For –Hzleys87, MinitiNeko and NekoDoodle, my awesome reviewers, I really hope you like it even though I typed it up really quick. Damn plot bunnies.
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Foreign
Academy – Meet A Graduate Day.
'I'm Uzumaki Kushina and you better get the hell outta my way before I hurt you'
'Kushina get down from that table!'
'Na na na na na, you can't catch me'
'Kushina please, stop this madness!'
'Never! Fugaku, Mikoto! Incoming!'
'Eep!'
Crash. Bang. 'Ouuuuuch'
Namikaze Minato was so shocked by the mess this little red headed hellion could create just by being restless that he didn't notice her barrel right into him and knock him flat on his back. Some ninja he was.
'Hi! I'm Uzumaki Kushina, and you have pretty eyes. Who are you?'
--
Even after the 'meet a graduate day' Minato and Kushina were seen together, since Minato was normally a quiet boy who was always training with his sensei some people were shocked that he'd made a friend.
As for Kushina, this just meant that she now had ANOTHER do-gooder friend who'd be willing to take the fall for her pranks and clean up after her.
'Get them!'
'Kushina what did you do?!'
'Well….'
'YOU STOLE THE HOKAGE'S HAT?! ARE YOU NUTS?!'
'I just wanted to try it on'
And so, the ANBU ninja caught up to them and brought them straight to the Sandaime.
--
When Kushina got assigned her team it was with the two Hyuuga twins, Hiashi and Hizashi. Minato was, once again, too shocked for words. Were they crazy? She'd just make the Hyuuga twins kill themselves from too much excitement and overexertion.
That's why, when she came back from a C mission turned S covered head to toe in hastily wrapped bandages, Minato didn't know what to do about this foreign emotion within him telling him to scream and rage and at the same time run and hide.
She came out of the hospital within 5 days though and went straight into the Hokages office and started screaming at him. After a few minutes with her not relenting, Minato rushed into the room and knocked her out with a well placed hit to the neck. After he caught her from falling, he realised that he was standing in front of not just the Hokage but the Hokage's teammates; the village elders, his sensei; Jiraiya, and the legendary Sannin as well as a few high up ANBU members.
He likes to think that the grimace his face made was more of a grin and he didn't mumbled those few words rather, he said them clearly and confidently to the large group – though he doesn't remember anything that passed his lips that day – and exited the room as quick as possible.
--
Kushina didn't speak to him for weeks and so he went looking for her best friends, Mikoto and Fugaku. He'd known Fugaku when they were in the academy together and he had also been one of the chuunin graduates to volunteer to meet the young academy students back when he'd first met Kushina. Minato guessed that that's where Fugaku and Mikoto became friends.
They told him that they weren't supposed to talk to him but Fugaku cut him some slack and told him about her 'hidding place'. He told him that it's where she went when she was mad or upset or anything that Kushina deemed, un-Kushina like.
He found her there – the Hokage monument - an hour later in a tree staring unseeingly at the village. After she finally came down and started laughing and joking with him again, he asked her what happened. Minato had never seen her face contort like it didn't then, but it didn't stop him from thinking that she was still beautiful.
She told him about her mission and how she found out about the head and branch families and that the branch family members had to be cursed with a seal and how unfair it was and how Hizashi and Hiashi started fighting during the mission and Hiashi used it on Hizashi and it was just not fair!
She wasn't like other girls and didn't start sobbing; she punched the nearest tree and watched through silted eyes as it fell to the ground.
--
Three years later, and Minato was a Jounin with his own team and Kushina was a chuunin and about to take her Jounin exam when Minato got a C ranked mission.
Kushina wished them all luck and gave Kakashi a smack to the head as a birthday present. Then she gave them all congratulatory gifts to celebrate getting a C mission, Obito a special kunai that could cut through metal with just one slash, Rin got an EXTREMELY well stocked medical kit and Kakashi got a colourful orange, blue, yellow, pink, red and black mask with silver swirls and free coupons for food restaurants since he rarely ate well.
When they came back from the mission without Obito and with Rin on a stretcher from chakra exhaustion clutching a kunai as if it were the only thing keeping her from killing herself – which it probably was - and Kakashi hiding half his face with his hiate-ate. She couldn't stop the silent tears from flowing. Once Rin and Kakashi were submitted into the hospital, Minato clung to Kushina for dear life.
Once Minato was sleeping, Kushina visited her old teammates at their compound and spent the night talking about trivial things. The next morning she went to her best friends compound and ate breakfast with them for old time's sake.
--
When Kushina made Special Jounin she received numerous gifts – from Hiashi, Hizashi, Fugaku, Mikoto, Rin, Obito, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Orochimaru, Sandaime – all the people she ever talked to and made friends with. But there were two gifts that she treasured the most; being named the unborn Uchiha Itachi's godmother and Minato, on one knee, proposing.
They were married three months after Mikoto gave birth and a month before Minato became the Yondaime
--
It was not a happy occasion, kids were missing, ninja were killed and the root of the problem, Orochimaru. He had left taking many children with him and killing many more on the way.
The village took a nasty blow that day but a few months later, Hizashi's wife gave birth to a beautiful boy and once again, Kushina was named the godmother and so, her attention was diverted for the time being.
--
The kyuubi was getting stronger.
Kushina had only been on the field for a few months when she found out she was pregnant and confined to the medical tents. It seemed that the kyuubi had picked the perfect time to attack because a lot of important kunoichi were pregnant; Hiashi's wife, Mikoto with her second son, Yamanaka-san, Nara Shikato's wife, the Akimichi's and Aburame's. Even Inuzuka Tsume was pregnant with her second child.
The rate of parentless children was going up and Kushina had a bad feeling whenever she looked at her growing belly.
--
It was probably the most painful experience of her life, Rin was attending her so she knew she was in good hands, but it was still impossibly horrible. Not only physically, Kushina had long ago gotten used to physical pain, but mentally it was enough to make her gasp for breath. She knew the plan, she knew she had to give birth to her child and sacrifice him for the village, she knew all this and still she couldn't help but want to protect her child.
Mikoto was in the next room with Minato, who was currently pacing back and forth. She could hear him and once she was done giving birth she was going to hit him for being insufferable.
Finally it was over, Minato came bursting into the room and she saw that he was crying. For the first time ever, she let out a loud sob and hitting him was only half hearted.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!'
'I love you, I love you, I love you!'
Became a mantra repeated over and over again. Kushina was handed her baby and told Rin he was to be named Uzumaki Naruto. Namikaze could come later; she didn't want Naruto to hate his father before he was even old enough to think straight.
Kissing both her boys goodbye she stumbled into darkness. The last sound she heard was,
'You've always had the prettier eyes.'
--
Minato stood in front of the kyuubi and stared straight into its eyes. Eyes that weren't hers, eyes that weren't blue.
He had completed his mission, finished his duty. The last thoughts and feelings of the Yondaime's were love. Love for Kushina, his now dead wife. Love for his son, Naruto, the hero. His only hope was that Naruto would be recognized as such.
The kyuubi's eyes disappeared to be replaced by brilliant blue.
And as he fell from Gamabunta's back, clutching tightly to the small bundle containing the kyuubi, his son, Minato entrusted his legacy to the village, and gifted his son with the will of fire.
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All done. :D
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