Somewhere, far away from warm food, hot water, or any real comforts, a baby cried. The cry echoed from within a snow covered cavern, where a young man held on for dear life, perilously perched above the doom of an icy river. His jacket barely sheltered him from the blistering cold and wind-carried snow, but it wasn't he who was complaining, it was the small bundle of life crying loudly into his chest.
"Shhh... It's gonna be okay." He whispered to the baby, who lay bundled inside his jacket, nestled warmly near his heart. He could do nothing to calm the infant but speak to it, for if he moved his hand to comfort it, he would surely lose his grip and fall, "Just a bit further..."
He slowly began his ascent, hoping that what he had said was true, and that the top of the chasm was only a few yards away. The baby continued to cry, but in a few moments, the man saw the end to their brutal climb. Pulling himself up carefully, he spun around to avoid crushing the infant. Lying their on his back, he felt the snow fall on his face like frozen tears. He breathed in and out heavily, his lungs reaching desperately for what little air there was, all the while, the child cried.
"Hey..." He finally said through inhales and exhales, "It's okay, we made it out... we... did it."
He sat up, and looked down into his jacket at the baby. Pulling off his glove, he rubbed the child's forehead. The baby slowly stopped crying.
"I told you we'd be alright." The man pulled his hood from his face, showing the baby his bright blue eyes and coarse blonde hair. He smiled at the infant, and it giggled back. Naruto's eyes grew sad as he stood up. Pulling his hood back over his face, and wrapping his long cloak over both himself and the baby, he began walking away from the deep abyss.
"We'll find your parents... I promise you." The green eyed baby cooed softly as Naruto spoke, "Trust me, a promise from me is a promise you can count on."
As Naruto walked, he remembered the past few months, wondering what had gotten him into this big mess. It had all started when he died... well, to all extent and purposes he had died, in fact he had been declared dead, mourned, then discovered alive shortly after, clinging to what life he had left. He had been declared dead, when on a mission, he had fallen several thousand feet into a freezing river.
"Wow, deja vu." Naruto said, realizing how close he had come to repeating history. Except their were no witnesses this time, only a freezing baby and the unforgiving wind.
Sakura and Sasuke had combed the river for hours, and hadn't found anything. Naruto had fallen into an underwater canyon, where he was able to find an air pocket and survive for several days, hoping that a rescue would be mounted before he had to try swimming back out. When none came, he had tried to find his way back to the surface, only to find the river had been cut off from its source, and had frozen over. He barely made it back into the air pocket. Over the next few days he increased how long he could hold his breath, and by the end of the week he could do it for seven minutes. This gave him enough time to use the rasengan and break the ice, but once he crawled to the surface he passed out.
"Man I can barely see out here!" He said, looking out into the white vastness, "I say we start a fire and camp until this storm blows over... okay?"
The baby said nothing. Naruto nodded and set down his back pack, emptying it of his gear. Using the artificial logs in his kit, he was able to start a large fire relatively quickly.
"Ah... that feels good." He looked down at the infant, "Doesn't it?"
The baby giggled. Naruto pulled the child slowly out of his coat and held it with one arm. Using the other arm, he pulled off his cloak and stuffed the backpack with it, hanging the hood out from the top. He put the child in the backpack, and pulled the hood over its head. It held the baby perfectly, allowing it's head to stick out, yet keeping the rest of its body perfectly snug. He lifted up the backpack, baby and all, and stood it up close to the fire. The warmth cheered the infant up instantly.
"Gabaga!" It said nonsensically.
"Yep... good stuff 'Gabaga'..." Naruto replied, "So how old are you anyway?"
"Doh...doh...doh...doh." The maybe repeated the same noise over and over again, but Naruto could not make sense of it. To him, the child looked less than a year old, but what did he know? Seemed to him that people were getting shorter and shorter anyway.
"You could be four years old and just messing with me." Naruto said, faking a grudge, "If after all this I find you have the diverse vocabulary of a much older child, you and I are going to have a few choice words... you understand?"
"Flbbbt."
"Good!" Naruto said, smiling. Naruto pulled out some of the baby food he had brought in the front pocket of his backpack, and started warming it up over the fire, "So, little one... what is your name anyway?"
The baby watched Naruto quizzically.
