Gentle hands caressed the top of his head. But despite the kindness and love within that touch, it was so fleeting that the boy would never remember it. He would never see it, he would never remember it.
After all, who would remember someone who was dead touching him?
"I'm so sorry," the person sobbed, letting tears fall down her face. Sitting on the edge of the boy's bed, Uzumaki Kushina watched her son sleep. For 12 years, she watched as he grew. She watched as he struggled, and persevered. Not once had ever given up. Ultimately he had stood strong to the pain, to the abuse, to the horrors, that the village had thrown at him. It tore her heart. She couldn't even die and be with her husband. He was gone, in the belly of the God of Death. A hell separate from hell, trapped in eternal limbo.
Much like she was, except she could wander through the heavens, hells, and the living world. It ate at her that he would forever walk in eternal darkness, unable to move on.
She never even saw him again after they left to seal the Kyuubi. The birthing had been too much for her body. She ended up slipping away into obscurity.
Every night, she would return to this apartment and waited until Naruto went to bed. Every night, she would spend hours just looking at him. Every night, she cried wanting to be with him. Wanting to comfort him, to raise him, to love him. She just wanted to be the good mother she had always dreamed to be. She wanted to teach her son everything: how to be a good citizen, how to be a fine man, what it meant to be an Uzumaki. She wanted him to be happy. To always walk out of the door with a big smile on his face, and to always come home safe and sound, and happy. But none of that ever happened. None of her dreams ever came true. All of gone, because of what he now was forced to carry.
"Damn you…damn you," she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "Why did you do this to him…YOU STUPID FOX?!!" She hated this entire situation. She hated the fact that she was dead, stuck in limbo because she had no place to go. She hated the fact that her beloved husband was forever trapped within the belly of the Death God. She hated the fact that they had been forcibly ripped away from Naruto's life, leaving him in this damned hell that was Konoha. She wanted to have taken her son with her. At the very least, she could somehow be able to raise him in another life. Show her son how to live, how to be happy.
"I'm so sorry Naruto…I just am…" she mumbled.
Gently leaning down, she placed a goodnight kiss upon his forehead.