This was written for a challenge, and I think I may have stretched it a bit

This was written for a challenge, and I think I may have stretched it a bit. I'm also not entirely happy with it. I had a vision for it, but I couldn't figure out how to make that vision come out, which is rather disappointing. I know I can do better. I would say maybe I'll rewrite it one day, but I know I won't. I just wish I could do Kushina's character the justice I think it deserves.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. You wouldn't want me to anyway.


The woman stood in the rain, black cloak twisting around her lithe figure in the gusting wind. She was soaked down to her bones, but she still did not move from in front of the memorial stone. Her pale, slender hand came out of the cloak and ran down the slick marble. She ran her fingers across one of the largest names carved into the stone- Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Her heart constricted, but she did not cry. She had cried all those tears out on those cold, lonely nights sixteen years ago. She disappeared from the area as quickly as she had arrived.

!#&()

"Sai!" Naruto shouted, face bright fuchsia, gesturing widely, "Why do you always have to- OUCH!" The blonde ninja was cut off by running rather harshly into a cloaked woman. Before he could even apologize the woman bowed in apology and scurried off.

"Nice one, Dickless," Sai teased.

"Shut up!"

!#&()

Uzumaki Kushina was a cursed woman, a woman of broken promises. She had been unable to save her home, and after had been unable to avenge it. She had been unable to save her husband. She had been unable to protect her son from the cruelties of the world and those that inhabited it. This promise, though, this promise she would keep. She would never stop watching over Naruto, even if she couldn't do anything to help him, because she knew her darling Minato was doing the same.