"What would your mother have named you?" Naruto opened the jar and used a survival spoon to scoop out a bit of baby food. He tasted it to check the temperature and it scalded his tongue, "Ow! Dam-"
The baby's face began to distort with sadness.
"-I mean... that's too hot!" Naruto scooped a handful of snow onto his burning tongue. Then smiled, drawing another giggle from the infant. Mixing a bit of snow with the food to cool it off, Naruto began to feed the baby.
"You look like a Kushina to me..." The baby responded joyfully to the sound of that name, "Oh you like it? It was my mother's name..."
Naruto stared at the empty baby jar, the child had devoured it's contents quite quickly. He filled it with snow and closed it, putting it near the fire. They could always use more water.
"I don't think your mom will mind too much if I call you that..." Naruto began, "Especially since you seem to like it so much."
Naruto couldn't imagine what Sakura might have actually named Kushina, in all their years of being friends, the naming of offspring had never come up in a conversation. But, naming the infant went a long way with befriending it, and even if she was Sasuke's child, like he feared, he wanted to be an important part of the baby's life.
Even if her very existence represented the shattering of one of his life-long dreams.
The storm started to pass.
"Come on Kushina..." Naruto kicked the fire out, and wrapped the dryer logs around the backpack, serving to transport them, and keep Kushina warm. Lifting the pack back over his shoulders, he started walking toward the mountains, the only visible thing in the sea of white.
Naruto had awoken on a warm bed in a small shack, as he would later find out, a few weeks later. He had caught something from being in the cold water for so long, and without the oxygen his blood needed, his immune system was having trouble fighting it. He had been found by sheep herders following the river, and they had taken him back to their caravan. He had traveled with them in a comatose state until he finally awoke.
Come nightfall, Naruto and Kushina had reached the bottom of the mountain. Finding a place where the rock had formed a natural roof, Naruto slept with the child cradled against him.
Naruto had a dream about his time spent with the sheep herders.
The mother of the group had been the one who nursed him back to health, and at first, the one who seemed the most willing to have him amongst the caravan. Unfortunately for Naruto, he was amnesic, and had no clue where he was, or who he was. So, he had assumed the simple life of a sheep herder, with the promise of his new family returning to the place where they had found him the next spring. Hopefully, this would 'spark' his memory.
He had no way of knowing for sure, but over the course of the months he spent with the herders, he found old instincts returning, and protected the caravan from bandits a number of times. They were sad to see him go, and he cried with them, but at the base of the roaring river thee mother of the clan handed him a package, and the group parted ways.
Six hours passes in the blink of an eye when you sleep, especially if you don't remember your dreams upon waking. Being careful not to wake Kushina, Naruto placed her back into the backpack and began the slow trek up the mountain. Kushina had awoken crying when they reached the first pass, so Naruto stopped to feed and change her.
"So, if I remember correctly, those idiots who tried to throw us into that abyss back there, mentioned something about a village just beyond these mountains... if we can get to it, we can rest for the night and resupply." Naruto smiled at the infant, "And with any luck, those jerks are still in the village, and we can kill them slowly and painfully!"
"Gabaga!" Kushina drooled.
"Of course we will!" Naruto said in a baby-ish voice. It only took them one more hour to arrive at the village.
It was a decently well-off village, the buildings weren't derelict, and the people looked mostly happy. Finding the nearest ramen stand in a matter of minutes, Naruto ordered his first meal in a week.
"We need to find you some more baby food too." Naruto said to Kushina, who was sitting on the bar top, playing with his empty bowls. She pulled one on top of her head like a helmet, covering her eyes. Naruto laughed.
"Gah?" The infant asked, her confused voice echoing inside the large bowl.
Naruto pushed the bowl up her head so she could see, and as soon as her emerald eyes found Naruto, they sparkled.
"Gah!"
"No... it's Naruto... Nar-u-to." He said, chucking.
"Gah... gah-gah!" The baby shouted, making Naruto burst out laughing.
"Adorable kid you got there mister." The cook said kindly.
"Yeah..." Naruto answered, sorrow glazing his eyes, "She takes after her mother."
"Stay here Kushina..." Naruto whispered to the child, placing her inside the backpack, and putting her behind a few trashcans. He trusted the infant not to draw attention to herself, but even so, he placed the pacifier he had just bought her in her mouth.
"I'll be right back."
