strokes her hair gently. It swirls around her in a whirlpool of dimmed gold. It's so long now. She never got to cut it because Minato liked it that way.
She thinks about it and about many other things she did for Minato just because he liked them. Tried to keep her mouth shut in front of the people she disliked; tidied up the room after coming back from a mission; picked up empty ramen cups and tossed them into the bin; learned to get up early even though she had always been a sleepyhead…
"She wants you to proceed," Jiraiya says. "Save the baby."
"She's in no condition to decide!"
"I believe she is. She's a brave girl, our Kushina-chan. Come on, Tsunade. It's all we can do for her and Minato now."
The woman sighs in defeat. "All right. Get out then."
There is only pain and loneliness afterwards. Kushina screams until her throat is raw, and when she can scream no more, she just lies there, pretending there is no chaos and destruction invoked by that horrible nine-tailed monster outside, but peace and comfort all around. Like there always was.
She imagines Minato and herself dancing on the seashore. The sand is wet and soft beneath their bare feet. The sound of their laughter rings in the air.
A shrill cry takes her back to reality.
"It's a boy."
Kushina laughs quietly. The rest is a blur: Minato finally bursts in, calling out her name, the baby whines, and darkness envelops her before she can breathe his name for the last time.
She's glad she never cut her hair because Minato got to see her the way he loved her. She's glad she overcame her fear and married him because he was the best thing that happened to her. She's glad she had their son because…
Years later her boy is a man and she'd be glad to know he did take after his father. His wild blond hair sticks up and his eyes are the clearest shade of blue one has ever seen.
"It is a grave responsibility," Tsunade instructs him, holding a painfully familiar white robe with flames down the hem and a kanji 'six' embroidered on the back. "You are big on teamwork, you are caring and kind-hearted, but you don't know what it's like to be responsible for so many lives at once. You are the keeper of the village now and should something befall–."
The boy gets fidgety as she speaks. He is twenty-two and still restless and every bit as immature as he was at twelve. But he knows what she wants to say. And he is ready. So he snatches the robe out of her hand and tries it on.
"I know, baa-chan, just give it to me already! Hey, don't I look cool?"
Tsunade sighs, smacks him lightly on the back of his head and watches him storm out of the office to show his new mantle off.
"Every bit their son," Tsunade chuckles.
Kushina would be smiling.
July 20–22, 2008