A/N: welcome to my retelling of an old fic, Live or Let Die. It was one of my first forays into fanfic writing, and it's honestly really terrible. It's been on my mind to rewrite it for years, and I'm finally getting around to it. Read the original if you like, I'm keeping the core concept but let's see if my writing has improved at all over the years haha.
Minato would later reflect that the entire night had an ominous feel to it right from the start. Clouds had quickly begun to gather as sunset approached, and by the time Kushina was seriously into her labor thunder was a steady growl in the background.
He hated to focus so much on himself, but he was a nervous wreck. The small building that Kushina had been sequestered in to give birth was sweltering, so unusual for October. Everything was stifling, the air thick with her labor pains and sluggish with tension. Sweat ran down his neck and back as he directed chakra to the seal on his wife's writhing belly, all his focus on containing the malevolent consciousness that had stirred to devestating wakefulness at her first contraction.
"Ahh!" Kushina cries out sharply, her body attempting to curl in on itself in some primal urge to expel the child from her body. Her voice was hoarse with pain as her labor wore on, but her face was set with determination. Every once in a while she would catch his eyes, and the hard line of her mouth would soften into a reassuring smile. Minato wondered at her strength that she could find it within herself to spare even a moment's thought on him when she was engaged in something so terrifying and wonderful.
He would be strong for her, he decided, and keep up as strong and unshakeable a front as she was, but as late evening dragged into early night, Minato could not stop himself from breaking that resolve and murmuring senseless platitudes into his struggling wife's ear. She rewarded him with more of her strained smiles, and for a few scant seconds he was able to pretend that they were a normal couple anxiously awaiting the birth of their child.
"Come on out, Naruto! Fox, you stay in!" He blurted our, and with a laugh that was much closer to a snarl, Kushina gave birth to their son.
Everything after was a blur.
Happiness. His son was so tiny and cute!
Shock. Where did that man come from?
Rage. How dare he threaten Naruto's life!
Panic, tempered. Kushina!
The coolness of battle. Relief followed swiftly.
The man was gone, but tagged. No time for concern; there was more to do.
Ears pricked at the sound of destruction; malevolent chakra flowing like a waterfall. The fox spirit.
Determination, then; a duty that superceeded all else.
He would do what he had to, no matter the cost to himself.
Gamabunta beneath his feet, cloak billowing in the wind behind him. This would be the last time.
The fox was distracted, good.
A warm, precious weight cradled in his arms; his wife beside him, her life ebbing slowly away.
No! He would save her; he would save them both.
She was talking, pleading, but it was too late; the seals had been made, the deal sealed, but something was...no. No time to think about it, he had work to do.
Pain. Pain like he'd never known existed, like fire coursing through his every vein. An infant's plaintive cry.
He followed it into darkness.