He had tracked down the men who had tried to kill them to this location, if he was lucky, they would be able to tell them where Sakura and Sasuke had been taken... if he wasn't lucky, he would make them pay for trying to hurt Kushina.
He reached for the door knob, but it was pushed open from the inside, knocking him down to the ground.
"Shit!" Naruto heard from the doorway, "It's him! He's alive!"
Naruto jumped up from the ground, but no sooner was he on his feet, then a knife slid between his ribs. Naruto was shoved into a wall, and three or four men charged out of the open door.
"Hurry! Run!" One of them yelled. Naruto tried to stand up, but the knife-wound was making it challenging. The last man out the door bumped into the trashcans while tailing his friends, and Naruto's eyes shot wide in panic.
"Hey... Hey guy's it's the kid!" His partners had kept running, ignoring him, so he picked up the backpack and sprinted in their direction.
"No!" Naruto screamed, sprinting after the kidnapper.
Upon leaving the alley, the kidnapper saw that his friends had disappeared. He called for them, but either they were long gone or they were ignoring him. He had no time to waste, so he sprinted through the crowd, hoping to get to his destination before the ninja caught up with him.
After running for several minutes, he appeared to be home free. In front of him, stood his destination. The cable car that took people down the mountain. He could see his friends inside, but as he waved for them to wait, they kept going.
"No! No! No! NO!" He screamed after them, but they were already halfway down, leaving him alone, with...
"Give... me, the child." Naruto yelled from behind the man. He was bleeding from the mouth, and was holding his knife wound shut with one hand, but he still frightened the kidnapper beyond belief.
"St-stay-Stay Back man!" The kidnapper walked slowly backwards, until the perilous fall from the top of the mountain was only inches away.
"I'll d-Drop h-her! I swear!" Tears were falling from his eyes now.
"Just give her to me..." Naruto said coldly, "And you won't die today."
The man looked back and forth from the cliff to Naruto, he knew ninjas weren't to be trusted, but he really had no choice. Holding the baby at arm's length, he walked slowly toward Naruto.
Naruto reached his hand out to take Kushina, but the man pulled the child back in fear.
"Please..." Naruto's voice was shaky with emotion. The man outstretched his arm again, and Naruto took the backpack.
Naruto pulled Kushina out of the backpack and held her close, mumbling to her.
"I'm so sorry... stupid... I'll never... again."
The kidnapper looked on for a few minutes, touched by the scene. Then he remembered who the crying man really was, and started sprinting away.
Only to run into the ninja.
"I'm not done with you yet." Naruto's shadow clone said. The kidnapper chuckled nervously.
Naruto sat in the cable car, hoping that the kidnapper had not lied to him. It was just him and Kushina, and Naruto found himself cherishing every minute.
"You know?" Naruto asked her smiling, "I wish you were my daughter..."
He wiped the tears from his cheeks and fed the baby.
When, knee deep in the roaring, yet shallow water of early spring, Naruto had found the entrance to the underwater canyon, his memory came flooding back. He wept for the lost time for a moment, then tore open the package he had been left. Almost knowing that his orange jacket and pants were folded inside. He stripped naked in the cool water, and changed in the rapids. The last thing he tied on was his headband. His surrogate mother had given it to him when he first awoke, but it had meant nothing then without his memory. Now, as he traced the familiar symbol of the hidden leaf village, his heart swelled with pride and nostalgia. Leaving the worn clothes of a sheep herder to be carried by the current, he ran up the rocky wall, landing in the spot he had stood with his closest friends, almost two years before.
A hero reborn, Naruto began the long journey home.
Kushina had finally fallen asleep, leaving Naruto to stare out into the night sky. The cable car was almost halfway down the mountain now, and the view was almost indescribably beautiful. The stars seemed to stay in the same place, dazzlingly beautiful balls of light, but the mountain peaks moved upward and behind them as the cable-car descended. Naruto was in awe.
He arrived back home to many tears, and the greatest shock of his life. They had carved his face into the Hokage monument.
After holding a sobbing Tsunade for several minutes, he got an explanation.
"We thought you were gone Naruto... we just wanted your dream to come true." She explained through tears, "Officially, you'll go down in history as the sixth Hokage... the only Hokage to never actually have served in that position."
Naruto was stricken by the kindness the village had shown him.
"You'll always be this villages hero Naruto... and now that your back-" She started to smile, but then cried into his shoulder again. Naruto patted her back and squeezed her tight. He didn't have the words. After a few more minutes, she seemed to completely turn around.
"Right. Now that your back young man, we have a lot to do! For starters we have to inform the whole village that you aren't dead, take your name off of the memorial rocks, dig up you grave, destroy your memorial... and I can finally retire!"
She started pulling paper work out from a nearby box.
"Let's see... returned from the dead, returned from the dead, Ah! Here it is."
"Um... Tsunade?" She looked up at him, a smile on her face, "Where are... well where is... where's Sakura?"
Tsunade's face grew slightly grim.
"Well... she retired a short while after your supposed death. She still works in the hospital from time to time... but she moved out to a house some miles from here where she can rais-" She stopped herself, "Um, study in peace."
"Oh." Was all Naruto said.
"She really took your death hard Naruto... I'd be very careful about revealing yourself to her." She said, "Sasuke's up visiting her now too, so you can kill two birds with one stone."
She gave him directions to the house.
"Now when you get back, you and I are going to have to talk about you actually fulfilling some of your duties... Mr. Sixth Hokage." She smiled at him, "I'll give you a few months to visit... but hurry back. While you're gone, I'll make sure everyone knows that you haven't actually kicked the bucket."
Naruto hugged her one last time, and turned to leave.
"Oh, and Naruto?" She said, stopping him, "You've always been like a son to me..."
"I love you too grandma." He said, sticking his tongue out. Tsunade threw a book at him as he left, but tears filled her eyes regardless.
Naruto pulled Kushina onto his back and left the cable car. The sun was just rising over the largest mountain. He knew that on the other side of the valley that now stretched before him, Sakura and Sasuke were being held. With the child he only could assume was theirs, he walked on, knowing that before nightfall he would see his old friends again.
"Narb... narbog!" Kushina called from her backpack. Naruto pulled the backpack off slowly, and stared at the infant. Her tiny arms were outstretched. Naruto leaned his head into her hands, and she rubbed his scruffy face. She giggled loudly.
"Soon little one... soon."
Naruto had arrived at Sakura's new house the following day. It was a nice, if small, house. Naruto was shocked to find the door smashed open.
Naruto smashed the door open, sneaking into the large stronghold through the emergency exit on the roof.
Walking into the house, he was horrified to discover almost everything ransacked.
Sneaking carefully along, with his back to the wall, he slowly made his way to where the kidnapper had told him the holding cells were.
Naruto searched the house for his friends, but the only evidence he found was a scroll.
It read: 'Somehow they managed to overpower us... for some reason my great strength is failing me... and they've handcuffed us in a way that we can't put our hands together to form hand signs. They are searching the house for baby, not much time until they return. They won't find her. Don't know where they are taking us. If you find this, baby is hidden in the floor beneath her crib. The only way to get there is to break the floor, and there is sound-proof seal. Please keep her safe.'
Naruto broke the lock of the door and walked into the holding cells.
Naruto ran into the bedroom where a crib was lying broken on the floor. Punching the wood beneath it, he revealed a secret compartment where a baby was crying.
Naruto scanned the room quickly, finding a pink haired woman chained up.
Naruto fed the baby quickly. He realized the fact that the child was still alive, meant that that Sakura and Sasuke hadn't been kidnapped too long ago. Leaving a note for Tsunade, and taking various baby supplies with him in a large backpack, he followed the trail of his closest friends.
Sakura was asleep, and Naruto quickly spotted Sasuke in a nearby corner, he was chained up as well. He broke the chains on both of his friends, and sat Kushina on Sakura's lap. He walked over to Sasuke, slapping him to wake him up.
"Oh god." The Uchiha uttered on seeing the face of his best friend, "I'm dead aren't I?"
"Not yet." Naruto said smiling. Then, Sakura spoke.
"Kushina! My baby!" She held the child closely in her arms, weeping into its soft skin, "What are you doing here little one?"
"You call her Kushina too?" Naruto asked from the darkness.
"Who is that?" She asked, "Sasuke?"
"It isn't me Sakura..." Sasuke said no more.
"If I tell you who I am... you have to promise me not to freak out." Naruto said from the shadows.
"I promise!" Sakura said, kissing her child on the cheeks, "I promise, I promise."
Naruto stepped out into the light, where his face was just visible to Sakura.
"Hey." He said.
Sakura stared at him for a moment. Then stood up. She placed Kushina gently on the cold floor.
"Okay... I'm not freaking out." She breathed in and out, and then began to hyperventilate. Naruto ran over to her, and grabbed her by the arms. She slapped him hard on the face, then fell into him, "Naruto!?"
"I'll explain everything later... right now we need to get out of here."
The occupants of the stronghold had been no match for the three ninjas unhindered. They had discovered who was behind the whole scheme, and Sakura made him pay for separating her from her child. The man who had kidnapped them was one of Sakura's interns at the hospital. He had come from a very rich family in a very cold part of the world, and had come to Konoha to train with the best medical ninjas. He was born without chakra, and on the inside he was incredibly jealous of the shinobi. He had created a poison that would completely exhaust someone's chakra supply, and had kidnapped his teacher in order to force her to help him find a cure for his lack of chakra. They had to take Sasuke as well in order to prevent them being followed. Unfortunately for him, he didn't expect Naruto to come and rescue his friends. Despite all his immoral behavior, the man really never planned on hurting anyone, so they let him go, making him swear to return home and never set foot in Konoha the poison with them, so that back home they could create a vaccination, and burning down the stronghold, the four returned to the cable car.
"How are you alive?" Sakura asked, feeding her child.
Naruto explained the entirety of his story to the two. By the end, they were all close to tears.
"Thank you so much Naruto... Kushina wouldn't have... well thank you for taking care of her."
"That's another thing Sakura... I had no clue what her name was, so I called her my mother's name... Kushina." As Naruto spoke, Sakura began to smile, "Did you name her after my mom?"
"I named her after her Grandmother." Sakura said slowly. As it slowly sank in, Naruto realized what she was implying.
"Wait... Sakura? Are you saying that... She's-"
"Kushina is your daughter as much as she is mine Naruto..."
Naruto was filled with infinite joy, but he just couldn't believe it.
"Sakura... but, we've never-"
Sakura nodded grimly, and began her story...
"What are you saying Sakura?" Tsunade asked the girl who stood before her with tears in her eyes.
It had been a month since Naruto had been declared dead, and Sakura was still mourning quite heavily. Tsunade understood what Sakura was requesting, she just wasn't sure if the girl herself did.
"I want to have Naruto's child... I want to more than anything." She had thought long and hard about this, only in Naruto's absence had she realized how much she had truly, dearly loved him. She wanted to marry him, to have kids with him, to get old and die with him... but the only thing that was still possible was to bear his offspring.
"Sakura... you know the Konoha Sperm Bank is an anonymous system, I can't tell you that Naruto's section of the vault is classified under the letter U, or that his serial number is 2-345... do you understand me?"
Sakura smiled through her tears.
"Thank you Lady Tsunade... Thank you so much."
The story amazed Naruto, and filled him with sorrow and happiness at the same time. He just stood there, looking out of the cable car.
"I'm sorry Naruto... I just wanted you so bad... I love you." Naruto leaned forward and kissed Sakura on the lips.
"I love you too Sakura... and nothing makes me happier than knowing that Kushina is my child. I love her more than anything... and now I know why." Naruto kissed Kushina on the fore-head, "I'm so sorry I was gone for so long Sakura..."
She kissed him, silencing any more apologies he had planned. After a few moments, they broke the kiss, and Naruto turned his attention once more to his new daughter.
"Did you hear that Kushina? I'm your daddy after all." He said, wiping a fresh tear from his cheek.
"Gabaga! Gabgo! Gabby!" Naruto smiled at her, "Dabby!"
His heart filled with so much pride he could barely stand it. He hugged Sakura, then lifted up his baby and walked over to Sasuke. The Uchiha had been pretending to ignore what had been going on, but Naruto could see a small smile on the boy's lips.
"Can you say uncle, Kushina?" Sasuke's eyes widened. He stood up and hugged his best friend.
"I missed you too you know." Sasuke said, "And she already knows how to say Uncle..."
Sasuke leaned into Kushina's face.
"Ungo Sabaga!" She said, "Blffft!"
Naruto looked around at the wonderful members of his family, and smiled.